The Michigan Telephone blog

I’ve learned that one should never say “never” — after all, circumstances may change, and the thing you thought you’d never do becomes the very thing you feel you must do — in my case, leaving my religion would be the most prominent example. But while many Mac users may leave one with the impression that owning a Mac is somewhat akin to belonging to a cult, not everyone who buys a Mac is all that enchanted with it. I’ve had my Mac Mini for about two years now, and I just can’t see myself ever buying another Mac. What follows is solely my opinion, and nothing in the following paragraphs should be taken as statements of fact — it’s all just my opinions and my experience.

I had high expectations when I got my Mac Mini a couple of years ago. My son had a Mac and was quite happy with it. Notice my use of the word “was”, as in the past tense — my sense in talking to him is that while he’s nowhere near as down on the Mac as I am, he’s still a bit disappointed by the direction that Apple’s been taking with OS X. He originally got his Mac when the “Tiger” version of OS X was being shipped, and under Tiger things mostly just worked. Leopard brought problems, and from what we are reading, Snow Leopard is bringing even more problems, though not to all users.

Anyway, I had been using an underpowered box running Windows 2000, and basically wanted something that would play video smoothly and generally run a lot faster. I realized the Mac Mini was no speed demon, but at my age I’m not playing interactive games or anything like that. But if I go to a site like Hulu, I want the video to play without unexplained pauses, and in that I was disappointed — the Mac Mini just can’t seem to pull that off. If I play a 45 minute show, I’ll probably have half a dozen incidents of the picture just freezing up for several seconds, while the sound may or may not continue on.

But even that I could live with. The real problem with the Mac is the hidden cost of owning a Mac. Yes, you can buy a relatively inexpensive Mac, but the cost to get it working the way you want it to may be higher than you expect.

One of the reasons I bought a Mac Mini was because I don’t like the idea of an integrated display. As long as the display and the computer are separate, if the display goes bad I can grab a backup monitor and I’m back in business. But also, I wanted to use my own peripherals. Several articles I had read indicated that the Mac “just works” with most peripherals. Sadly, I have found that is not the case.

The first thing that wouldn’t work is a Memorex scanner that I’ve had for a few years, that I really liked because it could clearly scan a small three dimensional object without totally losing focus, as long as the depth of the object wasn’t over an inch or so. That meant that, for example, text near the spine of a book scanned clearly even if the book wouldn’t lay totally flat. Unfortunately, this scanner only had a Windows driver. Fortunately, when I got the Mini there was a free-after-rebate deal on certain accessories, among which was an all-in-one unit that included a scanner. So in order to get a scanner that is a bit faster, but that doesn’t scan three-dimensional objects quite as well, I had to do a free-after-rebate deal on a clunky five-function unit, out of which I only use one of the functions. But, okay, I’m told that my old Memorex scanner might not work under Windows 7, either, so I’ll give them a pass on that one.

Then there was my Samsung laser printer. The Mac ships with drivers for some Samsung models, but of course not the one I have, even though it’s a very popular model (ML-1740). It turned out that the only way to obtain a Mac driver was to go to Samsung’s Australia site. Well, okay, that worked, but it was hardly “out of the box” support for my printer, and to this day the Mac doesn’t natively support that model. I now wonder if my printer would stop working if I were to upgrade to Snow Leopard — it’s a real concern because some other users have lost the ability to use certain peripherals after upgrading.

My keyboard had a PS2 plug. Can’t use that; the Mac only supports USB keyboards, although you can get a cheap adapter on eBay. That works, but on about one out of three reboots the keyboard is not recognized. Of course I could have sprung for an expensive genuine Mac keyboard, but I don’t have money to burn. My son finally got me a USB keyboard for my birthday, and that works great as long as it’s plugged directly into the Mac Mini and not into a USB hub (I also had other keyboard issues that I described in previous articles).

And so it went. We found that not all USB hubs would work reliably with the Mac — you have to get one that is known compatible. Plug the Mac into a wired network, and it’s a crap shoot whether it will see the other machines on the network, or whether users at those machines can see your shared directories.

But the thing that really was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was my webcam. I had TWO perfectly good webcams that worked great under Windows, but the Mac wasn’t having either of them. So my son went online and found that many users said that the Sony EyeToy was compatible with the Mac. And he got me one, and it does work — with every program except iChat and PhotoBooth. Use it in Macam (third-party webcam software), and it works great. Under Skype, check. In fact it works beautifully in any NON-Apple program. But iChat and PhotoBooth simply refuse to recognize that there’s a camera there.

