Psihomodo said
"the percentage that uses their Macs for more than typing, e-mail, web and occasional picture/video handling is small".

Gavin Barrie said
"...like my brother in law (plus secretaries and accountant) who runs a legal business all based on Macs, my Engineer friend who runs a consultancy design business on macs, myself who uses it for pretty hardcore modeling and analysis using mathematica and my parents using Macs to run a local allotment society"

Brother in-law's Legal business = exactly as Psihomodo said "typing, e-mail, web and occasional picture/video"

Friend's engineering consultancy - What does this friend do? Is he a kitchen building engineer? Is he a mobile tyre fitting engineer consultant? Engineering consultant means almost anything, could even include the guy who works on the checkout at the local hardware store. ;-)

Yourself:
"myself who uses it for pretty hardcore modeling and analysis using mathematica" Such as?

Your parents:
"my parents using Macs to run a local allotment society?"

Heh. They post some emails, do some typing, maybe reply to forms, and some photos or video editing.

Isn't this all exactly as Psihomodo said?

All of this can be done on just about any modern pc, in fact most of it can be done on a £200 netbook. In fact if I didn't play computer games I too could get by on a netbook.

I'm not having a go at you, just balancing things out for reality and honesty.

Lets be straight up with each other. Apple and Windows pc's all can do much the same things, except gaming. Microsoft PC's have longer support, which I didn't know about Apple.

In fact the more I learn about Apple the more I realise they don't support any of their products and seem to deliberately shorten their lifespans. The hardwired non-replaceable battery in their mp3 players is another example of this.

I would also find it difficult to believe that any serious engineering company would use MAC's, for example I work for a small company and we have licenses for UG, Solidworks, and Pro E. We work primarily in solid works, but we need to have the other packages available for collaboration and exchange of information with our customers.

The pickings are very slim and I wouldn't be surprised at all if there was nothing suitable for a lot of engineering firms. The good news though is that once your $1,700 MBP is running Windows, it should be able to run all that great Windows CAD/CAE software just like any other $1,200-1,300 laptop.

You pick the cheapest, simplest package that I listed (still a perfectly usable 2D CAD package and still proof that your assertion that no CAD packages exist for the Mac is incorrect) and then try to claim that no engineer would be seen dead without a package like CATIA (a highly expensive product targeted at medium to large companies, unlikely to be used by a small consultancy). Poor, very poor.

What a nice balanced article. Obviously a little frustrated - PC crashes getting you down?

MacDraft...... are you serious? Are you really going to do engineering design on MacDraft?

Engineering software is CATIA, Pro/ENGINEER, UG, SolidWorks, etc and is done on Windows or UNIX. I’ve never seen or heard of anybody using a Mac for engineering design.

You’re not an engineer are you Steve T?

No CAD software for the Mac? Just shows how badly informed you are about it. There are more CAD packages than you can shake a stick at, including TurboCAD, MacDraft, VectorWorks, DesignCAD, ViaCAD etc. You might want to do a simple Google search next time before opening your mouth and putting your foot in it.

“my Engineer friend who runs a consultancy design business on macs,”

That seems a little odd. My understanding was that there was NO CAD or CAE software for Macs. Why would you want to use Macs exclusively if they have no engineering design software?

Maybe they still do drafting by hand and just use the Macs for iMovie.

Sounds good to me, a Mini Mac on my 24" Samsung monitor and a Linux Laptop.
Why Apple, great video editing and Adobe Photoshop elements rocks.

Have not had an Apple for over a year but look forward to OS X again, great OS.

I'm responsible for all the non-server computers in the company. They all have Windows on them. I have arranged my office so that my computer is out of view, to maximize my desk space.

And to hide the fact that my workstation is really a MacBook Pro.

Unlike Apple fanboys, I can't get worked up over Microsoft. It's a waste of good emotion. After all, in a world without walls, who needs Windows? I sure don't.

The length of support is a measure of how crap a product is. The longer the support the crapper the product (vernacular speak).

I went to high school with a guy who worked in the Physics Department of Berkley using a Mac for all their modeling programs and running their equipment. I do believe he now works for CERN using very similar equipment.

I would imagine this is occurring much more than before. I feel the impression is based on Apple marketing and by PC users who feel that Macs are good for nothing PsOS (just because you can't open them up to customize the color of the cooling fan.)

You are actually quite wrong. You'd be surprised of the huge adoption of Macs in the research world. In my lab, the administrative personnel use windows, and the entire research staff (except for two Proffessors left using Linux), use Mac. I've been in many labs, and this image is getting more and more common...

Have XP. Is still supported. Don't need an upgrade. Total cost: $0.

I personally do buy new every 2-3 years, in my case Mac laptops, and I sell the old one on ebay and get around 40% of the original value back for ploughing into repurchase, so it's not as expensive as you'd think.

"the percentage that uses their Macs for more than typing, e-mail, web and occasional picture/video handling is small"

...like my brother in law (plus secretaries and accountant) who runs a legal business all based on Macs, my Engineer friend who runs a consultancy design business on macs, myself who uses it for pretty hardcore modeling and analysis using mathematica and my parents using Macs to run a local allotment society?

I don't think my friends and family are that unusual either.

@Gavin

You obviously don't buy all new every two years, 'because than you would know exactly how it feels, and remember that we are talking about the new hardware also.

And then when you sum it up it is expensive, no doubt about it. And all that just for a typing machine, 'cause lets face it, the percentage that uses their Macs for more than typing, e-mail, web and occasional picture/video handling is small and/or are professional users like DTP and design.

Windows 7 Ultimate Full Version, £229

Snow Leopard 10.6 Full Version, £132, INCLUDING iLife and iWorks.

Windows 7 Ultimate, Upgrade Edition (from XP or Vista), £199

Snow Leopard Upgrade edition (from 10.4 or 10.5), £25

Ok, so where is the downside in being 'forced' to upgrade your MAC OS every two or three years, when it's relatively inexpensive to do so and actually helps your machine run *faster* and frees up disk space (10.5 vs 10.6) rather than become more bloated?

Can't see the downside. Nope.

Supporting old software for as long as Microsoft does, is both a blessing and a curse.

One of the main reasons Windows is still successful is because of compatibility reasons. People simply can't leave the system altogether.

On the other hand the same thing is the main reason why Microsoft can't throw out old clunky parts of the system and introduce new innovations fast enough. So Windows keeps falling behind constantly.

I'm happy that not everyone is like Microsoft, that's the entire point of competition.

Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001
All Windows XP support, including security updates and security-related hotfixes will be terminated onn April 8, 2014

Windows 2000 was first released on February 17, 2000
All Windows 2000 support including security updates and security-related hotfixes will be terminated on 13 July 2010