Stability

Now, it's time for the hot button issue, the one issue that Mac users use against PC users (and vice versa) all the time: stability. To put a few misconceptions to rest, I will resort to the timely bulleted list. I hope by this point, I've shown that I can definitely appreciate both a Mac and a PC platform, and thus, readers will view the following statements as pretty darn impartial:
  • OS X crashes
  • Windows XP crashes
  • My G5 machine crashes a bit less than any of my Windows XP machines
Now, let me qualify those three statements - I'll start at the bottom. Apple has it very easy. They have complete control over the hardware and drivers that go into every machine they build, they don't have to deal with multiple chipsets for a particular platform, and they don't even have to deal with multiple video card vendors. Apple controls every aspect of the hardware and software that goes into their computers. There are no strange driver or BIOS revisions out of Taiwan that don't play well with some configurations, and there are no worries about memory timings set too aggressively causing even the slightest bit of instability (without the appropriate timings, DDR400 will not boot in a G5). The PC world is much, much different; everything that Apple doesn't have to worry about or deal with, PC users may not worry about, but they definitely do have to deal with. How many times have you bought a cheaper piece of hardware from a no-name manufacturer because it fit your budget? It's not as common now because prices have gone down so much, but a few years ago, it was definitely very popular - I know. I did it. Sometimes you'd luck out, and other times, you'd have one component in your system that would always cause compatibility problems or stability issues. For me, it was an old Opti sound card; then, it was a no-name 430VX motherboard. And tracking down those kinds of problems can be very difficult because the symptoms don't always point to the culprit. I've always said that if you use the right hardware, a Windows box can be just as stable as any other machine out there - and my systems have supported that. I wouldn't reboot my system for months if it didn't have any problems. It was always a bad driver install, power outage or a program gone awry that forced a restart. People used to complain about Windows NT/2000 as a server platform because of stability; we've actually had more outages on our Linux servers than on our Windows servers. Not saying that Linux is a bad OS, but we know our Windows servers, and we know what hardware works best under them, and thus, once assembled and properly maintained, we had no real issues with them. >br?
OS X is built on a very solid core and it does handle individual applications crashing much better than Windows does. I've never had to reboot the entire system because one application crashed. It's also much better about restarting Finder (the equivalent of Explorer) if it crashes. It is things like these that make OS X a bit more "stable" of a platform than Windows, but also, remember that the tight quality control that Apple has over the components that go into their systems does also play a very large part in assuring stability.

The end result is that my Mac is a bit more stable than my PCs. It's not night and day, and the Mac does crash, just like my PCs do - it just crashes a little less frequently.

As far as hardware stability and failures go, I've heard horror stories about dead/dying G5s on Apple's support boards. I was honestly worried when I started reading through the threads; thankfully, I have yet to encounter any hardware issues with the G5, but I do recognize that there are users out there that have had serious issues with their systems. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) without much experience in this regard, there's not much I can say to Apple's hardware quality control, but I view Apple just like any other hardware vendor - there's no way that everything to come out of a company is going to be perfect. It's how they minimize the imperfections and deal with them when they occur that matter the most.

OS X Bottlenecks and Caching Applications under OS X
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  • victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    Chris North wrote in #164: I believe that the real high cost of the Mac is found in the need to buy expensive software

    Well, it depends on what you need to do. AutoCAD (PC-only) is C$4700, which is not exactly what I would call inexpensive. Its Mac counterpart, PowerCADD 6, while not equivalent feature-for-feature, costs much less (C$1300). MacOS X comes bundled with XCode, a complete dev environment. How much does Visual Studio .NET cost? Paint Shop Pro may indeed offer "better bang for the buck" -- but the Gimp is free, even better, yet Photoshop is the most widely used professional image editing app in the world, not counting the pirated copies floating around. Having said that...

    One of my concerns with the direction Apple is taking has to do with the upgradability of their high-end machines. PowerMac G5 towers can only hold two SATA drives without resorting to 3rd party solutions to cram more drives in. PC workstations often have room for 3 or 4 internal hard drives. The much-maligned PowerMac G4 towers could hold four drives (although the earlier models required an add-on ATA controller in a PCI slot). I also don't see how G5 processors can be upgraded, since they are so tightly integrated with the cooling system. On G4 towers, CPU upgrades involve just replacing the processor daughtercard. OTOH, MacOS X seems to get faster with every release, unlike a certain other operating system we all know and love... ;-)

    This week, Bill Gates will announce Windows XP Reloaded.

