Getting seriosuly snubbed by my PC friends

[Phacade]

Update - I'm coming up on a month of owning my Mac now and I don't hear much from my friends anymore. They gave me some crap in the beginning (two of them were, as txtchr point point, real 42-year old hacker-wannabes). Still, they're my friends and have accepted it...a few of them are genuinely curious now. Online folks are still rather jerky, but thats to be expected. I don't volunteer information.

Anyone who looks at a person's choice of OS as somehow indicative of intellect, or thinks it warrants personal attacks, etc etc - probably should shut their computer and step outside and get a breath of fresh air - as it's probably been a while since they've done so.

Well said!

 

[RavingMac]

Update - I'm coming up on a month of owning my Mac now . . . ..

And what is your thought about your decision after one month. Good, bad or otherwise?

 

[Phacade]

And what is your thought about your decision after one month. Good, bad or otherwise?

Honestly I've been quite impressed. It. Just. Works. Some things took a little adjustment. I typcially took notes and had about 40-70 text documents on my desktop at any one time, so I'm using stickies now for those things that absolutely must be remembered like bills or the number for a sleep-over for my 7-year old. Some small stuff eludes me from time to time, and other things I'm figuring out for myself. I managed to setup multiple accounts and now my tattoo stuff is quite safe from little eyes. Everything I've plugged in worked, and yet my Mac is so quiet. I've actually taken to playing music since its so quite. My PC was like a hrd of buffalos in comparison.

I still have worries, like letting it sleep overnight instead of shutting it down. I occasionally wonder "what if" I ever go back to a PC, could I really export everything back? I doubt I will, of course, but you have these thoughts occasionally.

All-in-all, I researched the heck of the Mac before I bought I bugged the snot out of the guys at the Mac store and had an expectation of a 7 when I bought. I'm currently sitting at about a 9.2; its exceeded my expectations.

 

[RavingMac]

Honestly I've been quite impressed. It. Just. Works. . . . . .
All-in-all, I researched the heck of the Mac before I bought I bugged the snot out of the guys at the Mac store and had an expectation of a 7 when I bought. I'm currently sitting at about a 9.2; its exceeded my expectations.

Glad to hear it. I was talking to my wife about this subject yesterday. I buy a lot of things (too many things probably) most of which I wonder if it was worth it. But of all the things that I have bought recently I can say:

Toyota Matrix - probably the best car I ever owned (love it)
Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Watch - Wonderful investment
MacBook - bought the cheapest one, wife soon took it over
iPod Touch - my second Apple product. Loved it so much I bought
iPhone - best phone I ever had (and still have)
MacBook Pro - my replacement for the MacBook wife took away

As you say, it just works. And for my money, though it may cost a little more I have a lot more satisfaction and a feeling that it was money well spent.

 

[IIsGII]

That sucks. I experiences the same crap on my end, but they know I don't care what they have to say, so they've pretty much stopped. I personally couldn't care less whether my Mac is **** or not, I love it either way, and they know that now. Mac > PC, in my opinion.

 

[Deckyon]

There are a couple really funny things in this post.

First: WoW players. Anyone who takes them seriously should be put in the same boat. I play it as well, and even I dont take myself seriously in that game. It brings the worst elitist attitudes out of people.

Second: I would challenge anyone to take the stats of just the hardware and build the same machine for less. When I was looking for my new one last week, I built a 15" Alienware for a lot more than my 17" MBP (with everything upgraded except the SSD). When all was said and done, the Alienware came to more than $800 more, with the 17" Alienware being $1200 more.

With Bootcamp and Windows 7, what is the difference at that point? Windows on Intel Hardware with a cleaner case and different logo.

I got grief when I said I got a MBP. But I got it because I was pretty vocal about not going Mac for a good number of years, and to be honest, it wasnt until these latest versions of the high end MBP that I started looking at the Mac as a viable upgrade to my 4 y/o Laptop.

 

[iHarrison]

Phacade, one thing I've got to ask, as no-one else here has, is:

Be honest, did you brag excessively about having a Mac when you first bought it? Did you rub all your friends noses in it & highlight all the advantages (both the real ones and those that are just Apple propaganda) that OSX has over Windows?

If not, fair enough - I only ask because I have known a few Apple product users who have set about badgering me into admitting that their phone / music player / computer was "better" than mine.

One case was two girls on Facebook harping-on about the fact that they'd used FaceTime for the first time (one on her iPhone, the other on her iPod Touch) - all I said was that I'd seen it before on another friend's Android phone (meaning "yeah, mobile video chat - on any platform - is pretty cool"), and they'd both lept on the defensive, accusing me of being "jealous" of the 'fact' that I "[couldn't] afford" the gadgets they have (I could if I'd wanted & they knew that, making it an odd accusation).

