Thursday, April 24, 2003
"Does it perform better on a Mac?"
In the name of college research, Lisa has written in with several questions for me. I suppose this technically amounts to my first interview. That's got me a little nervous, but I'll do my best to oblige.
Lisa: What various software does Mac support that's important to many users, and does it perform better on a Mac?
Bill: Apple provides its users with the iLife multimedia suite, which includes consumer-level software titles geared toward digital music (iTunes), digital photography (iPhoto), digital video (iMovie), and DVD authoring (iDVD). Apple has even gone so far as to give Mac users three of those applications for free. None of these apps has any legitimate equivalent in the Windows world, meaning that if you want the best multimedia experience, you'll have to achieve it on a Mac.
In other areas, Apple has created its own Mac-only applications that exist alongside the standard apps from the PC world. Keynote competes with PowerPoint, Safari challenges Internet Explorer, AppleWorks coexists with MS Office. This provides Mac users with their choice of using either Apple's software titles or those from Microsoft. When I make a presentation, sometimes I'll use Keynote and sometimes I'll use PowerPoint, since they both have certain strengths. If I were a Windows user, I wouldn't have that choice. It would be PowerPoint or nothing.
Lisa: What is compatible with Mac (i.e. iTunes, iDVD, various design software, etc.)
Bill: Nearly all of the most popular software titles exist for the Mac platform. While Windows does still have a larger number of software titles overall, there are very few aspects of computing in which a high-quality application for the Macintosh doesn't exist. For example, there is no Mac version of Visio, but a Mac-friendly program called Omnigraffle does the exact same thing. Some applications, such as PowerPoint, even have features on the Mac version that don't exist on the Windows side. All of the major professional publishing, web, imaging, and design apps exist on the Mac (Photoshop, DreamWeaver, InDesign, etc.). And of course, most of Apple's enticing and innovative software is Mac-only, and I believe that more than makes up for the fact that Windows might have twenty-five more versions of solitaire than the Mac does.
Lisa: What type of memory protection does Mac OS X have and how is that extraordinary?
Bill: MacOS X's UNIX foundation provides a protected memory foundation. This means that if one application does decide to crash, the rest of the software you're using will keep on going with no harm done. You just have to re-open the app that crashed, and you're back in business. Anyone who has gone through the old days of restarting the whole computer anytime one app crashed would probably be willing to refer to it as "extraordinary". If you sense that an app is about to go down, you no longer have to race to all your other apps and try to save your work before the system locks up. You just force-quit the offending app and there's no need to restart.
Lisa: Is it difficult to use various features on a Mac like programs, e-mail, downloading software, etc.?
Bill: These features generally work as well on a Mac as they do on any other computer, but Apple has managed to give its users some extra advantages. One is that Apple's mail program, simply called "Mail", does an excellent job of identifying and filtering out junk mail before the user even has to see it. Another is that Apple's new web browser, Safari, can identify what type of file you're downloading and act accordingly. For example, if you're downloading software that comes on a compressed disk image file, Safari automatically unstuffs it, mounts the image, copies the software to your desktop, unmounts the image, and moves the disk image file to the trash. It does all of this in the background without the user having to do anything, which is the way it should be. The fewer tedious steps for the user, the better.
Lisa: Is Mac recommended for home use of more for business use? What type of people prefer it better than Windows?
Bill: Most businesses still use Windows PC's, but this is not always the case. Publishers, print houses, graphic design firms, music studios, newspapers, magazines, movie makers, photographers, and various other industries tend to be very Mac-centric, so the notion that "businesses use PC's" is not necessarily true. Apple has just begun selling powerful Macintosh-based servers to businesses, so this might cause some of those businesses to later decide that they want to buy more Macs to go with their new Apple server.
Musicians, artists, educators, writers, designers, free thinkers, and all kinds of creative types have traditionally preferred the Macintosh over Windows. Now that the Macintosh is a UNIX system, which is what a lot of colleges use, more computer "geeks" are warming up to the Mac as well. Biotechnology firms are also showing new interest in the Mac platform. These days there seems to be new interest in the Mac from yet another surprising source every time you turn around. Apple Executive Fred Anderson said yesterday that Apple's marketshare among consumers has "doubled", so that would mean that more and more home users are preferring the Mac. It's true that most of the world still uses Windows, but the Mac platform is getting so far ahead of the game in so many aspects that I believe we'll see even more people switching to the Mac in the next few years.
--------------------
Whew, I guess that wasn't so bad after all. Anyone else out there want to interview me?