Now, every time I make a post like this, some Mac fanboy will come along and say something like, “Well, you can just buy program XYZ and then it will work!” Well, in case you haven’t figured it out, I don’t have spare cash to burn. That’s why I got a Mac Mini (on sale) and tried where possible to re-use peripherals. That’s why I try to use only free software whenever possible. In the Mac world, that really limits your choices.

I’m told — and I don’t know if this is true or not — that the only reason the webcam won’t work in iChat is because some internal preferences are set incorrectly. In the Linux world, or even in the Windows world, someone would likely publish an article telling you how to reset those preferences, so you could get your hardware to work. Of course, with Windows (and probably in many Linux distros), it’s likely that the webcam would just work from the get-go with all software capable of using it. But from were I sit, it almost looks like perhaps Apple DELIBERATELY cripples iChat and PhotoBooth, so if you try to use anything other than an overpriced webcam with an Apple logo on it (assuming you haven’t purchased a high-end Mac with a built-in webcam), you might have issues. And then some turd figured out how to fix the problem and rather than publish the information to help other users, they decided to create their own add-on software and sell it, and now that’s the only solution ever offered to someone experiencing this problem.

In other words, whether because of malice or neglect, some third-party webcams won’t work with Apple software.  And Apple apparently seems to think the only solution is to buy their overpriced hardware (virtually ALL Apple hardware is overpriced, in my opinion), or buy some third party software that fixes whatever preference or bug exists in those programs that stops them from recognizing the webcam.

And THAT is what I hate about the Mac world – everything has a price. Well, not everything, but far too many things. I look at software like Asterisk and FreePBX and realize that if these had been written to run on the Mac, it’s likely that each of these programs would be priced at several hundred dollars (rather than given away free) AND there would be additional charges for each module, codec, etc. People wouldn’t write helpful how-to articles that show how to accomplish a task in four or five lines of dial plan; instead they’d write a small program to inject those lines of code and then charge $10 or $20 for it. And, I guarantee you, if that model were used, none of that software would be nearly as popular as it is today.

That’s not my only problem with the Mac, of course. You know how Windows sometimes freezes up and you get to watch the spinning hourglass? On my old Windows box, it rarely spun for more that a few seconds, although occasionally it might go on for a minute or two. On the Mac, you get the “spinning beach ball of death” — it may freeze up just one application, but far too often it freezes up the entire system, to the point where keyboard and mouse input is either totally ignored, or it takes anywhere from several seconds to a minute or two to respond to user input. This is one of the most frustrating things about owning a Mac — you never know when this will strike (usually at a very inconvenient time). I’d say it happens to me at least once a week.

Of course, I could reboot the system. On my old, slow, Windows box this usually took about three to four minutes, including the time required to start up the software I always had running (e-mail program, IM client, etc.). On the Mac, it seems to take ten minutes or more for the system to get into a fully stable state after rebooting. With early versions of Leopard, on at least a couple of occasions when I had to reboot, the system simply would not reboot and I wound up having to do a process called “Archive and Install”, which is sort of like reinstalling the operating system under Windows, except that all your existing data and most of your software settings are preserved (but not necessarily all your drivers for your hardware). Fortunately, whatever caused that problem seems to have been fixed in later versions of Leopard!

Then there’s Mac software. Some of it’s okay, much of it isn’t (again, just my opinion). Safari doesn’t hold a candle to Firefox, with one exception — if I highlight an entire article and drag it to the Mail program in order to send it to someone, coming out of Firefox it will only get plain text — no embedded links, and no graphics or photos. Coming from Safari, it gets everything. I have wondered if this is something Apple has done to sabotage the functionality of non-Apple web browsers — I sure wouldn’t put it past them, but have no way of knowing. Even when their software seems to work okay otherwise, it seems to always have strange limitations, like the aforementioned problem with iChat and PhotoBooth not recognizing my web cam when all non-Apple software does.

Another example: Apple’s Mail program is pretty good, though I liked Eudora on my old Windows box a bit better.  But it has one irritating flaw:  If it fails to connect with the POP server, it sometimes pops up a box asking you to re-enter your password.  Since I don’t know the password off the top of my head (I use a secure password, after all), usually I’ll just click cancel, assuming that the server problem will resolve itself shortly and my password will again be recognized. But when I hit cancel, Mail locks out the account (that is, it won’t check it for mail again) until you specifically right-click on the account and tell it to check for new mail.  Other e-mail programs can gracefully handle temporary server issues; why can’t Mail?

