Why I Design on a PC Instead of a Mac
Friday, October 5th, 2007Categories: Web Design
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UPDATE: I play devil’s advocates and speak about the 5 reasons I should buy a Mac.
I figure it’s about that time where I write a controversial article about a hot topic. Recently, Macintoshes have been having increased sales, especially amongst students. Not too long ago (less then a year), I was a student in a Graphic Design program. In a program that was naturally flooded with Macintoshes, I used a PC. Don’t get me wrong, I used new purchased Macintoshes for most of the day and I evaluated them just as critically as PCs. Now I’m going to tell you, why I do all my work on a PC at work, at school and at home.
Cheaper
That’s right. It’s cheaper. If you compare similarly equipped computers, one a PC, the other a Mac, Macintoshes cost more. This shouldn’t be news to you. Whether they’re coming down in the price, or they’re getting better, that doesn’t matter. Now, they are more expensive.
The fact they offer student discounts is irrelevant because, contrary to popular belief, PCs can come with student discounts as well.
Hardware Customizability
The customization panel at Apple.com is nothing compared to other build-it-yourself companies. I’ll give them credit for having some options, but they are scarce. If I don’t need 320GB of storage on my computer, why should I pay for them? You can make the argument that if you need extra RAM, you can buy it and add it. To that I say, that’s nice, but what if I need less RAM? Did you want me to list a RAM stick on Craigslist?
File Format Advantage
Thankfully, as days go on, transferring file-formats across platforms is easier then ever. My Photoshop file is the same as your Mac’s photoshop file. The same with Illustrator and InDesign.
With that, a small percentage of the general population uses a Macintosh. That means if you do get a strange file format from a Client (Microsoft Works comes to mind), it is more likely that that file came from a PC. Because it came from a PC, it’s easier for another PC to scramble and find the right software to open it.
Software
Also due to the fact that a small percentage of the general population uses a Macintosh, that means less people develop programs for a Macintosh. I’ve had clients request strange file formats, some of which are very difficult (or impossible) to put together on a Macintosh.
With Open Source software being ever so popular, the advantage to being able to actually run that software is especially important. As an example, Cyberduck, one of the few open source FTP programs for Macintosh, constantly crashes and constantly asks for money. FTP Programs that don’t crash and don’t ask for money are a dime a dozen in the PC world.
ASP and ASP.NET
Clients are sometimes restricted to what resources they have at their disposal when dealing with their website. If those resources happen to be ASP and ASP.net, managing and developing without Microsoft’s help is… I don’t even want to imagine it.
I Don’t Crash Less
A well-maintained PC runs just as well as a well-maintained Macintosh. Macintoshes crash just as much as PCs if you continuously stockpile them with programs that eat your computer’s resources and you don’t clean it every now and then.
I Don’t Get More Viruses
Although there are exponentially more viruses for PCs then there are for Macintoshes, a diligent PC user will get just as many viruses as a diligent Mac user. If you open up every email in your inbox and instinctively click on any attachment, regardless of the extension, in that case, stick with your Macintosh.
Testing
Being in Web Design, this is a big issue for me. With a PC, and only one operating system, I can test a website on Firefox, Safari, Opera and all versions of Internet Explorer. That being said, I can easily turn anti-aliasing (ClearType) on and off to see if there might be layout differences. Testing on Internet Explorer and toggling anti-aliasing is painful on a Macintosh.
Conclusion
I think I’ll stick to my PC. As it stands, the only one reason for making a switch to Macintoshes is that iTunes runs like garbage on a PC.
UPDATE: I play devil’s advocates and speak about the 5 reasons I should buy a Mac.
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October 5th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
“a dilligent PC user will get just as many viruses as a dilligent Mac user. ”
LOL!! You’re kidding right?
October 5th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Your definition of a diligent PC user might be slightly different then mine. I’m talking about above-average people.
October 5th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
And another great reason to design on the PC: The free program Notepadd++ (google to find it from sourceforge). Simply the exact perfect program for hand-coding. Knows all the different languages for it’s colour coding(plus you can add your own if necessary), has a wicked find and replace feature that can span multiple open documents, tabs for multiple documents (like firefox), ability to create macros, automatic text conversion for different quotes and other characters, automatic submission for validation (HTML, CSS, etc), can use HTML Tidy in the program, and I could go on and on. This program is unreal and only available on Windows. I’ve used lots of the similar Mac programs, they lack the features of Notepad++ and you have to pay for many of them. This simple notepad program has vastly raised my quality of life.
In response to ctd: I don’t even run a virus protection program on my windows machine, and haven’t for years. No viruses. Unfortunately, the “average” user probably does click on every link in spam emails and on all the pop-ups on some webpages. This veil of protection on Macs will end one day when some hacker puts his mind to it. Nothing is 100% secure, and Mac users should stop taunting windows user because it will come back to bite them in the a$$.
October 5th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Hi Kevin, you’re right. Fortunately, Macintoshes have an alternative to Notepad++. BBEdit (costs money), and its free brother, TextWrangler perform similar color coding operations. I’ve not used Notepad++ (Dreamweaver is to blame for that), but I have seen BBEdit in action, and it is something to compete against.
Thanks for the response, in terms of Anti-Virus. I uninstalled mine 6 months ago and haven’t encountered a reason to reinstall yet.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:13 am
“If I don’t need 320GB of storage on my computer, why should I pay for them? You can make the argument that if you need extra RAM, you can buy it and add it. To that I say, that’s nice, but what if I need less RAM? Did you want me to list a RAM stick on Craigslist?”
