I would like you to get your head around something, which is that just because it’s not right for YOU doens’t mean it’s intrinsically shite.

You do understand what a ‘target market’ is, right?

I’m sure its just coincidence that its an opinion shared by the entire industry I work in, with the exception of a couple of weirdo’s who are just trying too hard to be different

You’re right. its baseless prdjudice. its almost like racism, innit? 😛

And I’m their target market.

Therein lies the crux. I don’t think you’ve been Apple’s target market for some time.

I always thought that Adobe Photoshop and QuarkXpress were the main reason creative types bought Macs in the old days.

I think Apple are at interesting point in time, and the discussion of Cook being Ballmer seems a good comparison. MS have just released some of their best and most interesting products in years that ‘do ‘just work’ and Apple are slightly struggling to innovate and feel a bit gimmicky. What will be interesting to watch is that Apple were starting to get some traction in Enterprise, but with the current price increases I expect that to fall. Was told recently by an IT manager of a major energy company that there was no way in future employees would get iphones and ipads, it would be Andorid or MS.

But end of the day we need both companies to push each other, otherwise we’ll end up with the IE6 debacle again.

It’s also a very silly point of view.

Tell that to someone who works in branding / brand development.

Look at Microsoft’s foray into mobile phones, no one GAS. Office is their lifeline, as/when that goes they have little to offer. For many years Apple’s focus of combined hardware and software looked miguided as Microsoft focused purely on the OS platform and Office but now the reverse is true

You’re right. its baseless prdjudice. its almost like racism, innit?

Alright.

Just because it’s not right for your industry doesn’t mean it’s intrinsically shite. Cos not everyone’s a graphic designer, are they?

Tell that to someone who works in branding / brand development.

It’s not uncommon for the majority to hold silly beliefs. Even if it’s a small majority like say 52%.

Was told recently by an IT manager of a major energy company that there was no way in future employees would get iphones and ipads, it would be Android

My old company allowed us to use our personal iPads for access to email etc so the realty was I gave back my work laptop and paid for my own hardware ! Applications like iAnnotate which allowed me to mark up PDF’s and Word files using the touch screen was revolutionary

Apple were starting to get some traction in Enterprise, but with the current price increases I expect that to fall.

This is an interesting move for sure.

Some companies were given big discounts, I believe. It will be interesting to see if they can continue to do that.

FFS even if they sell them to enterprises at cost or a slight loss it would be a devastating attack on MS.

Applications like iAnnotate which allowed me to mark up PDF’s and Word files using the touch screen was revolutionary

That’s the main reason we got Surfaces in this house.. and you said you didn’t care for them..?

Molgrips 🙂 touché

Sorry Molls….

😉

clodhopper – Member

I think the main reason you see so many Apple Macs in ‘design studios’ etc, is because the OS lets users concentrate on just doing what they want to, without having to get all techy with different drivers, a far less intuitive GUI (which is heavily derived from Apple’s anyway, just never able to be as good because Apple own all the crucial patents), and al the other associated messing about that seems to be necessary with PCs. Macs are just far less fuss and faff than PCs. Apple thought about how most people actually want to use computers, and designed it all around that. And that’s why they are so popular.

Just a general question, but this quote summed up the point of the question, hence why I’ve used it…

Why is it that the graphics/video/photography/music(?) industry seem to be the only ones that require the intuitiveness, ease of use, lack of faff etc. that the Apple products supposedly bring to the table?
There must be tons of industries/jobs/careers out there where ‘just getting on with the job’ and ‘using a tool’ etc is paramount for efficiency etc. but it only seems to be ‘the creative’ industries that have cottoned on to the advantages of Apple stuff.

For example, I work as a mechanical design engineer. Most of my day is spent twiddling 3D models around in a modelling package, then creating drawings for those parts/assemblies.
Sounds like the sort of thing that would suit Apple stuff down to the ground, but as far as I know Windows & PCs rule the roost. Why is this?
Is it because no one has made their software (Creo, Solidworks, Catia etc) available for the Apple platform? And why not? If it would be such a benefit to the end user?
My time is very valuable to the company I work for, so if an Apple computing solution allowed me to do my job with less faff why hasn’t someone jumped in & sorted it?
Same for all sorts of computer based jobs & industries I would have thought…..

