Why do you prefer a Mac ? @ The Apple Collection

When it comes to the Mac
Most PC users don't know jack!

Strong sales of Apple's hot G3 line in January pushed Apple to the #3 spot among personal computer retailers. That's according to a recent survey conducted by market research company PC Data, Inc. The report showed that in January, Apple's retail sales were 12% of the PC retail market, putting them third in terms of revenue behind #1 ranked Compaq and #2 Packard Bell/NEC. (Gee, where's IBM and Gateway? Let me give you a hint–behind Apple in sales, that's where! HP, who used to be ranked second, has now dropped below Apple too!) When it comes to total units shipped, Apple was ranked fifth, with Compaq again occupying the top spot.

Computer Intelligence reports that when it comes to customer loyalty, Apple ranks as "far and away the favorite." The recently released report put Apple at the top of the heap when it comes to repurchase rates for companies that buy computers at 51%. Compaq had 32% and Gateway 2000 was lagging far behind with only 3% repurchase rate. Ouch!

Of the products review in the previous year by Publish, 84% are Mac (with 35% available Mac Only). For Mac-Windows, 42% are available on both platforms. And Windows only reviews were just 19%. Again, that's 84% for Mac and just 42% for Windows.

Macintosh rules in Desktop video and animation production. That's according to the results of Post Magazine, a magazine for video production, who recently released the results of their 12th annual survey of video production facilities. Their survey showed Macintosh as the overwhelming choice, with Macintosh capturing 58% of survey respondents, vs. only 27% for Windows NT. Also, in the area of Desktop animation, Macintosh lead there as well with 36% using Mac, vs. only 23% for Windows. These figures once again reinforce the fact that Macintosh is the clear choice fore creative professionals everywhere.

According to USA Today's "USA Snapshots" section, Mac OS third-quarter sales jumped significantly, rising from 5% of all sales in 1996 to 33% in 1997. This is due, no doubt, to the record-breaking demand for Mac OS 8. USA Today's statistics also showed that according to NPD SofTrends, Windows 95 sales dropped from 77% in 1996 down to 63% in '97. Sales of DOS (DOS!?) fell from 10% in 1996 to only 2% in 97%. Windows NT sales were not disclosed, but really, who cares?

Apple released their FY1997 Macintosh Installed Base and User Statistics, and according to Apple, "27.6 million Apple Macintosh computers have been shipped worldwide since 1984, and 79% of all Macintosh computers shipped are still active in the installed base. And with an average of 3.2 users per Macintosh computer that computes to approximately 69.3 million Mac users worldwide. Not bad, eh?

Apple's Jan '98 sales third among all PC retailers. That's according to PC Data, Inc. who released the results of their survey in early March '98. Their survey showed that Apple had the third highest revenue in the entire PC retail market. Only Compaq and Packard Bell/NEC sold more units. (which shows that Apple even outsold IBM. Again.) The survey showed that in total units shipped during that period, Apple ranked fifth.

More web pages are created on a Macintosh than any other platform. According to WebWEEK, the weekly trade journal for Internet Professionals, Macintosh is again the #1 platform for professional World Wide Web authoring. In their second annual survey, Macs had a 47.9% market share among U.S.-based professional web-site design firms where as Windows 95 scored only with 24.2% and Windows NT only 16.5%. (Source: WebWeek Magazine, 1997 www.webweek.com)

The fastest personal computer in the world is, again, a Macintosh! But just how fast is it? According to tests conducted using BYTE magazine's BYTEmark benchmark program, the industry-accepted measure of computer processor speed, the chip in the Apple's new Macintosh G3 models is twice as fast as Intel's top-of-the-line Pentium II/300. (vs. Compaq 5100/PII 300) and test also revealed that Apple' G3 PowerBook is approximately 80% faster than any PC laptop you can buy today. This helps to explain why the Mac G3s are the fasting selling computer in Apple history.