    I wonder if it will be immune to spyware...
  • chrisnorth - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    As a long time Mac user, I thought that this was a reasonably fair and unbiased article. Anyone who thinks that one computer platform is the be-all and end-all is nuts. I tend to prefer Macs, but Anand was right in many of his observations. Macs ARE more expansive without a doubt and his observation that it's the little apps that make the difference is dead on! Yeah, I can get Office and Dreamweaver, Photoshop and GoLive on the Mac, but what I really want is Jasc's Paintshop Pro, and EditPlus because they offer a better bang for the buck. I'm stuck with more expensive options. The one Mac app that really illustrates this better than any other is BBEdit. In my opinion, the $30.00 EditPlus on the PC is better, but it isn't available, so I've got to fork out an obscene $179.00 for the same functionality from BBEdit.

    Now there are loads of shareware apps being made for OS X. Some are really great, but many are crap. I believe that the real high cost of the Mac is found in the need to buy expensive software. The lack of a practicla upgrade path is another expense. Mac users will tell you that their machines last longer and my long lived Macs support this, but it sure would be nice to buy a new motherboard and processor for $500.00 instead of a new machine for $2500.00.

    Ultimately, I love Macs and use mine all the time, while the PC sits unused in the basement. But to dismiss real problems with the platform is like sticking your head in the sand. Great article Anand!
  • victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    Dennis Travis wrote in #161: If you read carefully he really likes it and OSX also and is still using it daily for a lot of his work

    Well, that's true, but for some reason, this bothers many people who want to find some reason -- any reason, really -- to not evaluate the Mac as a potential part of their learning experience. Gamers, for example. This is curious, to say the least, especially considering that the platform Microsoft is using to develop for the nex-gen XBox is the G5, not an AMD or Intel box. One would think that, if nothing else, curiosity might persuade some folks to check the Mac out on that basis alone.
  • ceneone - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    I'm commenting with respect to web browsers and speed. I sincerely must disagree. I've used a number of browsers with my Mac PowerBook G4. Even with only a 400MHz model, but with DSL 6.0Mbps. IE was one of the slowest browser in the speed catergory of AOL. For the most of the time Safari or Firefox clocked over 3.0Mbps, with Safari clocking 3.7Mbps, each rendering the fast webpages. Then Omniweb 4.5/5.0, Camino, Mozilla/Netscape 7.0, IE, Opera 7.54 for Mac and finally AOL around 700+ kbps.
  • Dennis Travis - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    I can believe people are still trying to say what Anand said. All Anands Mac article is was "A Month with the Mac". It was not a test, benchmark, it was his hands on with the G5 for a month. If you read carefully he really likes it and OSX also and is still using it daily for a lot of his work. The article was nothing else but that. I wish people would read.

    Going to read the Star Wars article now! Thanks Victor for the URL!!!

  • victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    FinalFantasy also wrote: "for people like myself and 100,000 other people, the Mac is useless"

    Only 100,000 other people? There are more than 100,000 AutoCAD users in the world, my friend. But just so I can more clearly understand what you're trying to get at, let's suppose that, as you say, most "basic" computer users just "want to play games, surf the net, use M$ Office, and listen to music" -- then for 3 out of 4 of those categories (not games), even the eMac would suffice. For that matter, so would a half-decent whitebox Celeron. The difference is that the Windows PC, while cheaper, would be vulnerable to malware that the eMac would just shrug off. And so your "basic" user finds out that surfing the Net is not exactly a pleasant experience anymore:

    http://tinyurl.com/5nge8
    "In June, Philippe Ombredanne, a systems administrator and programmer from Menlo Park, Calif., bought a new computer. He said he was feeling lazy so he put off installing security software for a day. When he woke up, the computer was infected with one virus and about 30 spyware or adware programs, forcing him to erase data and programs from his hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch. "A vanilla computer with no protection has no chance on the Internet anymore," he said."

    Unless that computer happens to be a Mac running OS X. :-)
  • victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    FinalFantasy wrote: they will want to play games, surf the net, use M$ Office, and listen to music

    *chuckle*

    Let's just tackle two of your points, Office and surfing.