The other one was a girl who accused me of jealousy when I innocently commented that I still preferred Windows (even after having tried Macs in the Apple store) in reply to her waxing lyrical on how much she loved her new MacBook as opposed to her old desktop PC. Once again I was accused of being jealous of her for having a pricier computer. Quite ironically hypocritical, given that she actually got her MacBook for free while at university, and she herself couldn't have afforded it otherwise!

If you did proudly brag & brag & brag about your new computer, I can understand a bunch of people who evidently don't think Macs are better (or else they'd buy them for themselves) getting pretty tired of it pretty quickly...

(Personally, I'm primarily a PC user; but I don't hate Macs or Mac users. Well, not the humble ones, anyway!)

 

[Phacade]

Honestly? No. I told my friends casually whenever I was considering getting it, but thats it. Some of my friends are more mature than others and they proceeded to rub it in the ground (you should have seen my die-hard Muscle car friend freak when I told him I was getting a Focus).

Now a gaming website I've been a part of for years has a particularly strong-willed admin who, aside from being a former F-16 pilot, is a die-hard PC user. Before my income tax refund came in, I was talking to him (in private) about how I couldn't wait to replace my computer...he took it upon himself to give me a complete list off Newegg with parts to use for building. No thanks, I said, I've been thinking about getting a Mac...and the badgering began (in public).

 

[iHarrison]

Fair enough, that is immature; and I can understand your frustration.

I may mainly use Windows, but I find Microsoft/Windows Fanboys & Fangirls every bit as annoying and pathetic as Apple/Mac Fanboys & Fangirls!

As an earlier respondent in this thread said, they're both PCs, just with different OSs...

So long as an iMac with OSX is working-out for you, that's all that matters & I wish you many further years of happy computing!

 

[Phacade]

Its working and working quite well.

 

[iHarrison]

Just clarifying the tense of my post here...

I still preferred Windows (even after having tried Macs in the Apple store)

I preferred, past tense, Windows at the time I originally posted in this thread.

Now, my PC keeps letting me down when I need it the most & I am swinging more & more around to the Mac way of thinking...

Just need to scrape together the cash for a good, reasonably new Mac!

 

[Chris H.]

I've been in this boat before with my friends. They own almost every game console imaginable, have a self-built $1200 Windows PC…and claim Apple products are worthless junk (I must admit, my Dad agrees with them).

My first Apple was a 30GB black 5th gen iPod. My closest friend got a Zune brick.

My first Mac was a Mac mini, and my second Mac was a MacBook. Am I Windows hater? No. I still have the need to use a Windows computer for a few good reasons: repair, gaming and simple technology upkeep.

What did I say to my Apple-hating friends? "Just look at your options. A computer after all, is just a computer."

 

[John F]

If I had $1 for everyone I have known who loudly trashed Macs and later came up to me and said (quietly) "I just bought a Mac".
I work in an office with both, run on Macs. They default boot to Windows to accomodate all our Windows-only colleagues.
Our office system actually runs best under Linux, which also runs well on a Mac. I wonder if any of your friends have set up their Windows computers to run Linux under a virtual machine? It can be done, but you need a lot more know-how to do it. On a Mac it is simplicity itself.
With a Mac you can do a lot of things, including running Windows, with the advantage that if you run it in a virtual machine it resides in a single large file. That single file can be duplicated so that when you get a virus (not IF, but WHEN) you just trash the file, make another copy and run from the duplicate. Its like trashing the Windows-PC and getting a new, clean one at zero cost. Something for the Win-Fans t think about (yes, you can do all that on a Windows computer, but check how complicated it is).

 

[Hoya88]

I myself have never experienced that problem, I'm quite new to the Macintosh world, i have owned my Mac for just a few days, and all of my friends who have tested it, they LOVE it. Everyone want's to switch to a Mac now! Mostly all of my friends own a iPhone, and i think that iPhone and not to forget the iPod, has changed a lot of peoples mind on what they think of Apple and Macintosh.

I remember when i was in school, long before the iPod era, everyone hated Apple and Macintosh, they couldn't stand them, i personally think mostly because Apple products are expensive, and the classic '' you can't do everything on a Mac as you can do on a pc'' but i don't mind paying a little extra of the quality and design of Apple products.

And some of it may be true, i didn't own a Mac back then, maybe you couldn't do a lot of things with them, but with time the Os X has evolved, i'm not trying to sound poetic now, but compared to Windows, something beautiful, and now you can almost do everything with a Mac as you can do with a Windows computer.