Half of the families in FamilyPC magazine's "95 days with Windows 95" gave up because they were "upset over its hardware requirements, frustrated by its slow operations on their machines, or just plain fed up with compatibility problems. One of the testers, who dropped out of the test after two months said, "It has been a time-consuming disaster." Read the facts at http://www.zdnet.com/familypc/content/960318/win95/win95.html

New report shows schools choosing Macintosh over Windows! The Technology Purchasing Forecast report, released June 30th, 1997 by Denver Based Quality Education Data (QED) shows that 59% of the planned computer purchases by school districts are intended to be Macintosh, a 3 percent increase over last year. And according to Field Research Corporation's 1996 K-12 School/District Office Survey and 1997 K-12 Teacher Survey, Apple is the leading brand of computer used by teachers in schools and homes

A PC magazine admits--200 MHz Power Mac trounces 200 MHz Pentium Pro in their own real world tests! Byte, the popular PC magazine, compared a 200MHz Pentium Pro with a 200MHz Power Mac (PowerPC) 604e processor in a series of benchmark tests for performance and the Mac blew the Pentium out of the water! In Byte's benchmark test the PowerPC processors outperformed the Intel Pentium in integer calculations by as much as 81% (Pentium vs. 603e) and in floating point calculations by as much as 26% (Pentium Pro vs. 604e).

Nobody can beat Apple's brand loyalty! The latest study conducted by Computer Intelligence shows Apple as #1 in brand loyalty with 87% repurchasing Macintosh computers for the FOURTH straight year! I wonder how many Packard-Bell owners buy another Packard Bell?

Mac OS third-quarter sales make major jump! According to USA Today's "USA Snapshots" section, Mac OS third-quarter sales jumped significantly, rising from 5% of all sales in 1996 to 33% in 1997. USA Today's statistics also showed that according to NPD SofTrends, Windows 95 sales dropped from 77% in 1996 down to 63% in '97. Sales of DOS (DOS!?) fell from 10% in 1996 to only 2% in 97%. Windows NT sales were not disclosed, but really, who cares?

Apple still has huge cash reserves! Through all the doom and gloom of the national media and their coverage of Apple's restructuring, it's rarely mentioned that Apple still has a healthy cash position of over $1.35 billion in reserves (that's billion with a "B"). And that cash reserve figure is reportedly larger than the cash reserves of roughly 95% of the corporations in America. For 12 straight years, Apple continues to prove the analysts wrong!

C|Net picks Windows 95 as "One of the biggest disappointments of 1996!" In fact, in nominating it for one of the biggest disappointments of the year, they said, "Though it was hyped as a 32-bit powerhouse, many companies simply ignored it and stayed with Windows 3.1. And who could blame them? Plug and Play is often plug and pray and to make matters worse, Windows 95 often runs slower than a comparable Windows 3.1 system. And 32 bit or not, it still crashes. A lot." Read it at: http://www.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Special/Best96/ball5.html

Apple holds the #1 market share position in K-12 education. According to Quality Education Data, 1996-1997 Technology Purchasing Forecast, Apple holds the #1 market share in K-12, and according to Field Research, 64% of K-12 teachers use Apple-brand computers.

Macintosh rules in desktop video and animation production. That's according to the results of Post Magazine, a magazine for video production, who recently (Feb '98) released the results of their 12th annual survey of video production facilities. Their survey showed Macintosh as the overwhelming choice, with more than twice as many professionals using Macintosh as Windows. Macintosh captured 58% of survey respondents, vs. only 27% for Windows NT. Also, in the area of Desktop animation, Macintosh clearly has the lead their as well with 36% using Mac, vs. only 23% for Windows.

There are approximately 69.3 million Macintosh users worldwide. Apple released their FY1997 Macintosh Installed Base and User Statistics and according to Apple, "27.6 million Apple Macintosh computers have been shipped worldwide since 1984, and 79% of all Macintosh computers shipped are still active in the installed base (21.8 million Macintosh computers in use today).There are an average of 3.2 users per Macintosh computer in use today, which computes to approximately 69.3 million Macintosh users worldwide." Not bad, eh?

