In your opinion why do you prefer Mac, or a PC?

We went Mac just over a year ago, and it seems faster, more simple to use, and less worries about viruses.
That said I will always keep a net book running windows as well.
Once Mrs Squeaky caught on to the Mac she doesn’t even use the windows computer at all any more.

PC. I used to prefer a Mac, but I’ve used the PC for so long now it’s just what I prefer.

I like PC because most of my games will not, at the time, run on a mac.

PC, because it gives me the freedom to choose my own hardware and software at any price/performance ratio I desire.
Macs are locked down, mediocre performers at exorbitant prices.
Also, Games.

It depends…

work: PC. I’m a .NET developer, and other than currently using my Macbook Pro as a build server for my iOS development (All programming in Xamarin for VS, compiled through paired Macbook), I have to work on the PC.

That said, I have enough experience with iOS to know that Apple’s philosophy doesn’t work for me. It’s a locked-down fashion show not designed for power users. I will probably have to work with the Mac a bit more, as I suspect our iOS development here is going to expand. So, I have to find a way to be ok with it.

home: For me, I mostly use Windows (my Lenovo Win7 notebook). But we have a few Chromebooks that my family uses, and I love them. I have stopped being IT support because there is no longer a need for it. Cheap Chromebooks are where it’s at for families that have no need for running native software. They “just work”.

Steve Jobs gave me the creeps. He had this vision of an Apple-ized world. That was even worse.

The other reason I dislike anything Apple is because they sued Google and tried to put Android out of business. Rather than make good products, they wanted to litigate. That put a really bad taste in my mouth.

I’m sure they make good machines, but I will never own one.

PC because I got used to choosing my own hardware and software.

My situation(once again) is pretty much the result of random chance as far as computers are concerned. My son took pity on his dinosaur relative and gifted me a laptop. I’ve next to no experience with Apple products, and am accordingly in no position to judge the difference. The one thing I have noticed is that as @hominid states, folks I know who aren’t computer wizards tend to be Apple fans, and their loyalty to the brand and its products is beyond fierce. My friends who have a high level of expertise computer-wise almost unanimously regard the corporation as bordering on sinister. Lacking the ability to appreciate their explanations as to why, they quickly steer the conversation toward the realm wherein my expertise is unchallenged, and that is the “land of the cheapskate”. And here their universal opinion is that “the stuff is criminally overpriced”.

I think that it’s pretty much a PC world. Macs ae not quite like Beta max, but almost.

For usability they’re pretty much the same for me, except my Mac skills are rusty and out-of-date. I used to be a Mac user in the 1990s, but since 2000 I’ve had to use PCs for work, so that’s what I have at home, too.

Recently, I installed Mac OS X Yosemite on my Lenovo laptop (as a VirtualBox VM) just out of curiosity.

Five minutes in, I felt “Meh, that was interesting, but there’s nothing I want to do on the Mac that I can’t do in Windows”. The sole reason I use it is for streaming Spotify wirelessly to my stereo via an Airport Express. In Windows I can only stream iTunes.

I like ‘em all.
I build my desktops, the newest one is Win7 the next newest has Scientific Linux on it.
There a Mac mini on the TV. My wife likes Macs, and since OS X (unix) I have no objections whatsoever. There is at least one more of each of those three OSs around the place.

Personally I find the Mac GUI tedious because there are several things you have to use the mouse for that can be done with a couple keystrokes on a Win or linux machine.
And the resizing, I hate that you can only resize things on a Mac from the lower-right corner; on a windows or typical linux box you can resize things from any edge or corner. These I only find annoying, though, and you can sit me down in front of any of them.

As more much time is spent on the internet, in browsers, the OS matters less and less.
I see @hominid‘s Chromebook migration to be the avant guarde on a trend for a lot of what most people do on the internet.

And the resizing, I hate that you can only resize things on a Mac from the lower-right corner; on a windows or typical linux box you can resize things from any edge or corner.

This hasn’t been true for years.

I prefer OS X. I spend about two hours a day using SSH to administer Ubuntu servers. Having a real command-line in OS X is probably the greatest thing about it. And there is software like Textmate, Transmit, and Acorn that I can’t find windows equivalents that are as good.

And If I need Windows I can fire it up.

I don’t game.

There is no difference, the hardware is literally the same. One costs more and is generally built well but has an O.S. that lacks features and functionality and will only run on the apple branded hardware without some hacking. The other is made by many different manufacturers and completely open to customization which can be confusing to some. Some of the hardware is just garbage and some of it is the best money can buy. The Windows O.S. at times has been a steaming pile of shit but every other release is quite stable and the most versatile available. My current machine has OSX, Linux and Win 7. I’m in win7 most of the time. I can’t remember the last time I booted into OSX, it sucks that bad….except for the command terminal which is about the only redeeming quality.

I have a lot of software I’d need to replace if I went to a Mac.

I don’t particularly care, but I use a Mac out of habit. My wife strongly prefers them, so we bought one to share when we first moved in together (since my old PC had just died and she was using a family computer). We’re not “power users,” and we have no intention of changing that. Also, I receive a very significant discount on Apple products (and only on Apple products) through the university where I work. My laptop is as customizable as I need it to be, and the system is easy to use. That’s really all I need.