Another thing I don’t quite get is that once I am using the piece of software to do my job (Pro/E in this case), the operating system is largely irrelevant. Sure, I save files & navigate to folders etc. but that’s pretty well sorted in Windows. I don’t need to dick around with ‘the OS’ that much; I just use the software.
Is this not how it is with graphic design work, for example? Do you not open the software on your Apple device & then just use that? What influence does the operating system have on that particular bit of software? Is it not just running on top of the operating system, so you don’t really have to deal with the operating system; you just work within the bounds of that piece of software??

Excuse my use of phrases like ‘Apple device’ etc. I am not familiar with them at all, so wouldn’t like to use specific model names etc. as I’d probably get it wrong……

It’s tradition, innit.

AFAIK, a long time ago Apple computers came with much better graphics capabilities, so designers, artists and photographers used them and software companies wrote graphical software for them. However PC capability caught up (I’m talking 20-25 years ago here), but it still took a good while longer for software companies to produce equal quality software on PC, so people’s habits stuck because of course people don’t want to have to re-skill on some new platform.

Why is it that the graphics/video/photography/music(?) industry seem to be the only ones that require the intuitiveness, ease of use, lack of faff etc. that the Apple products supposedly bring to the table?

I think this quote from molgrips hits it –

And besides, employees shoudn’t have to bother with drivers anyway – company IT shoudl do it.

Most ‘creatives’ are either self-employed or working in small companies of about 3 people. None of whom are techies. So you can’t phone company IT, it needs to be easy to set up and run a small network or plug in some new hardware, etc. One day’s downtime could cost you the price difference between a Mac and a PC.

PC’s are way better now but I spent an extra £300 in 2007 going for a Mac over a PC, and it paid for itself many times over in terms of potentially productive time no longer being wasted by poor IT (windows!).

Why is it that the graphics/video/photography/music(?) industry seem to be the only ones that require the intuitiveness, ease of use, lack of faff etc. that the Apple products supposedly bring to the table?Why is it that the graphics/video/photography/music(?) industry seem to be the only ones that require the intuitiveness, ease of use, lack of faff etc. that the Apple products supposedly bring to the table?

historically there were colour issues that meant monitor and printer profiles were better implemented on the mac plus a lot of imaging software was written for the mac first then PC later (if at all) i remember digital back software was mac only plus tethering was firewire 800/400 only, at the time PC’s if they had firewire did not have the voltage or pins enabled to supply power to to the back. obviously it was the other way too with a lot of areas only covered by PC’s.

now it’s mostly just an entrenched ecosystem and current users would kick up a fuss if the bean counters in accounts said you must use this POS HP to work on. especially if like me the only dealings you have with P.C’s are frustrating phone calls with ageing parents trying to get their £250 pc laptop working or having the misfortune to try using one to work on in the distant past.

not everyone wants to be an I.T geek in their spare time. every time somebody mentions ‘you should try Linux’ i immediately think badly dressed single male with sociopathic tendencies who really ought to get out more.

Even I don’t recommend Linux.

AFAIK, a long time ago Apple computers came with much better graphics capabilities, so designers, artists and photographers used them and software companies wrote graphical software for them. However PC capability caught up (I’m talking 20-25 years ago here), but it still took a good while longer for software companies to produce equal quality software on PC, so people’s habits stuck because of course people don’t want to have to re-skill on some new platform.

It was also a hardware issue. For a long time FireWire was a standard interface for pro Audio soundcards. But I’m not sure I ever saw a PC laptop with a FireWire port. Which was just another nudge towards Apple stuff…

as Doris said above. any savings to made by buying a p.c. and not paying the ‘apple tax’ are irrelevant because the difference would be paid for in a days work, over the 3 years working life of a computer the cost is immaterial. it would actually cost a lot more to buy and use a cheaper PC.

there are other workflow reasons too.

this obviously has nothing to do with the vanity purchasing by wannabe creatives who like to sit in cafes nursing a flat white.

We all have our own experience of “it just works”. For me, Google Drive is the best solution to the problem of creating, sharing, collaborating on and filing the kind of files I work with (spreadsheets, docs, presentations etc). Apple have only recently got into this “collaboration” game, but you can only collaborate with others in their walled garden. Google Drive is OS and device-agnostic and “just works”.