Well, I wouldn’t know what to do with 320GB Ram, or do you mean hard drive storage?
That sentence in particular is either poorly written, or you dont’ know what the heck you’re talking about.
Macintosh Finder is a great FTP client that comes on the mac, I use textwrangler for text editing.
Anyone using MS Works, needs to get up to speed with the times.
Most PC users use Word and can’t figure it out - and all they really need is Notepad.
I’ll stick with my Mac, I switch to it 3.5 years ago, and haven’t looked back.
By the way, freeware is plentiful on the Mac!
Virus protection, average joe needs it on the PC, mac users don’t need it yet…if you know how to use the internet - you don’t need virus protection no matter what computer you use.
I found this looking for a texteditor for my father-in-law to be able to add content to my web page, found on google by typing in “what compares to Textwrangler for PC.” thought I’d let you know how I found you! I’m a mac user and thankfully clueless about PC software.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:12 am
Hi Chris, thanks for the comment.
-Re: 320GB storage then talking about RAM without some sort of indication of a new topic: poorly written. I’m not a writer, I just pretend to be. heheh
-Re: MS Works, I totally agree, but there are strange clients out there. People seem to use Microsoft Publisher too… :/
-Word vs Notepad, I agree, I love notepad.
-Virus Protection, agreed.
-Ah very cool. Thanks for stopping by. Did you read the comment about Notepad++ ?
November 1st, 2007 at 9:06 am
I did read that comment and am going to look into it. By the way the emails I get woth links to comments result in 404 error
November 14th, 2007 at 1:58 am
Great article. As Mac’s gain in popularity, their fan-boy-ism only gains in ridiculousness. I should state that I’m a loyal Mac user (like most, a PC convert). I do design and coding work like most of you. I only have a couple of issues to add to the discussion:
1) Pointing out that Patrick’s language could have been clearer doesn’t change the fact that Macs need to be A LOT more hardware flexible. Yes, this will introduce some problems regarding drivers etc. that Mac users glory in avoiding (oh, and that’s a big point for Macs that neatly balances the hardware flexibility problem). As a driver-savvy user, I’d rather have hardware choice than easy drivers (or transparent drivers), but that’s probably not a common feeling.
2) Clients. This is a great point. Clients have all kinds of weird files and requirements. It’s perfectly fine to tell them to “get with the times”, but that’s an attitude that doesn’t really work in the long run. Unless you’re one of those lucky people with more work than they’ll ever need.
3) Malware. While I agree that it’s not hard to keep viruses off you machine, and for you (and other savvy users), it’s a wash, BUT you’re not considering all the other garbage that you need to worry about on a PC. Worms, trojans, etc. that walk right in on IE’s latest bug. Ok, don’t use IE, but that’s still a point in Mac’s favour. I used to work sysadmin for my University’s Computing Science dept., and our record for the longest time between plugging a fresh XP install into the internet and getting hacked was 8 seconds. Obviously because of the hardware available in a CS dept, we get port scanned A LOT, but this is not a problem that can be solved with diligence. It is also not a problem on Macs.
4) Crashy crashy. This one I just disagree on. I’m hard on my machines. I leave many programs open. I install experimental software. I edit system files. My reformat/reinstall cycle is about 2 years on a Mac. 6 months at the most on a PC. And that’s with diligent firewalling/AVing. The install also takes about 1/3 the time on a Mac. It should also be noted that Macs don’t work well in a lab/classroom environment. I only note it as you said you used them at school. Macs are fine if the sysadmin knows his/her biz and keeps them on a Mac-run/mac-adminned network, but sadly, most admins try to run them on Win networks (based on the promise of Mac-friendly Active Directory), but it just doesn’t work. PC-networked Macs crash as much (if not more) than PC’s.
5) Software. PC wins, but it’s closer than you think. Yes there are just not enough good OpenSource alternatives on the Mac. BUT the ones that do exist are pretty great. Quality over quantity. You only need one Notepad++ (and yes, BBEdit is not as good as Notepad++ for those Mac users wondering). The fact that there are a million Notepad++’s on PC doesn’t make Notepad++ any better. The realy reason that they are pretty balanced is shell integration. I can do more with Apache/MySQL/PHP and that ilk with my trusty Terminal than you can do in Windows. Yes, it’s an advanced feature, but for a “diligent user” it’s fantastic. Some notes: a) Cyberduck is much improved (I just switched from Fugu and I’m very happy). b) Finder FTP is slick and easy but not robust enough to be useful.
Again, great article. Thanks for a reasoned approach to a discussion so often filled with unreasonable arguments.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Oh wow, thanks for the comment Matt.
@4) I haven’t looked at the type of network the Macs were on at school. But I can easily understand where you’re coming from. It also makes a huge difference if your tech guy is ultra PC savvy with decent MAC knowledge or the other way around.
@1,2,3,5) Absolutely agree.
Thanks again for the intelligent response.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Also, just found another one. In alpha, for windows. It won’t be open source but it has promise. Currently in ver. 0.3. It’s called inType. A little light on features right now in my opinion, but I thought I’d add it since I was such a notepad++ supporter.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Sometimes it’s not bad to be light on features. A lot better then being bloated.
UPDATE. I played devil’s advocate and (unsarcastically) pointed out 5 reasons I would buy a Mac: http://www.pat-burt.com/general-web/5-reasons-to-buy-a-mac-im-still-not-convinced/
July 19th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
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