First we had all the FUD from ZDNet about OS X security - twisting the rm-my-mac contest to say that ANY mac could be hacked into within 30 minutes. They neglected to mention that anyone was given local access to the machine that wanted it. They also slightly underestimated the timespan - while the exact time doesn't seem to be known, it was much more than 30 minutes. Given similar conditions, it would be all of 30 seconds for Windows until someone downloads VNC or something nastier like sub7 onto it, and it's owned.

Anyway, here's an equally stupid article: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2006-04-13-boot-camp_x.htm

This guy thinks that Boot Camp is going to drive the Mac crowd of people to Windows. Not likely.

Gamers, who have pretty much shunned the Mac because the gaming picks are slim (to say the least), will be able to run those games on their Mac hardware. In fact, from what I've read, those games will run pretty darn well, too.

He starts off with the only valid point in the article. Mac users will probably use Boot Camp to play games.

He goes on to reason that the Macs are more expensive than the PCs, and would not be viable Windows machines. The point he misses here is that the machine is not bought to just run Windows, but to run both operating systems. It's 2 computers in one.

People are well used to the fact that Apple hardware costs more than a standard PC. They are willing to pay the extra cost for the quality.

He is judging the Mac being more expensive than the PC by $200 a problem. Judging by the cost here, he is talking about the Core Duo Mac Mini. Of course, he is forgetting that the Mac Mini will save some money in power bills as it draws a lot less power than the PC. He is also forgetting that one is equipped with a very efficient Core Duo CPU, and the other one is fitted with an ancient Pentium 4.

According to Gateway's website the computer does in fact come with a 160GB HDD (the Mac Mini having an 80GB), but only 512MB of RAM (not 1GB as the author states).

Oh, and if it still matters, the Mac Mini has a dual-layer DVD burner SuperDrive, the Gateway has a CD-RW/DVD combo drive. But wait, he high end Gateway includes a monitor. He is talking about the low-end one... which only has an 80GB hard drive.

Also if it matters as well, the Mac Mini has 802.11g and Bluetooth 2.0 built in. The 802.11g would be very useful for companies- it would save them having to run ethernet cables out to them. (Unfortunately when my company got Mac Minis, they ordered the wrong ones, and guess who had to help install ethernet cabling...) And a media center remote too.

As well as that, the Mini is capable of gigabit ethernet. The Gateway box isn't. 100baseT is a drag for shifting huge files.

Upon that, the Mini has IEEE1394 (AKA Firewire) ports. These are very useful for shifting data - USB2.0 very rarely lives up to it's supposed 480MBPS claimed throughput. Firewire nearly always gets it's 400MBPS. IP over 1394 is incredibly fast - it regularly outperforms Gigabit Ethernet.

Now, the Gateway machine has a 56k modem, and a card reader. Neither of these things are very useful in a business setting, and do not cost much. Most people won't use the modem anyway.

Oh, and the gateway comes with 6 months free on AOL. I'm sure he loves that.

So, he appears to have his facts slightly twisted here. The Mac Mini is a much higher class machine than the Gateway box. If you want a cheap PC, get one.

Now, as for his "Graphics aren't better on the Mac - Photoshop is the same", has he ever used Photoshop on a PC? Sure it's the same, but it runs a LOT better on OS X. I know people who work with it every day, and would not touch it running on a PC. The real professionals in the field work with Macs. He's just a newspaper reporter, we can forgive him.

Now, his next point really shows how ignorant he is:

Oh, and the whole "no viruses on the Mac" business? Besides the fact that it's no longer true, you can get this neat stuff called anti-virus software.

No longer true? While ZDnet may claim the opposite, it is in fact still true. So far, we have found a cheap worm (which relies on an exploit patched about 9 months ago in OS X to work, and requires the user to open it). We have also found a nasty shell script that requires admin privileges to do anything. Maybe the Safari "Safe Files" thing was a bit bad, but it still was not a virus by any means. All of these go back to the user doing something. A proper virus has not been found on OS X yet. Obviously he believes everything ZDnet says?

As for the "anti-virus software" argument, it's only half true. Anti-virus software requires the definitions to actually contain a definition of said virus. It takes time for the anti-virus software authors to include a definition. Until then, your machine is vulnerable. Wouldn't it be nicer to have the OS not be vulnerable in the first place?

As for the marketshare argument, it's not true either. OS X being 5% of the market (probably more if you conduct an actual study, not an estimate), would mean it would have some kind of virus. Not one has been seen yet.

Another example for this point is Apache - it runs the majority of webservers worldwide. Does it have the most holes in it because of this? No. That title goes to Microsoft IIS...

As for the two operating systems requiring a reboot to switch between them, he has pointed out Parallels Workstation... he has some kind of an idea what he is talking about here.

Yes, he is right in speculating that Mac fans will say that supporting two operating systems is not double the headache. Anyone who has ever worked with OS X will know it doesn't need anywhere near the support staff that it takes for Windows. Nothing has gone wrong at my company for weeks.

And, judging by some of the comments to an Apple message board, they may not have a choice. It seems that installing Boot Camp can kill OS X, thus instantly converting Mac users to Windows.

In other words, if said Mac person picks the wrong partition to install Windows on. That seems to be the cause.

Also worth mentioning that nearly everyone seems to miss is that Boot Camp is BETA software. It is NOT a final release, and like all beta software, will have problems somewhere.

As for his claims it won't bring Mac users, he's very wrong. At the moment, I know about 5 people who have PCs, but would buy a Mac if they could run Windows and OS X on the same machine. And that's just the people who I have actually asked. there are undoubtably heaps more.

Looks like another uninformed Microserf.

Trackback URL for this post: