Even Apple themselves offer a two button mouse. I have to admit I'm a die hard Apple fan and I prefer a two button mouse to the control-click method. Heaven forbid, I actually own several Microsoft mice. My technophobic spouse, on the other hand, would only get confused with more than one button so she's content to use the standard single button on her PowerBook.
I've been using two button mice on macs since the day of OS9. Now that I've switched to a MacBook, the two finger scrolling and two finger click = right click on the trackpad kicks all sorts of ***.
I don't think people realize how little they really use the right click... I rarely use it on Windows and never use it on a Mac (ctrl + click) that is. In most cases, their are keyboard shortcuts which are faster anyways.
again, if you read my post, i wasn't responding to you in my first post. did you miss that part? also, where did i say that you hated macs? it seems like you're arguing against me for things i haven't even said. why do you care? the "hate them" post was purely threadshitting. what you do with your computers is fine for you. i don't know you or your needs. so you can stop arguing against some imaginary problem that i have with your or your computer. weird.
The gap between the number of Mac games and PC games is shrinking rapidly. The majority of the big name releases will be available for Mac and PC on the same disc. And with OSX having to switch to an Intel architecture, developing games for both platforms will be easier. And a Mac can hold its own just fine vs. a PC when it comes to gaming. My friends PowerMac destroys my PC when it comes to any of the Blizzard offerings (SC all the way down to WoW).
Now that we've got the bickering out of the way...anyone else with an opinion on whether I should wait until Leopard comes out in Oct? I guess the real question would be: can you upgrade ops systems on a Mac or do you have buy a whole new Mac? If you have to upgrade, what approx would it cost? Hangs up upgrading OS like on Windows machines? I'm not sure I can wait until October. I'm sorta geeked about getting one (and I'm far from a geek. a computer geek, that is).
The bickering on this subject will never be done! But anyway. Upgrading your operating system is abusrdly easy on a Mac. Most PC users look at a system upgrade as a major ordeal. hell, when vista came out I read an entire article in USA Today about a guy preparing to upgrade his computer. Crazy. But to answer your question specifically -- I'd probably buy a c omputer before it came out. First of all, the new OS might not be out in October. Plus, it's no fun to wait that long. I'm completely making this up, but maybe apple has a deal where you can get the upgrade within a certain # of days for free. I don't know though...something worth asking about. But I don't know if the new features are reason enough to wait another 6months to buy a computer. Especially since an upgrade is only a hundred bucks or something like that anyway.
I switched to a Mac back in 2004 when the first G5 iMac came out. I absolutely love my Mac. That being said, definitely buy the AppleCare extended warranty. I have had to replace both the power supply and a faulty converter cable that powered the display. It is well worth the $$$ you might have to pay down the road if you don't get AppleCare. Other than those two hiccups, I haven't had any major issues. Upgrading to Tiger was easy though I am sure Leopard will probably require at least the new Intel Macs to make it run smoothly. Don't play games other than MacMame (retro video games like Donkey Kong and NBA Jam) because I have an Xbox 360. Enjoy your purchase. I am glad I made the switch and outside of a few things, I can do everything I did on the PC on my Mac and have an easier time doing so.
My G5 only came with a one year warranty. Power supply had to be replaced after a power surge last year and the display converter cable was either faulty or came loose. I would have had to pay around $600 to replace the power supply when it went out if I didn't have AppleCare.
Eh...I play a lot of games on my powerbook and I rarely experience any kind of lag or other slow down. But you're right -- if you are a serious gamer who is solely buying a machine play games on...apples are not for you. then again, neither are the majority of off the shelf PC's...you need to buy a gaming machine.
Yes, upgrading the OS on a Mac is virtually pain-free. Since you'll be buying an Intel based machine there are no worries whatsoever about backward compatibility. Apple will continue to support OS X on PowerPC machines for quite a while, yet, anyway. It's well-documented that Macs stay in service considerably longer than PCs and a key reason is Apple's ability to provide OS backward compatibility--heck, I still have a couple of machines around running OS X that were purchased before OS X was even conceived. The upgrade should run around $129 if it's similar to past releases. There's a chance that Apple will offer a free or discounted upgrade at some point, but only if hardware sales slow down significantly in anticipation of the new OS. If you're a student the upgrade has been available in the past for $20 through the school. It's true that Macs are not quite up to PC performance on games. That's not to say they don't work fine for the vast majority of users, but hard core gamers are always looking to out-spec each other. It's the modern day equivalent of the drag strip. Rumors are that Apple is working to optimize that part of the OS so that may not be the case for much longer. Anyway, you can always run Windows on an Intel Mac if you feel you have to have better game performance for now.
I wouldn't suggest getting a Mac to someone who pretty much only uses their computer to play games. With saying that though my Mac handles Civ4 (The only game I have) a lot better than my PC does. I bought the PC version first for my Dell laptop and it took so long to load anything especially late in the game it drove me crazy. So I bought the Mac version, and it runs a lot smoother. (and obviously that's not that graphially intesive game). Again though I'm not a huge gamer or anything, just giving an example of a game playing better on a mac. I'm sure my brother-in-laws alien-ware laptop could still get my Macs ***.
vista ultimate is quite a bit more than $200. and saying that windows users got any number of years usage out of an os is specious at best considering the only reason they were using xp so long was because of the delays in finishing vista. microsoft's failure to ship was the reason xp had such a long lifecycle. it certaintly wasn't out of any benevolence on ms's part to help users get the most out of xp. otherwise i'd say apple's delay of leopard is a huge benefit to mac users because we'll get more usage out of 10.4. it's a failure to deliver on their own schedule. that's it. again, i'm not the norm when it comes to buying boxed versions of operating systems. i knew your post was really a veiled dig at macs rather than asking out of curiosity since every post you make on the subject seems to have a strong bias against macs. like i said before, if you like windows, then bully for you. i'm quite sure most people who are considering switching to os x from windows have done the cost/benefit analysis for themselves. so i'm not sure where you motivation comes from. why spin microsoft's failures to finish vista and their current incompatability as a "benefit" for the computer user. i'm not sure i get that.
Just to clear up the myth that Macs look better aesthetically than PC's here's my PC I built for $1000 2 years ago that outperformed any Mac out at the time and still outperforms any Mac close to its price.
