CASE 260 - Apple / Microsoft

It’s no surprise that the war between Mac and PC users has been going on for ages and the troops are disposable, all over the web you see the question, "I want to buy my 1st computer what shall I buy", this is where the corporations win every time, and then the ego's come out from either side defending either one. Some Mac users can’t stand PC users and vise-versa. Windows users claim that Macs aren’t suitable computers because they’re not practical and Mac users claim that PCs are insufficient and slow. So can we credit these myths? Are Macs not worth their price? Are Windows PCs really that awful?, me I am a great fan of using a mac and having windows on my system, best of both worlds

In this article, we will compare both companies in a very neutral manner! (whilst I write on my mac) We will first understand which company started first.

According to Wikipedia, the first successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI) was the Apple Macintosh, and it was introduced on the 24th of January 1984. About a year later, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Windows in November 1985 in response to the growing interest in the GUIs. The Apple Macintosh continued to sell successfully through the second half of the 1980s until its sales began to decline in the 1990s when the market shifted towards the IBM PC that was running a Microsoft Windows operating system. Microsoft quickly took over the world’s PC market leaving the Mac OS behind it. In 2009, Microsoft was reported to have approximately 91% of the operating systems market share, whilst mac has 5% of the market, but while Microsoft slowly looses control from all directions, apple is expanding with its Iphone, Itunes, Ishops and so many others.

Significant amounts of phthalate, a toxin thought to cause birth defects, have been found in the iPhone and iPod headphone cords.

Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/02/19/10-Worst-Corporate-Polluters/index2.html#ixzz1KaQF5VSA


MAC

The Macintosh, or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command-line interface. The company continued to have success through the second half of the 1980s, only to see it dissipate in the 1990s as the personal computer market shifted toward the "Wintel" platform: IBM PC compatible machines running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows.
Years later, Apple consolidated its multiple consumer-level desktop models into the 1998 iMac all-in-one. This proved to be a sales success and saw the Macintosh brand revitalized, albeit not to the market share level it once had. Current Mac systems are mainly targeted at the home, education, and creative professional markets. These include the descendants of the original iMac and the entry-level Mac mini desktop models, the Mac Pro tower graphics workstation, the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops. The Xserve server was discontinued January 31, 2011.

Production of the Mac is based on a vertical integration model in that Apple facilitates all aspects of its hardware and creates its own operating system that is pre-installed on all Mac computers. This is in contrast to most IBM PC compatibles, where multiple sellers create and integrate hardware intended to run another company's operating software. Apple exclusively produces Mac hardware, choosing internal systems, designs, and prices. Apple does use third party components, however, such as graphics subsystems from nVidia and ATi. Current Mac CPUs use Intel's x86 architecture; the earliest models (1984–1994) used Motorola's 68k and models from 1994–2006 used the AIM alliance's PowerPC. Apple also develops the operating system for the Mac, currently Mac OS X version 10.6 "Snow Leopard". The modern Mac, like other personal computers, is capable of running alternative operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, and, in the case of Intel-based Macs, Microsoft Windows. However, Apple does not license Mac OS X for use on non-Apple computers



WINDOWS

Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. As of October 2009, Windows had approximately 91% of the market share of the client operating systems for usage on the Internet.The most recent client version of Windows is Windows 7; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2008 R2; the most recent mobile OS version is Windows Phone 7.

The history of Windows dates back to September 1981, when Chase Bishop, a computer scientist, designed the first model of an electronic device and project "Interface Manager" was started. It was announced in November 1983 (after the Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh) under the name "Windows", but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985. The shell of Windows 1.0 was a program known as the MS-DOS Executive. Other supplied programs were Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard viewer, Clock, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal, and Write. Windows 1.0 did not allow overlapping windows. Instead all windows were tiled. Only dialog boxes could appear over other windows.
Windows 2.0 was released in October 1987 and featured several improvements to the user interface and memory management.[6] Windows 2.0 allowed application windows to overlap each other and also introduced more sophisticated keyboard-shortcuts. It could also make use of expanded memory.



Mac, PC users bash each other over survey results
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/25/mac.pc.users.comments/?hpt=Sbin