Professional Designers use Macintosh! Publish, the cross platform "Magazine for electronic publishing professionals," announced the winners of their 9th Annual Design Awards in their May 1997 issue. And it's no big surprise that all of the winning entries were designed on a Macintosh except for one which was designed on a 486 PC by a designer in Brazil.
For even more proof, look to Print magazine (an industry trade journal for graphics professionals) whose "Digital Art and Design Annual" features winning entries from around the world. Of the 189 design winners, 185 were produced on Macs, and only 2 were produced on a PC. That's puts award-winning PC designers at about 1%. Gee, with all those millions and millions of PCs out there, you'd think more than 2 designers could come up with something worth merit. Perhaps not.

Mac sales soar at CompUSA thanks to their new "Apple Store Within a Store" concept. CompUSA reported that sales of Macintosh computers in stores that added Apple's Store within a store section jumped from 3% of overall store sales to a whopping 14%.

Study shows Macintosh Web servers have lower cost of ownership. An independent study released by the Newton, Mass-based Business Research Group reveals that Macintosh Web servers have the lowest cost of ownership, lowest maintenance, and are the easiest to use for small to medium-sized businesses. The study cited lower initial costs, lower installation costs, lower content creation costs per page, lower total outside services costs, lower server management costs, and lower peer training and online help costs

Publish shows professional designers are staying with Macintosh. Publish magazine's 1998 issue released the findings from their recent study that shows that the majority of design professionals are not considering switching platforms to Windows. Other details from their survey indicated that when it comes to page layout, 67% use Macintosh, for image editing 67% use macintosh, and for illustration 61% also use Macintosh.

Macintosh is still significantly ahead of Windows 95 on features. Just ask Byte magazine which wrote, "To see tomorrow's PC, look at today's Macintosh." Or Computer Reseller news who wrote, "Market acceptance non withstanding, Windows is far, far behind the Macintosh." Or perhaps consider what PC Computing said: "Macintosh System 7.5.2 is by far the easiest, smoothest, most usable operating system out there."

You can't get that program on Windows 95. There are currently over 1,889 "Mac only" Applications that are not available for PC users. Visit Apple's Web Site for the entire list.

Users who use both Mac and Windows 95 on a PC, like the Mac better! An independent study by Evans Research shows that people who use both system rated the Macintosh higher in every category including overall satisfaction, productivity, and ease of use. Read the findings of the report at http://www2.apple.com/whymac/satisfaction/default.html

In a head-to-head public battle staged by the Software Publishers Association, the Macintosh beat Windows hands-down. The "Ultimate Mac vs. Windows Challenge." pitted a senior technical editor from Windows Sources magazine, and his assistant, against a 10-year-old Mac user. In a series of real world tests (which included assembling the computer, connecting a printer and a Zip drive, connecting to the Internet, etc.) the youngster finished in *half* the time taken by his opponents.

Apple is worldwide market leader in digital camera sales. According to BIS, the Apple QuickTake camera's share is greater than the sales of all other digital camera manufacturers combined.

Software developers make higher profits with Mac software than Windows software. Macintosh continues to offer developers and retailers greater profitability than the competition. Average revenues per unit remain higher overall for Macintosh software than for Windows applications, according to reports from PCData and SPA.

Using Macintosh computers to develop software saves money! On average, the cost to develop and support Wintel (Windows/Intel- based PCs) applications is 50% higher per dollar of revenue than the cost to develop for Macintosh. Also, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) reports that although the Macintosh hardware market may be less than 10%, Macintosh software makes up over 18% of all software sold. The report went on to point out that Macintosh users actually use more applications than Windows users and cited ease of installation of Mac applications as one of the reasons.