I buy Apple stuff because it is lovely hardware that is a pleasure (mostly) to use and I accept I pay a premium for that. They’re not (in my opinion and experience) great at services and they’re not great at software, making iterative “improvements” that often take away as much as they give as well as playing catch up. The changes made in Cook’s tenure certainly point to having a more open system for other developers to get into the Apple (hardware and OS) infrastructure and I suspect they have their eye on the recurring revenue from the APIs those 3rd parties use. Wasn’t there some Microsoft software used in a recent demo?

I’ve got some ideas where Apple might be going, but I’m not filled with confidence they’ll get there.

(which is heavily derived from Apple’s anyway, just never able to be as good because Apple own all the crucial patents)

Well, that is partly not true. Microsoft can use ANY Apple technology covered by an Apple patent without fear of suing, as they have a legal agreement to that effect. While, officially, this is not directly related to them bailing Apple out back when the shit properly hit the fan, you could say that it might be, tangentially.

If you want a clear hardware example… check out the magnetic power coupling on the Surface.

The OS/HUI examples are too numerous to pick just one. They are endless.

now it’s mostly just an entrenched ecosystem and current users would kick up a fuss if the bean counters in accounts said you must use this POS HP to work on. especially if like me the only dealings you have with P.C’s are frustrating phone calls with ageing…

Partly true. Any bean counters worth their salt will look at cost of ownership over at least a three year period, including support costs, which tend to favour Macs. If only looking at 12 months, then pushing for PCs make sense, unless, as you said, you’re fitting in with an existing ecosystem with software contracts and licences already in place, in which case leave well alone!

cost of ownership

I heard something interesting on a podcast about this. If people bought product (like electronics and white goods) on (cheaper) cost of ownership rather than cheaper ticket price it would of course mean fewer devices and appliances being made. The CO2 saving as a result of less manufacturing would be equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road across Europe.

The facts may not *quite* be remembered right but they demonstrate the point.

as Doris said above. any savings to made by buying a p.c. and not paying the ‘apple tax’ are irrelevant because the difference would be paid for in a days work, over the 3 years working life of a computer the cost is immaterial. it would actually cost a lot more to buy and use a cheaper PC.

Exactly my point. As a tool for generating income as a designer, a high end Mac is like a Snap On toolbox for a mechanic. Just the best you can buy. If its your income and your livelihood, then for the sake of a relatively minor price difference (spread over the life of the equipment, its inconsequential) then why would you even entertain buying something that was known to be far inferior for the task in hand? For instance the colour calibration on an Apple screen is far better than on a PC. And stuff like that really matters on a daily basis.

Cost of hardware becomes even less relevant an issue when probably the first thing you’ll do with a Mac, as soon as you’ve turned the thing on, is whack thousands of pounds worth of software on it. Its not like you’re just installing a copy of Office so you can do some spreadsheets, and answer your emails.

And for my job, I didn’t choose a Mac cos it wasn’t powerful enough. But I don’t go round excoriating them and mocking those who use them…

Well not much, anyway 🙂

Cost of hardware becomes even less relevant an issue when probably the first thing you’ll do with a Mac, as soon as you’ve turned the thing on, is whack thousands of pounds worth of software on it. Its not like you’re just installing a copy of Office so you can do some spreadsheets, and answer your emails.

I think at the last count it’s $40k us ish within the first 10 mins for me, not all users are equal…

Cost of hardware becomes even less relevant an issue when probably the first thing you’ll do with a Mac, as soon as you’ve turned the thing on, is whack thousands of pounds worth of software on it. Its not like you’re just installing a copy of Office so you can do some spreadsheets, and answer your emails.

For an awful lot of people, it will be just that. Office, emails, web browsing etc.

I’d love to see a breakdown of Apples hardware sales by demographic. How many MBs (the whole range) are sold to students, coffee shop hipsters and business people where web access and office are king. And how many are sold to developers, creative industry types. Would be fascinating I think as the new MBP seem to be targeting that 1st group. Prosumers, wannabe video editors, lifestyle types. Nothing wrong with that, but its a far cry from industry pros.

Why is it that the graphics/video/photography/music(?) industry seem to be the only ones that require the intuitiveness, ease of use, lack of faff etc. that the Apple products supposedly bring to the table?

