Wish I could agree. I love using my mac for work but wouldn't buy one for myself in a million years, at least not with their current offerings. I've personally heard more horror stories than success stories with their customer service, unless you're willing to open up your wallet.

As I post from my Mac....

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Current stable:
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Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Either buy extended AppleCare or use an independent shop...

The thing about Apple, is that they show strong kleptomaniac-like tendencies.

It’s interesting they maintain such great public perception despite their frequent willingness to screw with consumers and governments.

Also, while older Mac stuff had a well-earned reputation for reliability, their newer products, not so much.

You can rip the DVD on a computer that still has a dvd player and distribute it more easily that way. There are a ton of free programs that'll do it for you.

There are a ton of Windows laptops that don't ship with DVD anymore either, especially when weight and thickness is a concern. I know when I built my desktop last fall i left the DVD out. Even installing Windows you can just use a flashdrive.

Also, you're confusing PC OEMs with Microsoft. Microsoft has little control over what manufacturers build. Though they are pressuring them nowadays to add touchscreen to Windows 8 PCs... but that aint gonna happen on the cheapo bargain bin POS laptops.

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1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

Their older stuff was mixed as well. The "old" MacOS was a disaster until they wiped the slate clean with OS X. I recall 90s Macs having motherboard/heat problems, Titanium Powerbooks cracking because they used a brittle alloy, newer Macbooks cracking, Macbook Airs ca. 2007-8 having heat problems, etc.

^I have no doubt about the veracity of the comment, but in the organizations I support, did not encounter note worthy frequent problems prior to about 3-4 years ago.

Macs have issues like any other mechanical thing. What I've found in 30+ years of using them is that most OS/software issues are dead simple to solve. Nine times out of ten a restart will cure whatever ails you and will NEVER hurt. A PRAM zap, some permissions repair and you're usually good to go. BSD unix is a tough OS.OS 9 sucked, but that is a dead issue. Hardware issues happen, but they are few and far between in my experience and customer service has been exemplary when issues happened. AppleCare is worth it's weight. I am typing this on a 12 year old 17in. Powerbook. In the dozen years I've had it I've replaced a hard drive, and that's all. It still does pretty much whatever I want it to do. Burns DVDs, runs Photoshop CS2 very well. I like it better than my current MacBook Pro 15 in much the same way I liked my 240D.

I can run the command line in OSX fairly well but am no power user. Most people aren't power users. Apple knows that and that's a big part of their success in creating intuitive, usable machines. There is an industry devoted to PeeSee support. 75 bucks an hour to have some dork show up at your house and fiddle with your balky Windows computer. No such Mac industry exists. A good way to go broke is to be a certified Mac Tech. That speaks volumes.
The IT guys in my school district pushed for a switch to Dells in the classroom. I was drinking a beer with the head of the dept. one time and asked him why he was endorsing the switch. He said, candidly, "we'll be able to get more funding for tech positions when the schools are running Windows machines."

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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
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1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
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Not true. Most Apple stores are supported in a large part by their repair shop.

BS.

In the first place a Mac costs 2-3x that of a comparable PC. It would take a lot of repairs to justify the cost difference, and school IT guys don't get paid enough to make the difference.

In the 2nd place, Dell makes excellent hardware and also provides some of the best tech support around. If there is a problem, that's what the warranty is for.

In the 3rd place, MS and others make software that will reset Windows to a known good state after a reboot. Let the students do their worst, and a reboot will undo anything done to the computer short of pulling out the drive. We used this software in classrooms and it is ideal. Except, of course when we needed to add functionality. But there is a procedure for that as well.

Last and most importantly, the overwhelming majority of software used runs on PCs and not Mac equipment, unless the Mac also uses BootCamp or similar, which is stupid to use in a class environment. If the school has a goal of producing students who are inept, that would be a great reason to use Mac as an aid to education.

Don't forget PC's still represent a majority share of the market too. That will play into the quantity of Mac repair techs.. etc

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Inept? Come the f on, way to exaggerate! The skills learned in using either platform translate to the other. If anything, if the kid has a chance to fiddle with the UNIX underpinnings of OS X, s/he will come out with better tech skills than with playing with a black-box Windows system.

Personally, if I were supporting a school, I wouldn't use Boot Camp for PC software. I'd either virtualize it and have students remote-desktop in, or (better), run VirtualBox with a Windows image that's deleted, pushed out, and updated nightly.

Not exaggerating. Not quite 5% of software made is designed to run on a Mac. Edit: I agree that most skills transfer from one platform to another.

If someone wants to teach UNIX, then teach UNIX, don't pretend to leverage a platform not intended for use as such.

I agree that a protected platform is the way to go for a classroom environment.

There are arguments to be made related with running 30 or 300 or 3,000 virtual machines concurrently. It can certainly be done, but many school districts lack the funds to install this kind of platform. The ones that can do so, typically do.

Also automating the upgrade process is a highly debatable solution.

I can't think of too many kids that were in my high school class that would have given a **** about learning anything in a Linux/Unix environment. They barely cared about learning stuff in Windows.

Beyond that I dont really think the teachers care to learn that much about *nix either.

I find fun to learn and work with but very few of my fellow classmates were that way.

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82 300SD 145k
89 420SEL 210k
89 560SEL 118k
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90 560SEL 154k
91 300D 2.5 Turbo. 241k
93 190E 3.0 235k
93 300E 195k

Question. Looking at the title of the tread had made me wonder about why people have such, for want of a better word, astonishment.

I don't expect GM, Ford, Apple, Microsoft, etc, etc to have my back. I expect them to try to squeeze everything for a buck. The company exists to make a profit. Why would anyone expect more out of them? Sure, they tell you how they support the poor, the environment, your town, etc, etc. Bottom line is they want your business and to try to make you feel good about buying from them. In short, it is a farce. Why would anyone be surprised when we read that they are doing naughty things? Why would you expect otherwise? A company exists to make money and not enrich the people, environment, town, dog catcher fund, etc, etc.

If you want social responsibility that is real, do it yourself. Company social responsibility is merely a joke to entice you to buy their stuff. Just like a "SALE" or "FACTORY OUTLET" sign. Companies are not social entities. They are money making entities. So why the surprise and indignation? Sam Walton did his "buy American" stunt to make you want to buy his stuff. Today, when you tell Wal*Mart that you want cheap junk and they oblige, why get shocked? They are there to make a profit with their business model.

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MS Windows has tremendous market share, but which version are most of its users working on?

OS Marketshare

A huge number (40%) of all Windows machines are still using XP, not migrating to Vista, Win7 or Win8.

As for 5% of software written runs on OS X . . . we can always debate quality over quantity.

If it works, why change it. It also means that the Windows machines are lasting a fair bit of time.