Macintosh rules the CD-ROM market. 72 percent of all multimedia CD-ROM titles are developed on a Macintosh; Regardless of the platform they run on, 42 of the 50 top-selling CD-ROM titles worldwide were developed on Macintosh; and Apple is the Number 1 multimedia vendor in the world...for the second year in a row.

Apple Wins J.D. Power and Associates Desktop Personal Computer Satisfaction Study. Apple Computer, Inc. leads the computer industry in overall customer satisfaction for desktop personal computers, according to the J.D. Power and Assoc. Desktop Personal Computer End-User Satisfaction Study.

By Sir Frag and his owner, rajnchaos - Version 1.1 - February 9, 1999
PLEASE NOTE that this is not an anti-Macintosh page. I have been a fan of the Mac since 1988, when I first used a Macintosh computer. Being a fan however, of the Macintosh platform, does not obligate anyone blindly applaud every action which Apple takes, or every product which Apple releases. I believe that Apple, primarily due to the presense of Steve Jobs, is becoming just another computer company - better financially, yet with a lower quality product.
Send comments to or . They will be posted here unedited followed by feedback from one or both of us. If you do not want your comments posted on the Comments Page, please say so in the body of the message.

(rajnchaos)

In August 1998, Apple computer released the iMac, an impressive looking computer designed solely for delivery of access the internet to the general population. As of this writing (September 6, 1998) the first generation iMacs ship with 32 megabytes of RAM, a 233MHz or 266MHz PowerPC g3 (750) microprocessor, and a 4GB or 6GB EIDE hard drive. The iMac has an extremely impressive monitor, although only 15î in size, it is capable of refresh rates equal to or in excess of 115Hz. Although not resulting in a crystal clear image, the iMac's monitor provides image clarity more than sufficient for the elderly - one of the target groups of customers.
The iMac adopts a new connectivity standard known as USB, or universal serial bus. This standard allows for communication at up to 12 megabits per second (1.5 megabytes per second), roughly 8 times the speed of a full T1 internet connection. The keyboard and mouse that ship with the iMac are USB devices.
The iMac comes with an impressive array of devices which can be used for internet access, including a 56K v.90 capable modem which allows for the highest analog modem speeds available today over a single analog telephone line, and 100 base T ethernet, allowing for connectivity to most local and wide area networks (note that the iMacís 100 base T ethernet is also compatible with the more common 10 base T ethernet standard. The iMac also ships with full stereo sound in/out capabilities.
The iMac however does not ship with any of the necessary hardware to use many of the devices which were fully compatible with older Macintosh models. For example, the iMac does not have any SCSI capabilities. Until recently Apple used SCSI exclusively in all it’s Macintosh models, adding IDE to the product line for the low-end/consumer models (including many Performas, Powerbooks, and the current g3 machines). This prevents use of hundreds of SCSI devices such as scanners, hard drives (removable as well as static), and digital audio editing systems.
As mentioned earlier, the keyboard and mouse that ship with the iMac are both USB devices, and the keyboard can act as a partial USB hub. Although finding necessary bandwidth to accommodate these devices will never be an issue, the devices themselves leave a lot to be desired. The iMac’s mouse is a 3" diameter circle, perhaps sufficient for the educational market in which this machine will be used primarily by those without fully developed hands, however most adults will find this difficult or impossible to work with as will gamers, who commonly use the mouse as an input device.
The iMac does not have any expansion slots - period. There are rumors of a PCI bus on the iMac, however no slots are to be found. Adding PCI to the iMac requires adding a passthrough cable in between the motherboard and the CPU daughtercard. This cable would lead to an external box with a relatively large number of PCI slots - perhaps 7 of them; these devices, which are currently available for almost all other PCI based Power Macintosh systems cost approximately $1,000 dollars. This of course is assuming that the rumors of a PCI bus being on the iMac are accurate.
