Dilema

[mh10190]

Alright
Ive been thinking about getting a Mac for a while now
But im very undecisive
I have the money to get an iMac new
But i keep looking on ebay and forums for deals
I have a pretty crappy HP laptop, but it suits my basic needs
I want to get into developing, graphic design, and a little Video,Audio,image production
My main dilema is
Should i wait for the end of 2006
when Vista and Leoperd comes out
see which one is better
and get a Mactel
and put both of them on it
Vista is going to be amazing
and Leoperd is def going to be better
but the thought that ill get an iMac now and then Vista is something that i will want
i dont know
tell me what you would do in my situation
i can use a new computer
but i could possibly strech out my HP for another year
but it will be tough

 

[Macman]

you might wanna read this: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0506intelmac.html, sounds like installing winblowz isn't worth it, then again, when is it ever? for what you are saying you want to do, windows has nothing to offer you, and the mac has it all covered. as far as waiting for leopard, there are no release dates, not even a time period, but since we're still on 10.4.2, I assume tiger will last very long.
windows vista aka tiger wannabe: LMFAO.

 

[johnnyluu]

Vista is going to be amazing

er, haven't you seen the beta version of vista? It ain't looking good man. Gates has already dropped far too many features that would have made it amazing. Windows really isn't the way to go for general personal computing.

 

[rs2sensen]

as far as waiting for leopard, there are no release dates, not even a time period, but since we're still on 10.4.2, I assume tiger will last very long.
windows vista aka tiger wannabe: LMFAO.

I havn't heard any release dates either, but didn't Steve Jobs say that Leopard would be released at the same time as Vista in his WWDC Keynote a couple months back?

 

[rs2sensen]

"We intend to release leopard at the end of 2006 or early 2007, right around the time Microsoft is expected to release Longhorn."
~19:00 into WWDC 2005 Keynote, Steve Jobs

 

[mh10190]

I was looking at a currrent vista beta 2 demo
It isnt as bad as mac users make it seem
The GUI is pretty flashy
Not as nice as OS X, but none the less
And they copied Spotlight and Dashboard
and they will put WinFS in a couple of months later
one thing i think is cool is that if you plug in a thumb drive
that becomes another memory flash module
which is very cool
but leoperd (coming out the same time s vista)
will probably have the same features and then some
i really dont know
i have a HP that can last me till then
I know computers start getting obsolete in less than a year
but in this situation
with 2 new OSes and Mactel
im worried about my Mac becoming obsolete sooner than the rest
and i cant even upgrade anything (except the RAM)
im wondering what will be the benefits of getting a Mac now, over waiting
over than the fact that i will have an amazing machine
what do you think?

 

[Amen-Moses]

er, haven't you seen the beta version of vista? It ain't looking good man. Gates has already dropped far too many features that would have made it amazing. Windows really isn't the way to go for general personal computing.

Well I took a look at the MS Vista website and couldn't find any features that weren't already in Tiger and very few that aren't already in the latest Linux releases (Ipv6? Blimey I had that at least 3 years ago on Linux), then I came across the following proviso:

"Note Features discussed on this site are subject to change. Some may not be included in the final product due to marketing, technical, or other reasons."

So what we have is a new OS from Microsoft due out in a years time which has no new features over what Tiger has today, in addition it is not even likely to have all of the features promised. Add to that the fact that Tiger is now very stable and will have at least another couple of major upgrades before Vista/Longhorn are even available and I would be quite happy to buy a new Mac tomorrow (if I didn't already have enough of them that is!).

I'm not even convinced that XP-64 will be released in a commercial version anytime soon even though it appears quite stable (and really fast) mainly due to problems with drivers for legacy kit, I've not been able to find stable 64-bit drivers for my wireless network cards or soundcards and I'm not even bothering to look for my flash readers, SCSI scanner or other older stuff.

Amen-Moses

 

[1hot5.0]

In your situation, I would go ahead and buy a mac now. When I purchased my PowerBook G4 a couple weeks ago, the Apple sales man told me that Apple guaranteed that I would be able to run any software title or operating system for 3 years. He said I more than likely could stretch that out to 5 years.

 

[jessica]

I would not wait for the mac. i would get it now. if you feel as though you need windows you can always spend <400 on a box and use a kvm to switch between the two. i game so I always have a windows box on hand. However, mac is used for all my general computing needs including: photography, some video editing, burning ... cds, graphic work, painting, etc.

 

[mangoSharingan]

Sorry for asking a stupid and rude question but do you have something wrong with your Return key as you seem to be writting in poem-structure? I'm just curious why people type like that...

 

[DCraver]

Uhh. Because they feel like it.
Okay?
And it seperates topics and subjects and the such like.
Okay?