The ONE thing I really like about OS X is that you don’t have to worry about running an adware/spyware checker, and if you don’t want to use an anti-virus program it probably won’t matter (other than if you do use one, it may slow your system down even more). The Mac actually has a security model that works. This is not an insignificant thing — I used to really resent the amount of wasted time and resources I had to spend running software to avoid viruses, adware, etc. under Windows. However, I’ve read reports that lead me to think that this happy situation on the Mac may not persist forever, particularly if the Mac ever gains significant market share and thus becomes a much more appealing target for hackers (the bad kind). But then again, I wonder if I could achieve the same level of security by running a good desktop Linux distro, such as Linux Mint or Ubuntu Linux (but then I wonder, would I have the same hardware compatibility issues under Linux that I have under the Mac)?

So if you are wondering whether to get a Windows box with Windows 7, or a Mac with Snow Leopard, my advice to you — as a Mac user of almost two years — would be this: If you are wealthy, if the recession hasn’t affected you, and if you don’t mind being nickled-and-dimed to death for software that could likely be obtained for free on other platforms, then buy a high-end Mac and get AppleCare and bitch like hell (to the Apple “Geniuses”) whenever something isn’t working — you are the sort of customer Apple apparently wants (you have money to burn) and maybe they will take care of you. On the other hand, if you are not wealthy, and/or if you want to use free software whenever possible, and/or if you want your existing hardware to just work, you are probably going to want to stick with Windows (I say this with the caveat that Windows 7 will very likely “break” some older pieces of hardware, as often happens with new versions of Windows). If you REALLY like free software, try to pick up a gently used (one or two year old) PC, or if you are able, build your own PC from components (there are sites and videos that show how to do this) and then install a user-friendly Linux distribution – Ubuntu is the most popular, but check out Linux Mint as well — supposedly it’s basically Ubuntu with added support for playing various media types, and other tweaks to make it a bit more user-friendly.

Having said all the above, I will add this: My plan is to try and get at least a couple more years of use out of my Mac Mini — yes, it can be a royal pain in the posterior sometimes, but I just can’t afford to run out and buy a new computer every year or two. And in a couple years, a lot could change. Maybe Windows 7 will turn out to be a real dog (although it would have to be better than Vista — wouldn’t it?).  Maybe Snow Leopard is better than initial reports have led me to believe. And maybe, just maybe, Apple will finally realize that it has to start being compatible with a wider range of hardware if it wants acceptance.  Trying to lock users into buying only your products never works in the long term; either people figure out ways around it or they start to avoid your products altogether.

But right now, today, if my Mac Mini stopped working, the last thing I would do is buy a brand new Mac. I’m just not happy with it, nor am I ready to join the cult of Apple (the fanboys who’ll buy anything with an Apple logo, and when Apple suggests they buy something, they obediently whip out their credit cards). What I’d really like to find is a good, relatively inexpensive computer with approximately the same footprint as the Mac Mini (I really do like the compact size) but with low power consumption and enough horsepower to play videos without skipping or unexplained pauses.  If it came without a bundled copy of Windows (so that I could use a Linux distro without allowing Microsoft to make money on an OS that I might never use), that would make me even happier, though if it came bundled with Windows 7 at a low enough price, I might be tempted to go with it (I would not buy a computer with Vista at any price).  I’m hoping that Moore’s Law will kick in, and that within the next year or two, such computers will become available, maybe even commonplace.

EDIT: Two newer computers that could, in some situations, possibly replace a Mac Mini (and that are usually sold with Windows 7 in the USA, though you can also sometimes buy them with Linux preinstalled if you’re willing to deal with a seller in Taiwan) are the Acer Aspire Revo AR3610-U9012 and the ASRock ION 330 NVIDIA ION. Both are available for less than $350 from several online merchants, but you have to be careful to compare specs and make sure you’re getting the newest models — as with the Mac Mini, there are older, less powerful versions of these machines, with slower or less efficient CPU’s, and less memory and internal hard drive storage. Interestingly, both of these have HDMI outputs, so either could be the basis of a small (and relatively quiet) living room PC that is used to play media on a HDTV set.

Of course, I will also honestly say that my opinion of the Mac might be a lot different if a Mac Mini sold for, say, $199 or even $299.  But I know better than to suggest that — I don’t want members of the “cult of Mac” on my doorstep with pitchforks and torches!

(Disclosure for the FTC: Neither Apple nor Microsoft (EDIT: nor Acer or ASRock) have ever paid me or given me anything for free, and in any case, I doubt that anything in this article could be construed as an “endorsement” for either company’s products, and this article isn’t intended to endorse anything).