In the name of college research, Lisa has written in with several questions for me. I suppose this technically amounts to my first interview. That's got me a little nervous, but I'll do my best to oblige.
Lisa: What various software does Mac support that's important to many users, and does it perform better on a Mac?
Bill: Apple provides its users with the iLife multimedia suite, which includes consumer-level software titles geared toward digital music (iTunes), digital photography (iPhoto), digital video (iMovie), and DVD authoring (iDVD). Apple has even gone so far as to give Mac users three of those applications for free. None of these apps has any legitimate equivalent in the Windows world, meaning that if you want the best multimedia experience, you'll have to achieve it on a Mac.
In other areas, Apple has created its own Mac-only applications that exist alongside the standard apps from the PC world. Keynote competes with PowerPoint, Safari challenges Internet Explorer, AppleWorks coexists with MS Office. This provides Mac users with their choice of using either Apple's software titles or those from Microsoft. When I make a presentation, sometimes I'll use Keynote and sometimes I'll use PowerPoint, since they both have certain strengths. If I were a Windows user, I wouldn't have that choice. It would be PowerPoint or nothing.
Lisa: What is compatible with Mac (i.e. iTunes, iDVD, various design software, etc.)
Bill: Nearly all of the most popular software titles exist for the Mac platform. While Windows does still have a larger number of software titles overall, there are very few aspects of computing in which a high-quality application for the Macintosh doesn't exist. For example, there is no Mac version of Visio, but a Mac-friendly program called Omnigraffle does the exact same thing. Some applications, such as PowerPoint, even have features on the Mac version that don't exist on the Windows side. All of the major professional publishing, web, imaging, and design apps exist on the Mac (Photoshop, DreamWeaver, InDesign, etc.). And of course, most of Apple's enticing and innovative software is Mac-only, and I believe that more than makes up for the fact that Windows might have twenty-five more versions of solitaire than the Mac does.
Lisa: What type of memory protection does Mac OS X have and how is that extraordinary?
Bill: MacOS X's UNIX foundation provides a protected memory foundation. This means that if one application does decide to crash, the rest of the software you're using will keep on going with no harm done. You just have to re-open the app that crashed, and you're back in business. Anyone who has gone through the old days of restarting the whole computer anytime one app crashed would probably be willing to refer to it as "extraordinary". If you sense that an app is about to go down, you no longer have to race to all your other apps and try to save your work before the system locks up. You just force-quit the offending app and there's no need to restart.
Lisa: Is it difficult to use various features on a Mac like programs, e-mail, downloading software, etc.?
Bill: These features generally work as well on a Mac as they do on any other computer, but Apple has managed to give its users some extra advantages. One is that Apple's mail program, simply called "Mail", does an excellent job of identifying and filtering out junk mail before the user even has to see it. Another is that Apple's new web browser, Safari, can identify what type of file you're downloading and act accordingly. For example, if you're downloading software that comes on a compressed disk image file, Safari automatically unstuffs it, mounts the image, copies the software to your desktop, unmounts the image, and moves the disk image file to the trash. It does all of this in the background without the user having to do anything, which is the way it should be. The fewer tedious steps for the user, the better.
Lisa: Is Mac recommended for home use of more for business use? What type of people prefer it better than Windows?
Bill: Most businesses still use Windows PC's, but this is not always the case. Publishers, print houses, graphic design firms, music studios, newspapers, magazines, movie makers, photographers, and various other industries tend to be very Mac-centric, so the notion that "businesses use PC's" is not necessarily true. Apple has just begun selling powerful Macintosh-based servers to businesses, so this might cause some of those businesses to later decide that they want to buy more Macs to go with their new Apple server.
Musicians, artists, educators, writers, designers, free thinkers, and all kinds of creative types have traditionally preferred the Macintosh over Windows. Now that the Macintosh is a UNIX system, which is what a lot of colleges use, more computer "geeks" are warming up to the Mac as well. Biotechnology firms are also showing new interest in the Mac platform. These days there seems to be new interest in the Mac from yet another surprising source every time you turn around. Apple Executive Fred Anderson said yesterday that Apple's marketshare among consumers has "doubled", so that would mean that more and more home users are preferring the Mac. It's true that most of the world still uses Windows, but the Mac platform is getting so far ahead of the game in so many aspects that I believe we'll see even more people switching to the Mac in the next few years.
--------------------
Whew, I guess that wasn't so bad after all. Anyone else out there want to interview me?
Comments:
Post a Comment