 

[UncSki1218]

Yeah i looked at vista. i don't mean to criticize but i cant help but think how macish it looks. Does gates think he can attract people by catching up with apple. adding a more aqua like gui and a dashboard imitator won't help. they might as well just copy a mac because they certainly don't have any ideas of their own (from what they've said so far). one last thing..any ideas of what new features leopard might have?

 

[sursuciofla]

Uhh. Because they feel like it.
Okay?
And it seperates topics and subjects and the such like.
Okay?

Like Okay. Like Yeah.

Hehe, I just had to make some fun. But I like the way that was typed. Very easy to read. I am surprised that wasn't picked up by the person who posted that question.

 

[lil]

Don't wait. Get a decent spec Mac today and whether it has PowerPC or Intel x86 won't be as much as an issue as it was in 1994 whether you had a 68K or PPC.

Programs will come in a universal binary format which means there will be code for the PPC and x86 Macs in one executable or something along those lines, although the programs will likely be fairly big!

Leopard will be available in PPC version too, so why wait a year+ to make your life easier, make computing more enjoyable and hassle free, and to make doing your work exciting? :flower:

Vicky

 

[caribiner23]

I attended a PC Magazine sponsored event called "Everything Longhorn" a few weeks ago.

The general consensus was that it was very Mac-like, and from the beta demo they're right. The "Aero" interface has a lot of transparency, drop shadows, and zooming and fading, which are not new to OSX users. They've also added something called "Safe Sleep" and "Quick Resume" which, again, are not new to Mac users.

IE7 will have tabbed browsing and RSS support. Outlook Express will have built-in spam filtering. "Search" is everywhere. Users with Admin rights will still have to authenticate before doing true Admin-type tasks. Stop me if any of these sound familiar.

It was difficult to say how well applications would run on it, as they were simply showing what was built into the OS at this point.

The minimum requirements for hardware running Longhorn/Vista is 512 MB of RAM and a video card with 32 bits/pixel and 64 MB of graphics RAM. The hardware must carry a "certified for Windows XP" label (or, more accurately, meet the requirements to carry such a sticker).

Like johnny said above, Microsoft keeps dropping features from the OS. I heard on the TWIT podcast a few weeks ago that WINFS is not currently on the schedule to be included in Vista at all. (Of course, they also repeated the rumor that there are to be seven different versions of Vista available, depending on the features you want.)

Moral of the story-- if you want to wait and your HP can handle it, get Vista. My recommendation: all these features are in OSX right now, so go for a Mac.

 

[mh10190]

My friend (who majored in computer science)
Said that macs take more ram to run
Also
how does networking go
what is teh mac equvlint of mapping a hard drive

And the biggest issue is software
i need to get an entire new library for a mac

do you think this is a good investment

 

[caribiner23]

"Macs take more RAM to run:" Depends on what you're trying to do. Actually, I would submit it takes more RAM to run an XP machine effectively. I run an equivalent number and type of apps on my iBook G4 and my home XP machine, and both run fine with 1 GB of memory on my desktop XP machine and 768 MB on my iBook. This is a specious argument anyway, in my opinion, since memory is cheap and the architectures are so different between Mac and a PC.

"How does networking go:" You plug it into the network, and it's on.

"What is the Mac equivalent of mapping a hard drive:" You turn on Windows Sharing on your Mac, and the drives you select are available to be mounted by other machines, Mac and Windows. If there are available shared drives on Windows machines on your network, you simply mount them to your Mac. There is no "mapping" in the sense of "map the C:/data volume on my XP box as drive N:"-- you simply see the network drive as an available resource.

"I need to get an entire new library for a Mac:" This is true, but the expense depends on what you want to do. Much of what you have to pay for on a PC is built into a Mac. I found I only had to get Microsoft Office 2004 and a handful of other apps, so my investment was minimal.

"Do you think this is a good investment:" I switched over 6 months ago and have never had a virus, spyware, and I can count on one hand the number of times my Mac crashed. I've never had to rebuild my Mac, which is almost a quarterly endeavor for my XP machine. Yeah, it's a good investment.

You would be well served to visit this site for more specific info: http://www.apple.com/switch/

Good luck!

 

[caribiner23]

I'm not trying to be a wiseguy, but I noticed you posted a lot of the same questions before:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21557

In this thread, you said you have a PowerBook:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20542

In this thread, you said you have an iBook:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23105

In this thread, you claim to have experience with iWork '05:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=137877#post137877

Of course we're here to help, but I'm curious as to what's really going on.

 

[chouk]

well..that's homer you know.

 

[Macman]

I'm not trying to be a wiseguy, but I noticed you posted a lot of the same questions before:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21557

In this thread, you said you have a PowerBook:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20542

In this thread, you said you have an iBook:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23105

In this thread, you claim to have experience with iWork '05:

http://forums.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=137877#post137877

Of course we're here to help, but I'm curious as to what's really going on.

that is odd, sorta fishy ,maybe he has a mac forum, but can't answer some, or many questions, so he posts on other forums for answers claiming he has the problem? no offense.