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Comment by jimmies | Hacker News Reader

Although having performance is nice, I don't think people buy Mac computers for performance. It's known that Mac computers are a couple of times more expensive than PCs running Windows for the same performance. I can understand that: I personally wouldn't care if I have to wait 15 seconds or 8 seconds to get an effect in PS rendered. I would care much more if my computer crashes or gets infected with malware or has its hard drive crashed, or wouldn't be able to get support if something happens to it. Windows users have to be much more careful about those issues than Mac users.

Those are the things that Apple computers excel at. And that's from the mouth of someone that uses GNU+Linux.

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This model of Apple/Microsoft comparison is approximately 5-10 years out of date. MacOs has become a sweeter malware target, and Windows has hardened up since XP. Similarly, OS stability is not clearly dominated by one or the other in their latest offerings.

Haha, maybe I'm out of date. I know that Microsoft has stepped up on their game, but I figure I can share my anecdotal experience. One year ago I was trying to get Windows 10 or something going on my computer as a backup system. So I was googling a relatively popular freeware program (can't remember what it was) and tried to install it from a popular google search that appeared innocent (like softonic or something). Immediately after installing that I've got a computer with pop-ups and toolbars on my browser (just because I forgot to click Advanced install when I was installing it). It was awful - so I figured I can't be alone. It's more of the practice of the software developers on Windows more than it's the actual core of it.

But I don't think the average Joe cares who is at fault - he only knows that his computer is shitty at the end of the day.

I've seen similar malware target Firefox on macOS (been a while, but I have seen it).

Hmmm my 2013 MBA running El Capitan is indeed very stable, and seems to work reasonably well from photo editing to web browsing.

My 2016 MBP I use at work with MacOS Sierra is less stable than the older MBA. On numerous occasions, the laptop screen would not wake from black, requiring a hard shut down. The touchbar is buggy as hell, and the audio driver would stop working randomly. The trackpad is way less reliable for multitouch as well, and greatly reduces the pleasure of interfacing with the device.

Apple need to get their *hit together

> has its hard drive crashed ..... Windows users have to be much more careful about those issues than Mac users.

Hard drive failures happen regardless of OS.

10 years ago, serious academic computational groups were buying Mac Pros because the specs were top notch in terms of the max RAM and CPU speeds compared with the equivalent PC mainboards. They got dated and were also surpassed in a few years. But at the time, they were absolutely purchased for performance. You got a high performance and expandable Unix workstation in a nice Al case which didn't cost that much more than building your own and putting Linux or BSD on it. The cost/benefit was there for people who needed it.

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