The Os X is far more stable, easier to work with and the most beautiful OS for the eye. Personally i will never use Windows in the same scale that i have, yes i have a HP notebook, but that's most because i am i big movie fan, i love movies, and i order a lot of Blu-Ray movies from Amazon, and some of the discs are region locked, so we can't play them in our players here in Europe except on a computer, and that's the only reason that i have still kept my notebook, if Apple would have Blu-Ray players i would have sold my HP.

If Apple continue to make products this great, i will never go back to Windows, like i wrote a bit up, all of my friends will switch to Mac's, so f*uck your friends, and be proud! Apple products are like, don't know how to describe this, like Mercedes or Beemers, or in your case to, i know that you in the states like Lexus and Acura's, they for many people may not be good or great cars, but when you drive them, you get the feeling of something extra, something special, and it puts a smile on your lips. That's what i think of Apple and especially my new iMac, i just want to hug it and be with it all the time!

Apple RULES!!

 

[MacDude121]

My first ever experience owning a computer was a Dell Dimension 8100. Running windows 2000 back in 2006 or so. I hated it to it's core, we also had dial up, so it's not like the thing would load a page at more than 1 picture an hour. When even trying to visit a simple site, I would get (You must have SP2 installed to Continue) Not knowing what that was at the time, I just kept trying. Finally I found windows update, and hey, guess what, Microsoft didn't have SP2 for windows 2000 anywhere.

After that horrible experience, I actually hated computers. No matter what. (I didn't even know what a Mac was)

I didn't actually use a computer again except for the occasional time in school until my 7th grade year in 2009. The school supplied each one of us with a white Macbook.

I was amazed. It was fast, reliable, and I could actually figure out how to do stuff. Mac OS X looked nice and it was user friendly. I bought my first Mac in February of 2010, my iMac G4. I liked it just as much as the Macbook, for the same reasons. Simple, ease of use, no annoying updates, slowness, or crashes.

Now, just a few weeks ago, a friend gave us their old Windows Laptop. (Not old, old, maybe 2009ish) Having sold my G5 recently, I decided I'd check it out and see how much the windows OS had come since Windows 2000.

Big Mistake.

It's slow, annoying to use, If I'm not running a software update to fix a problem, I'm getting another error message, or another patch, bug fix, service pack, Ugh.

The Whole OS just doesn't feel "in line" with the computer. It's hard to explain, but it's like I should be getting more out of it than I actually am. It's an AMD Dual Core 2.0GHz with 4GB of ram, yet I'd have a much nicer experience using my 10 year old iMac G3.

So, after all that, like so many others, I've had people laugh at me for owning a Mac, that's it's nothing more than a shiny overpriced piece of junk, but you know something, I don't care what they say, for the most part I just ignore them, or ask them how their virus boxes are doing. Because I know, from experience, that the Mac OS is what I enjoy using. It gets the job done with little effort.

It just works. Truer words have never been spoken about a Mac.

 

[XJ-linux]

LOL... I read the title and thought this was a thread about "politically correct" friends giving someone static for not parroting the socially acceptable vocabulary of the day or something. Carry on.

 

[MACyMouse]

I get ridiculed at home with all the PC users in the house.. when theirs breaks down, crashes, soemthing... I say "you're more than welcome to surf, email, do whatever you need to do on my imac or laptop..."

I get............ ugh! I hate macs!

Although they've never tried it. So it just goes to show you that people don't like what they don't know.

 

[Demapples]

Non-issue for me when i switched. Everybody around here was always Apple, or has already switched, or is thinking of switching, or wishes they could switch.

 

[dtravis7]

Most people I know either hate the Mac or bash it anyway. With some of them (Closer friends) I do reverse Psychology on them and say Mac reeks, OSX crashes 100x a day, no apps, not one but tiddlywinks called Mac Tiddly and even it expires after 30 days! It's funny to see their expression after I do all that. Most get sick and tired and stop the Mac bashing. A couple tried an older Mac, fell in love with OSX and got a newer Mac! Now I can't shut them up with how good OSX is! Grin

Only BAD side effect of that, no more service calls so no more $$$ from them that went Mac! Oh well, one used Mac popped it's WD hard drive and I got to fix that at least. So easy it was scary.

 

[SFBloodBrother]

Find some crap to bash on them with a PC. And how a Mac is better. It's east. Macs look nicer, its all in one, no cheap material, glass, aluminum parts. Easy and there are not as many cords. Better custmer service them most PC companies.

There are a lot of ways to say a mac is better.