Why the hatred towards Mac users??

[Hickeroar]

Well, To answer the original post TITLE:

I don't really think it's about MACs. I think it's about some of the people who use them. You've probably heard the term "Mac Zealot" before and it's usually used to refer to someone in a BAD light.

I come from the school of thought that says "Use what works best for what you need to get done, Other than that, use what you prefer."

Most of the time it IS ignorance that leads people to dislike macs. Well, that and they believe a lot of the lines about macs that get spouted in internet forums. It's the same deal with people who love to hate on Vista in the PC world. I've been using Vista on one of my PCs for four months and I find it incredibly superior to XP in many aspects.

The problem I always had with SOME mac users is that they get on highly public sites, like digg or slashdot, and utterly trash anyone who gives any credit to any computer that's not a mac. They mod people down who say things favorable about PCs or some aspect of PCs and generally they portray ALL mac users as jerks...whether or not that's actually the case.

People also take issue with the TV marketing that Apple Computer uses. They DO portray PCs as some archaic, no good machine that should be passed up from now on. PC's do have some significant one-ups vs. macs...(Disclaimer: and vice versa, of course)

Since I work one-on-one with a mac loving co-worker and he's very level headed, my opinions regarding macs have changed drastically. I've come to see their strong points very clearly. I've started to see some of the aforementioned "significant one-ups" that macs have on PCs as well, and the switch to intel based architecture was a huge boost in their opinion rating with me anyway. (I posted about this in a thread I started in this forum a half hour ago or so)

Macs, in and of themselves, are excellent machines. Their OS is based on the hands-down most stable possible codebase it could be (Unix), the hardware itself is top-notch. Then it's all put together in a very durable and very slylish package. What's not to like, right? They even run windows now, if you happen to want that...

The only issue (and it's a relatively minor one from many aspects) I take with them anymore is the fact that you just can't go out and build your own mac from scratch using whatever hardware you decide to use. Obviously the logistical problems of such a move to that way of doing things are substantial though. If Apple wanted to go that route, I'm sure we can all imagine the drive massacre they'd encounter... Every version of windows ever released (except maybe 95) was met with a lack of at least *some* compatible drivers and that's the last thing I think Apple wants to deal with.

Anyway, that's my $0.02...

 

[Tak]

There is no rationality to Mac hatred, before December "I" was a Mac Hater. Well not hate, just a low level smarmy derision of "toy computers" for "people who couldn't use a real one" I had never used a Mac, saw no reason to try, and foud the mediocre specs "at the time" combined with the costs that would let me build a MUCH faster PC to be inexcusable.

But I was lucky, I had to fix everyone elses messed up Winboxes, this bred a healthy resentment, and infestations were creeping in through the for apps I had to use every DAY to keep MY Winbox clean. It slowly forced me to see just how BAD the windows situation had gotten, I'd already started doing my web browsing in Linux, and had goten to enjoy nearly trouble free computing once I had found out it was possible. Most windows people think "windows is just how computers are"

This opened my mind enough to consider alternatives, something hard core windows never do, like other abuse victims, they simply uild justifations for why pain is good.

An inexpensive G4 Powerbook showed up, and I bought it. I thought "well, its not a (real) computer but I can web browse at the coffee house" Little did I know, after a few days, the dual boot XP linux box was gathering dust and my world came through a Powerbook. It was like linux with NO work at all. I was flatly stunned. I talked to the other winboxen style tech people I knew and found they had all quietly gotten out and gotten Macs! Mostly as the Draconian promise of Vista was simply too much, they refused to give up control of their computing experience, they simply hadn't been advertsing the fact hey had switced over as there was a "stigma". One guy I kow still keeps an XP machine just for games, he calls it his Wintendo.

Suffice to say though, now we all laugh about it and wonder how we ever thought the word of windows was that great. Or how we ever believed mac was so evil. And in our standing in our various circles as windows "tech gurus" we have all managed to get people to TRY Mac rather than repeating the same tired old FUD. Ive made several switchers, and the second of the friends I talked to was the one who sold me MY first Mac!

The only real cure for the hate is the experience, the trick is getting people to try who have been trained to say "Mac sucks" as soon as they hear the word. In the end it s a sort of a mental bandage. If windows is a buggy security compromised mess that makes noting but work and suffering, why do they use it? Why becuse it the BEST! Ask why it is the best? Because everyone else is using it and its popular. And anyone who isnt using it mnust be having an inferior experience. It has to be the best or they have to accept they have been HAD.

And Most people would rather eat a dead rat on Rye Bread than admit they were wrong. I had a **** of a time accepting the fact at first, but the tech friends who had switced already helped and my one long term Mac friend agreed not to gloat. And in the end, I realised my Mac hatred was because I had self estem wrapped in the snobbery of being one of the few people I knew who could keep a winbox running and infecion free, and the idea of a platform that made this uneccesary, made me feel small. And like I said before, to find out you had dealt with all that for so long when you simply had better choices makes you feel foolish. So a lot of people wrap themselves in the idea that what they have is best, as its hard to admit you were making your life miserable to feed acorperation who didn't care if your computer was a mess as long as they made a lot of money.

 

[dtravis7]

I HATE MAC USERS. Wait, that means I hate myself!

I hate no one, Well, I strongly dislike Steve Balmer. He to me is a disgrace to Microsoft! His Balmer Monkey Dance and Developers RAP!
I do really like XP overall though.

 

[baggss]

Wow TAK! That is one of THE best switcher stories I have read! Well said!

 

[dtravis7]

Wow TAK! That is one of THE best switcher stories I have read! Thanks for sharing!

Agreed, very good Switcher story.

Mine story is almost the same except what won me over to OSX was a G4 Sawtooth 500Mhz Tower with first Jaguar then Panther. Used it for Web and Mail then slowly started doing everything on it and the Windows machines were never turned on except for a few games.

 

[smurfy]

Funny story:

my friend and i were sitting in our econ class the other day starting up our macbooks. a kid from the other side of the room pulls out his huge clunky dell laptop and starts ripping on macs. "i would NEVER switch to mac os x, it just sucks!" so we just kind of ignore him and as he turns his computer on, he gets one of those error messages and a full on system scan right off the bat. he looks back at me and sees me laughing, looks around, and quickly closes his laptop and puts it in his bag.

had to say i got a kick out of it.

hahaha, owned.