Compared to most common pieces of software, things like Photoshop, Final Cut, After Effects etc are insanely complicated and simplicity and usability do play a part. But that’s really just scratching the surface. Initially you just couldn’t the most common industry standard art packages. Photoshop, final cut, illustrator, freehand, dreamweaver, splash were all mac only….and then when they were finally available on PC the first few versions were buggy crashy shit. And around that same period of time iirc macs generally had a slight edge in power, or maybe more ram. That all changed very very quickly though and soon considerably cheaper PCs had more power and their software was good. But the damage was done and pros dismissed PC versions as bug ridden and crash prone.

Most ‘creatives’ are either self-employed or working in small companies of about 3 people. None of whom are techies. So you can’t phone company IT, it needs to be easy to set up and run a small network or plug in some new hardware, etc. One day’s downtime could cost you the price difference between a Mac and a PC.

There’s a grain of truth to that too but just a grain. Back in the early days of digital cameras and video cameras macs were generally much more simplistic in terms of plug and play, also most high end kit involved in either photo capture, video capture, external storage or printing was biased to work with mac, or poorly supported by pc so you had to be more computer literate to do the same work with pc.

Most of the creatives I knew either freelancers or small companies were/are extremely computer literate. However, there was a lot of push back from the “pros” who were pre-installed in their comfy jobs, whether that was “mac operator” at a printing press or editor at a production company or graphic designer for a small company.

Myself and all my friends from art college who went on to work in design related industries might have had preferences but we were able to rip apart and rebuild both platforms, but I would frequently come across editors who would proudly boast they wouldn’t know how to turn on a PC. Or who could barely turn on a mac.

When we got into 3D there was no choice. Mac performance was laughable, and to spec a mac that would even compete with a high end Boxx workstation would be double the price. And ironically the mac versions of the leading 3d packages were bug ridden crashy pieces of shit. So we had to use PC. Also if they failed in some way any number of local shops would carry replacement parts and we could rebuild them ourselves or upgrade as required. It was only when the first few generations of intel macs came in that macs started to regain ground for really high end creative software like zbrush, maya, lightwave etc.

Now we’re at a point where there’s little to no difference other than cost and aesthetics.

PC’s are still not ‘reliable’. the company I work for employs one of the usual big IT companies to provide and support our IT. We have the usual PC laptops rolled out. They are not reliable despite the support from the IT company. We keep our IT helpline busy. Ironically our visual comms team have a special dispensation to use iMacs, which are a good 5 years old now. They are supported by our IT company and connected to our network. They’re fine, no issues whatsoever.

Wobbliscott, I wonder if that says more about the users behaviours than the systems themselves 😉

Wobbliscott, I wonder if that says more about the users behaviours than the systems themselves

Or the IT support company needing ‘unreliable’ computers to keep themselves in a job

I can’t get my head around the usefulness of the touch bar, or otherwise. My laptop is used as a secondary display for toolbox/palettes and so on, to a larger display, and I use a separate keyboard and mouse/trackpad otherwise I’d be typing with my body twisted to one side. I cant see when I’d ever use it…

I’d be happy if Apple just produced a wireless keyboard with a numeric pad, or a wired one which worked… it’s not the end of the world, I’ve got no problem with the Logitech one I’m using, I just can’t understand why Apple have never addressed the basics of fixing their USB keyboard or releasing a wireless one with a numeric pad.

Part of the issue is that by saving all that money on PCs you might just be buying cheaper hardware in the first place. One of the advantages of the PC model is that you CAN produce and buy a £200 laptop that can do most things, but that doesn’t mean everyone should of course. I wonder what the price premium is JUST on the OS? So like for like hardware and build quality?

So anyway, here’s another thing regarding corporate uptake:

I went to a client a year or so ago who were completely MS. They had all the office productivity suite, and it was very impressive. Sharepoint, Lync, Office, the whole lot. We walked into a meeting room with a big projector and the documents were all up on the screen and shared in the virtual meeting with all the remote participants and it all worked instantly and perfectly. I was very impressed. Presumably Windows is tied into all this Office productivity suite – or is it available and as good on Mac?

