Many moons ago when I was just a young teen there were many discussions with my fellow peers of which was better: Nintendo or Sega. Nintendo at the time had a more powerful console then Sega, which could produce a higher resolution, more colours and had more channels for sound. This makes Nintendo the clear winner, or does it? Nintendo and Sega manufactured games consoles, they manufactured games and they produced many happy people from it. Such a young mind often finds it hard to grasp that something isn’t necessarily better than something else even though it may appear so on the surface, for they do not understand the concept of personal preference. So perhaps we can see that neither was really better to the consumer; they were equal. Preference is everything, one mans junk is another mans treasure and such.

Those days are long gone, we’re all grown up now aren’t we, able to understand opinion and be happy with it. Or are we?

Mac Vs. PC

Oh dear. Where to begin? Growing up isn’t always as simple as it first appears either, for the teenage debate hasn’t disappeared, it’s merely transformed into another debate. Which is better, a Mac or a PC? Apple advertisements will have you believe that all PC’s run Microsoft Windows, which suffers from crashes, viruses and poor usability. Unfortunately, for a pedant such as myself, this irks me. PC as most people will know, stands for ‘Personal Computer’. This indeed means, that a Mac is also a PC, but let’s gloss over that and assume that Apple assumes that people assume PC stands for IBM based Computer (which ironically, Apple is moving closer to every day).

There’s then the misconception that if you buy a PC, you’ll get Windows, and a buggy copy prone to crashing at that. PC’s however run all sorts of operating systems, the biggest name you may have heard of before being Linux. But that doesn’t matter does it, you already know that Mac’s are better than PC’s, so you’re sold. Apple has a fantastic marketing department that really knows how to sell. Contrast this to Microsoft, whose only saving grace is perhaps that, although their advertisements are usually extremely dire, it’s this that makes them memorable. Songsmith anyone?

Apple’s are expensive, often two or three times the price of a PC running Windows for the equivalent hardware specification. But Mac’s are also very stable and very secure all of the time which can make it an attractive investment. Microsoft Windows 3.1 never crashes. Really. Windows 95 was an impressive feat of engineering, but that huge jump in code-base comes with costs, and bugs. Windows 95 and 98 were both good operating systems at the time, but their stability was very easily jeopardised when introduced to untested components. Windows you see, runs on hardware manufactured by, well anyone. That’s a pretty hard thing to do. As a Web Developer, I have to make sure my output works correctly in a handful of browsers; Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome at the very least. Writing for four possible platforms is bad enough, but imagine trying to write for thousands.

This is where drivers come in. Drivers are low level applications written by third parties to tell an operating system how to communicate with a piece of hardware. Poor drivers and poor hardware are also the biggest causes of Windows crashes, something I’m sure Microsoft is all too aware of. Apple has been clever here – its operating system already knows the hardware it’s going to be running with in intimate detail as OSX could almost be considered to be an embedded system – it’s specifically made to run on specific hardware. High quality components from well known manufacturers reduce the problem of crashes significantly, but that also drives the cost of a computer up which isn’t a good thing when you’re a salesman. Windows 98 crashed all the time, literally once or twice a day on the first PC I ever purchased from Dixons. Windows 98 crashed roughly once a month on the first computer I built myself.

Windows XP was another massive leap, and Vista again. Both received mixed reactions at launch, people don’t like change even if it’s for the better. I made my latest PC and have Vista installed on it. Since I’ve installed all the drivers correctly for it (which incidentally isn’t many – Vista is absolutely amazing at installing things for you, but then it should be with a multi-gigabyte footprint) it hasn’t crashed in the year I’ve had it.

Mac’s generally look very well designed, PC’s usually look like ugly beige rectangles. There’s a trick here too, especially these days – people love something that’s shiny. Now, not all PC’s are ugly. Mine’s pretty, in a very attractive if slightly expensive Antec case. Trying to buy a good looking PC from the high street is however, a different proposition.

And then there’s software. OSX is a good operating system in many ways, and fails in others. For myself, I don’t like the way windows are only re-sizable from one corner – why the limit? Active and inactive windows are slightly different shades of grey from each other, which I find hard to distinguish. This problem is for me exacerbated by the menu-bar, which is stuck to the top of one display for any application you’re using. I often find myself doing something silly in the menu only to realise it’s not the menu for the application I wanted it to be. Also, Finder has to be one of the buggiest file explorers I’ve come across. But it’s not just Macs that bug me – UAC. What the hell. User Access Control, introduced by Microsoft in Vista is designed to make sure everything I do is secure. But it’s too much. It’s too secure. I’m asked permission to try to view the control panel. Are you sure you really want to do that I’m asked? Yes, yes I’m quite sure of it. Imagine this kind of security in a toilet: You’re trying to wipe your arse, Cancel or Allow? Needless to say, UAC was disabled within ten minutes of my first every install of Vista. At midnight, Vista has a fit. Apparently, changing from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00 is a very labour intensive process. Windows’ file explorer occasionally decides to use large icon view for my mp3 collection, in a folder of thousands, when I’d left it in list view. Why God, why? What possible use could I have for an mp3 icon the size of an American on a McDonald’s diet? And then there’s the versions, as an Apple ad aptly points out, I have a choice of many different versions of Vista, one of which has everything the others have parts disabled. Why wouldn’t I just want the best one? Sometimes, giving people a choice isn’t always a good thing.

And so there you go. Personal preference is everything. I love building things and I love playing games – two reasons I choose to use a ‘PC’ over a Mac. Now stop bitching over which is better, you will never win against personal preference, unless you’re a Nazi and exterminate anyone who thinks differently from you.

And for reference, I love Nintendo; R.I.P. Sega.