The iMac was intended to be a consumer machine. This means that it has to be able to play games. Although the introduction of the iMac has caused many game developers to return to the Macintosh platform, the first iMacs are far from an adequate gaming machines. This is primarily due to the video processor that Apple first chose to include in the iMac - the ATI Rage 2. This outdated chip is far slower than the ATI Rage Pro included in the other Power Macintosh g3 machines (and now the current iMacs) and, although quite capable of running many games, will not run games that require a 3D accelerator at speeds that will satisfy many gamers (glQuake was benched at 12 FPS). In a silent upgrade this summer, Apple replaced the iMac's Rage II chip with a Rage Pro chip, in addition to increasing the video RAM to 6 megabytes and replacing the OS with MacOS 8.5. This not only greatly increases speed (ATI Rage Pro can run glQuake at 45-50 FPS), but it provides the possibility of openGL support in the future. I personally applaud this move to a respectable video processor, however as this was a silent upgrade it has created fragmentation in the iMac hardwarebase. Essentially, one iMac may run popular 3D games four times as fast as another, and if openGL support is implemented in MacOS some 3D games wil run well on some iMacs, while on other iMacs it may not run at all.
One technology that Apple computer has almost always had the lead in (at least in the consumer market) is speech synthesis and speech recognition. The iMac has more than sufficient power for speech synthesis, however the speech recognition software that ships with the Macintosh operating system requires a sound input rate of 22.05KHz, the iMac is capable of inputting audio at no less (and no more) than 44.1KHz, rendering the speech recognition software, which is installed by default, taking up valuable disk space and, possibly (depending on whether it is active at the time of initial installation) RAM, useless.
The iMac’s modem was intended to be capable of 33.6KbPS initially. After extreme consumer outrage it was moved to a v.90 capable 56K modem. Some claim that this change rendered the iMac’s modem unstable, others say it was like this from the start. Either way, they are both correct. The iMac’s modem is extremely sensitive to the slightest deviations from optimal line quality. Most v.90 modems would renegotiate to a v.34 speed and continue the connection. The iMac does this reliably at times, however at many times it will simply drop the connection. Apple’s fix to this involves a new modem initialization script that limits speed to 33.6KbPS. The extra money that was spent on the addition of a 56K modem is thus wasted and the potential for early (pre holiday season) price reduction is obliterated.
The iMac is a generally stable machine, however, do crash at times. The Macintosh has had a reputation not of being the most stable machine, but of being the easiest to deal with when not all is functioning perfectly. On a typical macintosh comptuer, when the machine freezes, one can trigger a reboot by holding down the control and command keys, and tapping the power key (the key at the top of the keyboard, marked with a triangle); on some less typical Macintosh computers (and some older ones) a reset switch is located on the back of the computer. On the iMac however, the only way to recover from a freeze is to either turn off the machine from the power switch, or to insert a paperclip into one of the underdocumented small holes next to the USB ports. One of these will reboot the machine, the other will invoke a miniature debugger and will sometimes present the user with an intimidating screen filled with hexadecimal code. I believe that this deviation from the standards that most Macintosh computers have adhered to not only cusfuses those already familiar with the Macintosh platform, yet also reduces usability, and potentially reduces the life of iMacs owned by those not familiar with the Macintosh platform.
The iMac was officially designed solely for delivery of access the internet to the general population. It was of course obvious that many owners of older Macintosh computers (IICI, early Performas, etc.) would purchase this machine as the 233MHz or 266MHz g3 processor is a huge step up from the early Motorola 68000 series of microprocessors, and $1299 is a very small price for an upgrade of such percieved enormity. However those who choose to obtain this machine tend to have great difficulty if transferring their data to their new computer. One option is to network the two machines.
A networking standard popular among owners of these older models was Localtalk. It uses ordinary phone wires along with inexpensive transceivers to transfer data at a reasonable speed of 230,400 bps, over four times as fast as the fastest single-line analog modems available to the public as of this writing. One would assume that integration of the iMac into a Localtalk network would require nothing more than the purchase of an additional transceiver and a phone wire. This is not the case; the iMac does not have the standard Macintosh serial port that the Localtalk transceiver plugs in to.