Sharepoint

Which leads my train of thought onto…

What I’ve seen over the years – and is perhaps the big change in IT – is that it can be rolled out much more easily if the requirements are relatively basic, especially if provided as SaaS via a browser. Sharepoint is (not) a great example of this. It’s a toolkit that, in the right hands, can build a great infrastructure for document creation, sharing, collaboration etc. However it’s an infrastructure that is still needs “building” to get even the most basic of those requirements working as well as something out-of-the-box like Google Drive and Google Docs. I’ve worked at businesses that really struggle to get people to adopt Sharepoint because people want to use the tools that make their life easier, not harder.

Which comes back to the point some have made above, which is that for many small businesses, hardware and software is available that doesn’t need extensive IT skills to deploy and support. Apple cottoned on to that benefit long before anyone else.

molgrips. We get all that with Google docs and Hangouts in our hetrogeneous company that has a mix of Windows/Linux/Macs.

It’s hilarious that you quote Lync which is the worst most expensive pile of utter crap ever to grace a computer

Admittedly I don’t know much about Sharepoint itself or Lync not being a user. But the impression I got in general was that a fully integrated Office/tech suite from a single provider (MS in this case) could work very well – in principle at least.

And Apple do not have anything like this offering AFAIK – or do they?

Which would make it Apple for very small businesses, and MS for bigger ones.

It’s hilarious that you quote Lync which is the worst most expensive pile of utter crap ever to grace a computer

Surely can’t be as bad as Lotus Notes?

As there are a lot of Mac users on this thread I would like to ask a question. Do you spend most of your time in the Mac native OS or do you use a Windows “emulator” such as Parallels or VMware Fusion?

If you do use these how well do they work?

I work for a Cisco partner and know many people who work for Cisco. They have a scheme where they can choose their PC and the majority (70%+) seem to go for Macs with those choosing PCs seeming to be the mavericks. A lot of them seem to run Windows on their Macs hence my question above.

I use VMWare Workstation which is the PC equivalent of Fusion.

It’s not an emulator – it’s a virtual machine running inside your Mac, which runs Windows natively. So apart from it being slightly slower and taking up a bit more battery time, you can’t tell.

I went to a client a year or so ago who were completely MS. They had all the office productivity suite, and it was very impressive. Sharepoint, Lync, Office, the whole lot. We walked into a meeting room with a big projector and the documents were all up on the screen and shared in the virtual meeting with all the remote participants and it all worked instantly and perfectly.

WOW! Sounds, like…. TOTES amazeballs dude!

*Goes back to colouring things in*

So apart from it being slightly slower and taking up a bit more battery time, you can’t tell.

I use Fusion, it slows my Mac significantly and the VM is slow. I inherited a Mac a few months ago and gave up my Windows laptop for a bit. I will go back to Windows at some point at it is better and far more integrated with almost everything useful!

I went to a client a year or so ago who were completely MS. They had all the office productivity suite, and it was very impressive. Sharepoint, Lync, Office, the whole lot. We walked into a meeting room with a big projector and the documents were all up on the screen and shared in the virtual meeting with all the remote participants and it all worked instantly and perfectly. I was very impressed. Presumably Windows is tied into all this Office productivity suite – or is it available and as good on Mac?

To answer you question Molly, no. The O365 offering is still work in progress but is getting there.

It’s a toolkit that, in the right hands, can build a great infrastructure for document creation, sharing, collaboration etc. However it’s an infrastructure that is still needs “building” to get even the most basic of those requirements working as well as something out-of-the-box like Google Drive and Google Docs. I’ve worked at businesses that really struggle to get people to adopt Sharepoint because people want to use the tools that make their life easier, not harder.

Not quite, Sharepoint is a relatively easy tool to put in place. It offers collaboration which Apple has really struggled with. I am using a Mac but I am pretty agnostic about what device/operating platform I use each day. I manage on the Mac but there is no getting away from the fact it continues to feel “niche” and each time I want to share or collaborate it throws up small challenges.
Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc dont offer a manageable solution to Cloud based file sharing. Sharepoint solves this problem cheaply and with a minimum amount of development.

I use Fusion, it slows my Mac significantly and the VM is slow

Never had any problems with Parallels, probably depends on the spec of the Mac though. I usually have 2 virtual machines running on my Mac Mini server and have had 3 with no problem (although nothing doing anything spectacularly difficult).