The whole "ready out of the box" thing gripes me a little, both PC's and Macs come with BASIC pre-installed software, so in theory, both are good to go straight away (lest you be building yer own). But the very first thing I do with pre-built computers is clean them out of everything that gets slapped on it. If you're an aspiring video editor, musician, any type of artist, etc... then neither machines will be overly beneficial for you "out of the box". The day they start shipping Photoshop/Final Cut/3ds Max/Z Brush/After Effects etc etc etc along with Norton internet security (as in, free) is the day I eat my own face.
Specific Hardware + Specific Software = A professionals machine. The OS is predominantly a users preference. I say predominantly because there are other factors to consider in terms of what it is this professional/wannabe professional does, and which OS better caters for that in relation to the softwares he/she needs.
I'll use myself as an example here... and just type out a mini life story rather than bullet point specific things:
I wanted to be a "web-designer" in my earlier years (14/15 years old), Photoshop and Dreamweaver were my tools of choice and I had been fortunate enough to learn HTML the old school way a few years before. I had a work flow, pretty websites with basic functionality (ie, pretty much just html) was my forté.
At about 16 I was shown a piece of software by the name of 3ds Max (v3 baby, woo!) and that was that... f**k websites, focus on 3D. I was learning the software in my own time and when it came time to leave school (high school, for you Americans) I had to scout my local college for a course that was remotely related to my interests as I was no way near confident to start applying for jobs with my current "portfolio", so sure enough... like so many people out there I ended up on some generic "Media" Diploma course.
This is where nobody gets a surprise, a fairly large chunk of this course was in creating random graphics/logos and websites with what I'd been using before... Photoshop and Dreamweaver... the only difference being, everything HAD to be done on a Mac, the lecturer was a massive Mac fan and managed to convert a few of the students into buying them by simply stating "Oh for this type of work you really can't use anything else"... Those who hadn't used these softwares on the PC (or even knew they existed) were inclined to believe that Macs were just better for this, even though I quite clearly had been using something else.
Being on PC's for so long though, and using the exact same software... I was getting annoyed at the tiny little differences between PC and Mac versions (that, and we were on the single-button mouse back in those days). And I sure as cotton pockets didn't buy into the stability bull-plop, I'm not saying PC's are better for this, but I've crashed and frozen a few Macs in my time when just trying to get on with work. The lecturer HATED when this happened and would always blame the student, claiming them to be doing something majorly wrong because the machinery is obviously perfect. (Not in a mean manner of course, he was a cool guy)
One thing I will admit to liking though, was when it came to the musical side of things... we were still on Macs of course, and I forget the software we used (definitely Mac-only though), some track-layered mixing samples/beats thingy, but it really was friendly to just pick up and roll with, I've used similar versions on PC's but they've not come to me nearly as nicely as the one I'm forgetting. Could this just be because I had never used it before? Could this be the mysterious "out of the box" easyness that Mac users shout about on rooftops in the dead of night? I don't know, it was feckin' sweet though.
But the damage had already been done, I had been sworn off Macs because of the sheer snobbery of those who used them, preaching the same snobbery unto others. Macs at the time (I can't comment on current attitudes) were definitely more about just it being a Mac, than it actually being catered to a specific job. Yes you could do the same things on both and yes it's a personal preference BUT they actually believed the Macs were far superior, I was more than willing to meet the "argument" half way, but it couldn't be done.
And then came the 3D assignments, not surprisingly that in a block where they'd spent about 80% of the entire colleges budget on Mac suites, all of the PC's were utter garbage (this didn't help my Anti-Mac phase). What made it worse is people were using these... quite clearly dated PC's in debates to boost the Mac-ego, I mean these PC's were old, you could hear the hard drives clicking away and fans spinning to their death, to poke fun and compare them to the shiny new Macs that had been brought in was like kicking a corpse and demanding that it get up immediately. An easy win for the Mac fans, but a shallow victory it was, and also short lived as at the time it was near impossible to get a version of 3ds max running on an Apple OS, and it was the nuts in comparison to anything these students had been taught previously (excluding myself as I already knew it).
Of course this point doesn't stand too well these days, the line between Mac PC software relations is almost water thin so it really should be getting to the point where those who HAD used Macs/OSX, WILL use Macs, as it's what they know, same goes for PC/Windows. It SHOULD just be personal preference by now, what it shouldn't be... what we SHOULD be well and truly passed by now... is the sheer stubborn-thoughts like "Macs are better for creative use"
Another point that annoyed the nipples out of me, was during my university days. Living in a halls of residence (Dorm-esque places). I'd usually spend a lot of my free time working away on my PC, general Photoshop and 3D milarky and I would be approached by people living on the same floor who'd just forked out about £2000 on a Mac book, asking me why I don't use one because "they're obviously better for what I do"... these people couldn't be argued with either, they think it's better because it's a Mac, they don't actually know what hardware they're running, they just believe what the marketing says. And I know this point is a weak one, especially nowadays where more and more people are becoming hardware/technically-savvy but it's just another one of my experiences with the "Mac users", who'd spent stupid amounts of money on something they only use for instant messaging and typing emails, and have the audacity to tell me that what I'm using can't possibly be equal, let alone better.
Make of that what you will, it's just a little gateway into my past on the topic of "Mac Vs PC"