The only networking standard that the iMac supports natively is ethernet. This modern high-speed standard provides communication nearly 440 times the speed of Localtalk. However most of these older Macintosh computers do not support this standard natively. An ethernet card can be added to most of these machines, giving it ethernet capability (while in some systems, occupying it’s only expansion slot). If an ethernet network already exists on site a cable can be run from the iMac to the ethernet hub, if not a crossover cable can be used instead of a more costly hub to connect the two machines together. The user must then configure their network drivers (hardly something that the average iMac customer will be proficient in), mount one of the drives on the other computer, and begin copying files.
Another option would be to simply swap hard drives. This would require opening both computers (and probably voiding the iMac’s warranty) and physically swapping the drives. This however only works when the older machine uses an IDE drive - not a rare scenario, but not prevalent either. The user would then have to reinstall the system software by starting up from the system CD-ROM that is included with the iMac. This is due to the fact that the iMac does not use a standard copy of MacOS, it instead uses a specialized one that is exclusive to the iMac, and most likely does not function on other Macintosh computers. The iMac also requires a ROM image file to boot, more on this later.
One other option for transferring data from an older machine to an iMac would be the purchase of two external removable media drives such as the 120 megabyte Imation Superdisk or the 100 megabyte Iomega Zip drive or a USB 1.44 meg floppy drive which might be good for getting a couple small files from computer to computer but it would be next to impossible to get megs even gigs of data from today’s more modern computers to the iMac. There is of course no reason for a USB version of the 2 gigabyte Iomega Jaz drive as the 1.5 megabyte per second transfer rate of USB is not sufficient, and is extremely slow compared to the 40 megabyte per second burst transfer rates of the standard Jaz’s SCSI-2 interface.
One recently discovered problem with the Imation Superdisk is that it prevents use of installers that use multiple floppies. This might not be a problem for new computer users, but it will prevent installation of much software that existing Macintosh owners use. MS Word 5.1 for example, comes on something like 7 floppies, and not every Macintosh owner wants to spend >$300 on Office 98.
(frag)
Speaking of a floppy drive I always thought they came with your computer well not the iMac. You will have to do without your floppy based software or find some other way of getting that data to some other storage device (Zip drives, CDR/RW, 120MB Superdisk drives etc). I hear that someone is planing on making a USB floppy drive, but that’s more bux you should have to shell out on a small storage device when most people want to shell out there hard earned (or not so hard earned) cash on bigger removable storage devices. If you want a easy way to install floppy software or use floppy disks you will need to buy a USB floppy but there might be another option: the 120 meg Superdisks are also backwards compatible with regular floppies but I havent heard of a USB version in the works so dont hold your breath.
Every Mac as ROMs until now, however, the iMac has no hardware ROMs - the ROMs are in the OS and they way they load is by loading into RAM (taking as much as 3 megs of it) but it does not load all at once it just loads parts of it and when it needs more it then goes to the HD and loads it on to RAM and this is not good if you run lots of programs at once because they need RAM and if the ROM's are taking up RAM then you might not have enough and your program will go to the disk to load information often slowing down the performance of your computer or it just wont run at all because of the lack of RAM.
Memory the iMac ships with 32 megs of ram but what happens when you need to go from 64 to 96 or 128? well what will happen is you will be flushing money down the toilet because the iMac only has 1 free ram slot so instead of buying another 64 meg DIMM and doubling your ram you are going to have to shell out extra cash for a 128 meg DIMM. Don’t even think about going to 96 megs of ram because its impossible with the iMac as it has only 1 DIMM slot.
Another waste of money is the extra hardware that is not needed. The iMac uses a USB keyboard but the motherboard still has both ADB and floppy hardware on it. Why would apple do this if they are trying to make a fast computer with a low price it just adds to the price and wastes your money.
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