    Office:
    Highly critical' security flaw found in Office
    http://tinyurl.com/4lp2e
    A vulnerability has been found in a Microsoft's popular Office Suite - MS Word in particular - that could give a malicious third party control of your machine...

    There is currently NO PATCH for the above vulnerability -- on Windows. The Mac version of Office (2004) is not affected by it. You did know there is a version of Office for the Mac, and that in some ways it's better than its counterpart on Windows?

    Surfing the net:
    Computer Users Face New Scourge
    http://tinyurl.com/5nge8

    Excerpt:

    Experts estimate that tens of thousands of spyware and adware programs circulate on the Internet. For now, the problem of such unauthorized software almost exclusively affects Microsoft Windows users. It's by far the most popular operating system and the same features that make it so versatile also make it easier for intruders to secretly run programs on it.

    Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates in a speech to Silicon Valley technologists this month, said that while he's never had a virus infect his computer, he's been surprised to find many spyware and adware programs that he never authorized on it. He said he has directed the company to launch a new project to create a "cure."
    --------------------------

    You also wrote: "For every John D. Lowry that uses a Mac platform for "some" project...there are 100,000 people using a PC."

    Sure. Your statement is just a variation on "Eat at Joe's Diner -- A Million Flies Can't Be Wrong"

    Your unassailable logic is impressive. :-D
  • FinalFantasy - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    victorpanlilio

    Hehe...you caught me with my pants down man. I really don't have time to pull up links, quotes, reference etc. As far as you Mac facts go (e.g. for use on restoring the Star Wars triology) you've got me beat.

    But my Ace card is that Anand was writing this article to appeal to everyday PC users/gamers. For John D. Lowry, the Mac platform he used is phenominal, but for people like myself and 100,000 other people, the Mac is useless. The PC can perform 100% of the task I want to perform where as the Mac will only perform about 20-30% of the operations I want to perform. Not everyone is going to need a computer that can digitally restore the Star Wars triology or other projects of that magnitude. 80% of "basic" PC buyers (counted for people/corp buying PCs not the quantity of PCs sold) they will want to play games, surf the net, use M$ Office, and listen to music. The PC has the Mac beat on games, M$ Office (compatibility and ease of use) and the PC wins in 2 of the 4 categories, the Mac wins 1 and they tie in 1.

    Remember...not everyone is going to need a Mac to digitally restore a Star Wars Triology ...hehe...most people just need it to play games and be compatible with M$ products, as M$ products are basically the standard around the world.

    For every John D. Lowry that uses a Mac platform for "some" project...there are 100,000 people using a PC.
  • victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    FinalFantasy also wrote: The only way I see a Mac being useful, is if they were a cheaper alternative to a PC instead of being a more expensive computer that is sold by name/brand

    Please share your amazing insight with John D. Lowry, whose firm restored the Star Wars trilogy recently released on DVD:

    http://www.apple.com/pro/film/lowry/starwars/lowry...

    Quote:

    To clean the films Lowry pushed high-definition scans of the original negatives provided by LucasFilm through his proprietary software running on 600 dual-processor Power Mac G5 computers, each with Mac OS X, 4 gigs of RAM and connected via gigabit Ethernet to a 378-terabyte storage array.

    “We find that Macs hold up incredibly well, much better than PCs,” he says. “We put them in their own room with their own air-conditioning, as they generate a fair bit of heat.”
    -------------------------

    Hmm.. I guess he doesn't worry about malware attacks, either.
  • victorpanlilio - Monday, October 11, 2004 - link

    FinalFantasy wrote: Macs are expensive computers that people pay money for cus it's a "Mac", like people buying a "Dell" or an "HP". Mac does a good job at making people waste money.

    Hmm, as someone who used to work for IBM, DEC, Compaq, and Fujitsu, I take exception to the idea that buying from a Tier 1 PC vendor is a waste of money. When you deploy 1500-2500 PCs in a large corporation, you first test your in-house apps on sample configs from the vendor, to see if there are any gotchas. Vendor commits to keeping the config the same, so that from start to finish of the deploy, your disk images work. This stability is very important to large corporations, because it saves money. People who have never worked on large-scale PC deployments fail to recognize the importance of these considerations. Apple is now beginning to address deployment and asset management issues in large enterprises with utilities such as Apple Remote Desktop 2.0, but it still has a ways to go -- ACLs would be really nice to have in MacOS X Server 10.3.5, as well as OS-level file locking.

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