Overheard
on 05.08.05, 07:46pm in mac, windows • comments (6)
During a sunbreak today (if you’re from Seattle, you know what I’m talking about), my wife, son and I headed over to Pine Lake Park so he could run around, go on the swings, pick up rocks, etc.
Anyways, as we were walking back to the car, there was a group of people set up for some sort of photo shoot. As we approached, I overheard their conversation:
Person One: "I don’t know where they keep going, I keep losing the photos"
Person Two: "These on the digital or the other one?"
Person One: "Digital"
Person Two: "Ahh.. You on a PC?"
Person One: "yeah….."
Person Two: Smiles. "That’s the problem".
Person One: "Oh?"
Person Two: "Get yourself a Mac."
Just a random, unexpected conversation. How have PC’s gotten such a bad reputation?
Anom (May 9, 2005 @ 5:29 am)
i don’t think PC gotten bad name when it comes to Digital Photos. comparing to the Mac’s i agree iPhoto 5 is top of it game and easy-to-use. my advice would of being to download Picasa 2. and maybe check out mac mini as option if all else fails. let be fair both (Windows and mac’s) have Photoshop. all cameras or scaners work on either Windows or Mac. and one area were there is very little different is Digital Imaginary.
i thing the bad reputation is more about virus,spyware,security and Internet Explorer
Dave (May 10, 2005 @ 6:10 am)
PCs have got a bad reputation from not being intuitive enough. Journalists generally used Macs back in the day, and they’re used to the “just do it” way of the Mac - it’s no wonder that Windows and PCs get a beating.
Anyway, you connect a device to a Mac, it mounts it on the desktop, you connect it to a PC (9 times out of ten) it tells you it’s found new hardware, it’s adding new hardware, and you need a driver, and it’s out of date so you download a new driver to sort out an incompatibility problem, and then you need a reboot, and THEN it’s working. Or is it? Where is it? Ah, that damn “what do you want to do with this device” pops up eventually, having scanned the device. Great, so I can use what application? Explorer? Oh, ok, I’ll download and install Picasa so that I can manage my photos VISUALLY and then I don’t have to worry about where to copy them to, what to view them with etc.
Is this getting through yet? My background is 11 years on PCs, developing (no, not basic, c, c++, c#) for them for 9 years and finally (!!) it’s getting through to me. I’m using the latest build of Tiger and Microsoft is proving every day, that it’s out of touch with its users.
Please Steve, help make a difference.
Jeff Atwood (May 10, 2005 @ 1:19 pm)
Allow me to summarize: these people want the Xbox 360, but don’t know it yet.
It doesn’t do very much, and you have to buy everything from the same vendor, but the few things it does are all guaranteed to work the first time every time. Sort of like a Mac.
Anom (May 10, 2005 @ 5:27 pm)
I totally agree about windows not being intuitive enough. You also right about the Drivers
Option A: PC’s and Mac use TWAIN to import Photos from a Digital Camera or Scanner. Using 3rd party software like Picasa or Photoshop. This is were windows has problems. TWAIN Driver support, first you have to have the drivers and then software to capture the images off the Camera or Scanner, (I thing Microsoft must ship software that Organize Pictures and supports RAW and TWAIN with Longhorn and not just a folder called “My Pictures” which is part of the problem)
Option B: the Camera mounts as a Hard Drive and lets the user copy the image files off the camera. This option is by far best option for windows users (no drivers need, most of the time )the only problem is you still need 3rd party software if you images are in RAW format, on mac’s iphoto 5 and Apple Preview support RAW and every other format
Personal I never had any problems with either Mac’s or Pc using Digital Camera’s. then again i been using computers for about 8 years. at the moment Apple have edge and there setting high Standards with Mac OS X and iLife. now it up to microsoft to respond (i.e. longhorn)
I love to know what it like on Linux/Other OS’S (I have never use linux). Is it better or worst then Windows/Mac‚Äôs
Lou (May 10, 2005 @ 7:30 pm)
Have you tried using the “applications” that come with the digital cameras? In-house applications from Canon, Nikon and Kodak are terrible. Just terrible. These custom applications are rarely written well: Not writing to My Photos; not dealing with printers well; not having easy to use user interfaces; Introducing strange custom controls with funny usage…
I wouldn’t blame Windows directly. It would be nice if in the box there was an application that handled photos and videos well so that there was no incentive for 3rd parties to write their own apps. I believe this is where the Mac has the edge.
Lou (May 10, 2005 @ 7:32 pm)
Interesting that I wrote that. Basically I’m advocating getting rid of 3rd party apps… That’s not right… I just wish it were easier to write GOOD apps for Windows…