jfrost2 wrote:I built a $600 computer that is way ahead of apple's current line up of technology and specs. People in apple stores tell me it's the software that adds the bulk of the cost.
If you're hearing that from Apple Specialists, that Apple store needs to train them better. After all, the full retail sticker price of the software (OS X + iLife) is under $200 (and Windows + Office ain't cheap), so it can't be that much of the cost of the unit.
In fact, Apple does a lot of hardware engineering that adds to the cost of the machine. The Mac Pros' quiet cooling systems, the laptops' unibody construction and 8-hour battery, the way iMacs and Minis are put together... isn't tech you buy off the shelf. Whether it's worth the difference in price between a Mac and a PC with the same CPU, GPU, RAM, and hard drive... that's certainly up to debate. But anyone who tells you that the hardware is the same isn't looking at the whole industrial design of the product; he's just reading part numbers.
jfrost2 wrote:If apple can keep claiming OSX is a superior operating system, then why not make it "universal" to work on any PC like windows or Linux?
The honest answer (no sales spin here) has two parts:
1) Because Steve Jobs is a control freak, and he doesn't want his software subject to having to run on whatever random pieces of ugly hardware some user puts together. Microsoft's business decision to license Windows to any hardware vendor on the planet has done more to harm their reputation than any software engineering mistakes they've made. The infamous Blue Screen Of Death is almost always the hardware or its driver, but Windows gets all the blame for it. Jobs is too arrogant to live with that.
2) Because Apple can make more money by selling matched hardware and software. They used to license the old Mac OS, so you know they've crunched the numbers. They'd sell a lot more copies of OS X, but they'd be selling fewer iMacs and MacBooks, and hardware
is a profitable line of business. (After all, how do you think HP and Dell and Toshiba stay in business, when they don't even have their own software?)
jfrost2 wrote:Macs really arent that safe and virus free like people claim,
Where do you get this information? It contradicts everything I've read or experienced in the 15 years I've been doing tech support for Macs. (I've been supporting PCs for 25.)
jfrost2 wrote:the majority of viruses out there are designed to target windows based systems, why? Because the majority of computer users run windows, hackers want to attack majority, not minority.
If apple made OSX able to run on any PC, and started selling them in electronic stores like best buy and walmart, I'm sure within time hackers would move over to start developing malware and viruses for OSX.
They've already started trying. Apple is now the #5 or #6 manufacturer of computers in the US, after all. But the crackers are finding it isn't that easy. When Jobs' development team set out to build OS X about 15 years ago, they had the benefit of seeing all the things that a decade of Windows and the original Mac OS had gotten tripped up by, and they avoided them. It really
is a better design.
OS X isn't perfect, to be sure. It
is possible to infect an OS X system, though it requires some "social engineering" (i.e. trick the user into typing in their admin password). There are some things in OS X that I really dislike. The latest upgrade... not so special. But speaking here as someone who studied a little OS design in college, and has worked with a dozen of them in his career, I can tell you that there are some fundamental differences between Windows and OS X, and security against malware is one of them.
go figure.
Since early this year, the white MacBook and low-end MB Pro models have used an integrated nVidia chip that outperforms the Intel chip used before, and the higher end MB Pros come with that plus a higher-powered nVidia chip you can switch to for more speed/worse battery life.
