College Students

My wife is now Attending the University of Connecticut.

Why are Apple Macs so popular with college students?

I dont know of anyone else or other group of people who uses them.

Most places of employment use Windows based PC.

Ive personally never used a Mac, so i cant judge or say if i like or hate them or not, but i just dont see what makes them popular in college.

most people use macs because they are not as popular and the mac os x operating system environment is very organized and efficient. plus they are cool to use. also they have good battery life, also there are some people who only buy mac.

My wife is now Attending the University of Connecticut. Why are Apple Macs so popular with college students? I don't know of anyone else or other group of people who uses them. Most places of employment use Windows based PC. I've personally never used a Mac, so i cant judge or say if i like or hate them or not, but i just don't see what makes them popular in college.

Macs are popular for the college crowd because someone, somewhere said that you aren't cool unless you have a Mac. Mac's are progressing in the office environment and have been the standard in the graphic design and video editing industry for years.

I use a Mac... I however, am not nearly as cool as a college kid. I am in finance and I've had mine for over 3 years, and it runs like a champion. I had bought a new non-Mac computer three years in a row during college, they all crapped out, two from hardware and the third was just slow so I ditched it.

Aside from the pretentious nature of Mac users, they are very reliable and easy to use. It is possible to get nearly every single application on OS X that is available for Windows and nowadays interoperability is a non-issue. If your next question is "So should I get a Mac?" I'm not a fan boy or anything, I just use it out of efficiency and personal preference. If you try one out at the store and decide that OS X is right for you, by all means. If you get one for any other reason, I have $1,000 designer shoe laces that I would like to sell you.

I have both a Mac and a PC. I prefer the Mac because it's a much more reliable system. There's no daily updates, and system crashes. None of the issues I have with Vista exist on the Mac; it just consistently works. Sure it's more expensive, but if you're not really tech-savvy it's probably the way to go.

College kids use MAC because: A: their "cool" which means people think they visually look bettter than most PCs, plus somebody, somewhere, said they were. B: they are alot easier to use, im told espicially for things like syncing hardware over a network, which can be a nightmare on a PC.
The downside is, MAC is more expensive, and you can't really "build" a MAC like you can a PC

I'm at university now, and I don't think the "cool" factor (if one exists) really matters, certainly not here anyway. Being a CS guy, most of the other people in my class hate Macs, but I use one because I'd rather spend my time doing "the stuff I want to do" rather than getting the machine to work at all. Windows seems to get in the way all the time, whereas the Mac just lets you get on and procrastinate.

I have a PC, Windows based laptops, an iMac and a Macbook Pro

MAC Positive: The OS X is rock solid, no where near as prone to viruses or spyware unlike Windows, and you get an awful lot of software that you actually use pre-installed on a MAC unlike the garbage you get bundled with on a PC

MAC Negative: Having bought myself an external drive to back-up files I learned the hard way that MAC's cannot write to an NTFS file system. Meaning I can't just drag and drop files from my MAC on to it. I need NTFS since FAT32 cannot handle file sizes larger than 4GB. So I'm left with a drive I can only use on my PC and will have to buy another drive and format it to HFS+ especially for my MAC I can't be bothered with partitions

I have a PC, Windows based laptops, an iMac and a Macbook Pro

MAC Positive: The OS X is rock solid, no where near as prone to viruses or spyware unlike Windows, and you get an awful lot of software that you actually use pre-installed on a MAC unlike the garbage you get bundled with on a PC

MAC Negative: Having bought myself an external drive to back-up files I learned the hard way that MAC's cannot write to an NTFS file system. Meaning I can't just drag and drop files from my MAC on to it. I need NTFS since FAT32 cannot handle file sizes larger than 4GB. So I'm left with a drive I can only use on my PC and will have to buy another drive and format it to HFS+ especially for my MAC I can't be bothered with partitions

guess what I ended up partitioning my ext drive after all that I just did 500Gb HFS+ and 500Gb NTFS so I can use it with both a mac and a pc

The OS X is rock solid, no where near as prone to viruses or spyware unlike Windows

I'm not pushing a Windows PC over a Mac but the only reason that Macs don't have virus problems is that the virus creators don't want to waste their time writing viruses for an operating system that has such a small market share.

I feel I must point out another yet to be discussed advantage in the favor of Mac.

Many do not realize this but............

You can easily run both Mac OS-X and Windows on a Mac simultaneously!!!!!!! The opposite ( Mac OS-X and Windows on a Windows PC) can be done but it is not easy and tends to be buggy.

I have to chime in as well...

I own both a Mac and several PCs. One of my PCs runs Server 2003, and I have nothing but trouble getting my Mac to access the PC files, even after installing Samba.

Macs seem to be good as stand-alone PCs, but they are nowhere near as "virus-proof" as advertised. There are rootkits and malware for Macs, but they just aren't used by enough of the market to make them a popular target.

The price point on a Mac is about the same as a high-end PC, so that really shouldn't make a huge difference.

One facter that is highly overrated in Macs is stability. The Mac I own has nothing but issues, as far as mounting DMGs to install, installing updates, etc. And it runs OS 10.5 Leopard.

Maybe I'm just a PC, but the PCs are easier to maintain and interoperate. And don't get me started on printing on a Mac. I have an industry-standard Lexmark, and my Mac just decides when it wants to print and when it doesn't. Even after setting up CUPS.

Bottom Line: both platforms have issues...they are just different issues.

The opposite ( Mac OS-X and Windows on a Windows PC) can be done but it is not easy and tends to be buggy.

Not to mention it is against apples end user license.

And to Eric I agree both platforms have issues and so does the linux kernel but the mac os x is a little better I run a powerPC and it is as stable as ever more so than my new custom desktop I just built.

Edited by computerxpds, 09 May 2010 - 10:48 AM.

Just for clarification purposes.....

Not to mention it is against apples end user license.

You can easily run both Mac OS-X and Windows on a Mac simultaneously!!!!!!! <-- Consistent with EULA

The opposite ( Mac OS-X and Windows on a Windows PC) can be done but it is not easy and tends to be buggy. <-- Violates EULA

Kind regards,
~ t

I support both Macs and Windows, have done so for many years.
There are pros and cons with both.
I prefer Macs, personally. I am posting this from a WinXP machine.

OSX's underlying kernel is a BSD Unix. Unix started as a multi-user university platform and arguably is more secure with 25 years of development.
Apple focuses on the single end user. Apple is very focused on the User Interface and ease of use. I guess that translates to "cool". Apple knows what is in every computer they sell.
Windows was focused on business use for a long time. Places where the IT department managed security and wanted to be able to manage a thousand computers from the server room. This is the main reason for the security problems for home end users in my opinion. Microsoft tries to support every imaginable hardware combination.

Consumer Reports gives Apple the highest marks for Reliability and also for Support.

A site with a Mac bias compares the two platforms.
http://macvspc.info/

Hi,

Unix started as a multi-user university platform and arguably is more secure with 25 years of development.

I do agree that OS X is more secure. I think the reason is primarily related to the fact that it is simply not targeted for exploit like windows. In that Windows is the primary OS used by most there is much more to be gained by the criminals to target the more popular OS.

But exploitation of OS X is increasing. Here is an example.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/321007/mac-spyware-found-bundled-with-certain-programs/

Very kind regards,
~ t