Peter F said:
Hi All,
Please could someone help.
I am in the process of trying to identify the best solution (Laptop) for
my
son who has just started secondary school. He has explained to me that he
would like an apple laptop, what i wolud like to know is what is Apple/Mac
as
opposed to Windows.?
I have no idea what apple/mac is.
Apple is the company, Mac is the computer. The laptops are called MacBooks
and MacBook Pro.
http://www.apple.com/mac/
The operating system today is Mac OS X (X meaning version ten, specifically
10.5 or "leopard"). This is apparently based on a version of Unix.
Mac is short for Macintosh.
Would-could someone explain what the difference is between the two
companies, systems, applications?
Apple is the *only* manufactuer of both the Mac and its OS.
This is extremely unlike the history of the PC, where the main developer,
IBM, released the system hardware specifications in the early eighties.
This allowed other companies (and individuals) to easily make compatible
hardware and caused their market to not just grow, but explode in size; not
only can you get thousands of different brands and types of PC, they can all
run many different operating systems - but not the Mac OS.
Apple kept their secrets close and thus stayed small to the point of being
marginalized. What saved them, probably, was the iPod.
Until recently, Apple used non-intel processors, but now have shifted to
Intel systems, which allows new Macs to also run Windows.
Macs are most commonly used in arts contexts, where sound and graphics are
important. However, most standard business applications are available for
both Macs and PCs. You will find all the word processors and spreadsheets
and browsers you need. And it will be easy to record audio and video;
because Apple development is done in such a small circle, compatibility
tends to be high.
You do want to take some quality reviews of the particular models you're
looking at. Some laptops, and this applies to non-Macs too, can get *very*
hot, and this can be a problem.
Macs tend to be focused on "ease of use", which can sometimes be frustrating
for those who want more control over the system. For a long time, Mac mice
had *one* button, which to me is an indication of the kind of restrictions
Apple intends to place on users. But that could just be me; I use a
command line pretty frequently.
For school use, Macs are just fine, and in some ways are better - there are
fewer (which does not mean none) viruses and assorted malware targeting the
Mac OS, so you may find that when your son is out chatting and browsing and
downloading - and be sure that this will happen - there is less chance of
system-damaging infections. But this does not mean that there is no chance
of such things.
The word processing programs you get for the Mac need to be able to save in
the same document formats that PCs use. This is *easy* to test for; write
something, save it, open it on a PC with MS Word installed. If it opens,
it's fine.
I would suggest that you ask the school for their recommendations on Macs
and PCs. It's likely that they will list both, which means that either is
acceptable.
In the end, what is important is that the computer can do what it is
intended for, that the applications needed are available, and that the user
is comfortable with the system.
Hope this helps.
-pk
.