PC vs. Mac: A Juvenile Discussion?

I just listened to the very first podcast from PC Pro magazine – it was an interesting discussion based on the age old question, "Which are better, Macs or PCs?"

After a pragmatic and rational analysis, the Mac was shot down and the PC won the argument soundly. But can you really answer this sort of question with a discussion. To me its sort of reminiscent to when as kids we would argue over who would win in fight between the Incredible Hulk and Superman. It’s obviously a question of personal tastes and we’re all different. Sort of like having a serious debate whether the Rolling Stones were better than the Beatles?

The real reasons that people like Macs were not explored to my satisfaction in the discussion. It’s hard to put a specific value on the aesthetic qualities of computers. It means different things to different people. Perhaps an ergonomics expert could have defended the Mac corner better. Without a visually pleasing and fun to use operating system, I doubt whether the typical computer user would be inclined to use PCs over pen and ink.

So why is a leading PC magazine taking this playground argument so seriously? Well, Apple have only brought it upon themselves with their recent international ad campaign – you know the ones that start, "Hello I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC..."

"Apple's ads may be funny, but they're woefully inaccurate."

I totally agree with this quote from PC Pro, and I find it very interesting that Apple are taking the tact of making confident, but ultimately pseudo-rational, dreamt-up advantages.

It’s quite a clever tactic when you think about it. Whenever we buy anything we have to justify the purchase, whether it’s to our spouse, friends, or even to ourselves. It’s a tricky business and impulse purchases are often the hardest to justify. "I just liked the colour" sounds pretty weak in the face of "It’s got 200 GigaFlops of Mega RAM ".

This strategy is nothing new. Take the Dyson vacuum cleaner for example. Famously it has no loss of suction – a much more powerful reason to buy than, ‘Its fun to see all my household dirt spinning round and round’. And we all know the Google story. A couple of students who figured out how to give better search results quicker. But could the real attraction be that it just looks nice and simple?

Broadly speaking, Macs and PCs are both very similar, they are both computers. Yet admitting this is considered blasphemy amongst purists. Enthusiasts in both camps see this as a matter of black and white, one is good and the other is bad.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the PC Pro discussion yielded some great points that can help people make a more informed discussion. However, I don’t think that a discussion can ever produce a definitive winner and loser – just highlight the pros and cons.

Zach Hope is the author of Speed-Up-Windows-XP.com, a site that can teach anybody speed up Windows to invigorate old computers. You can have dramatically more PC speed today from your slow computer.