Most of my family has converted at this point. My brother had a nightmarish encounter with Gateway, my mother with Hewlett-Packard, and my sister with both Sony and Dell. They haven’t had any problems with Apple. Coincidence? Possibly. But happy is happy.

I have 0 experience with Apple.

I’ve had some computer failures recently and it scares the hell out of me when young people tell me, “I switched to a Mac recently, and although it took a while to learn, I’ll never go back.”
PC.
Creature of habit.

I have simple computer needs. Apple is like magic to me. Love my ipod, ipad and iMac.

Thanks @gondwanalon I’m sorta in that same boat I really do like the Mac and now that Mrs Squeaky has learned it she doesn’t want anything to do with the windows computer.

@SQUEEKY2 I love the iLife with the iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie. It is so user friendly (don’t have to read a big manual or memorize special key functions). I completely mastered them just knowing how to point, click and drag. In my opinion Windows is powerful but a bit awkward to use.

I’m a PC person. I used to be a Mac fanboi back when I was a kid, but when I became an adult, I put away childish things. And I have quite a few reasons for that as well. You may want to grab a beverage (and possibly a snack) because this will be a while.

Comfy? Good! Let us start with Mac’s claim to be virus-free. They ignore three major facts when making that assertion;

1) Not all PCs run Windows; many are Linux boxes.

2) The Mac’s resistance to viruses is due to it’s roots in BSD, which itself is a UNIX derivative. UNIX is inherently robust and infection-resistant, and so are most of it’s derivatives. Another UNIX derivative that is still around got it’s start as a reverse-engineered copy capable of running on x86 CPUs but lacked the licensing encumberments of UNIX made by a guy named Linus Torvalds.
In short, everything that makes OS X virus-resistant also makes Linux just as strong.

3) Linux has more people looking for and patching security holes than even Apple could ever hope to afford. Sure, they may be able to push an urgent security patch in a day or two, but in the Linux world that’s pretty slow. And that’s just run-of-the-mill Linux, not the high-security version used by the DoD.
For security, I’ll take the word of financial institutions, security firms, crypto-spooks and the DoD over any marketing hype.

As for user-friendliness, take a look at this. Seems so pretty that it could ONLY be done by apple, right? Wrong! That’s Linux! The part of OS X that makes people think it’s so pretty and friendly is the Aqua interface; people are falling in love with the makeup without even looking at the face underneath it. Well, there are plenty of different interface options with Linux, some of which are even better than OS X. Many Linux distros automatically come with something like Unity, Trinity, Cinnamon or something similar, none of which are particularly ugly or difficult to use. Like OS X, they are designed for ease of use. But they are also designed for ease of migration and to sooth the fears of those who tend to have panic attacks whenever they aren’t using Windows/OS X. (An IT buddy of mine used to set up customer’s computers with Linux that was skinned such that they never knew they weren’t running Windows!) Oh, and if you don’t like the UI, you can just change it; you have options

Simplicity? Well, I suppose the average computer user may be incapable of installing Linux. I mean, you have to know your name, time zone, and native language to get Mint or Ubuntu up and running, which is much more than anyone with a Mac or most people with Windows has to know. Funny anecdote; my wife used to love Macs too, and she isn’t all that computer-savvy (especially not compared to a geek who has done it as a hobby since they were 5) so we had to have a system we could share. WinXP was easy for her to figure out, as was Win7, but the OS she had the easiest time with was Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Similarly, she had issues with my old iPod Touch, but figured out her Android smartphone without any help.

Performance? There are reasons that supercomputers run Linux. Same with mission-critical stuff like servers. Speed and uptime.. I like it! Oh, and most Macs have fairly underpowered GPUs (usually laptop chips), making them unsuitable for serious gamers.

Upgrades? Macs are intentionally hard to work on, and Apple loves proprietary hardware. Also, form trumps function. But if you manage to get dual GTX Titans into an iMac, let me know! In fact, that lack of upgradability is why many graphics designers I know use PC instead of Mac; then need more than Apple offers, at least at consumer-grade. Also, I can replace my desktop system’s screen a lot cheaper and easier than any iMac owner, but there are enough all-in-one PCs that I won’t ding Apple for that… though I will ding them for not allowing many options.

Price? Well, Apple fanatics may claim to pay for quality or design, but they are not the most reliable (last I checked, Apple ranked 4th) and some of their design features are what people like me call “bugs”, like the inability for the new Macbooks to charge and use USB peripherals at he same time. There are two areas where Apple does blow PCs away. One is customer service; they lead the industry there. As one that never uses that though, I personally would pay $0.00 for support. The other is profit margin. Most PC makers have a margin of 2–5% while Apple is consistently above 30%. While I realize that business isn’t charity, a margin like that is ridiculous! I’m not paying $1200 for something I can get for $800! In fairness, the old (pre-trashcan) Mac Pro actually was very cost-competitive compared to it’s PC peers, but even I don’t need full-on workstation-level power, and the Mac Pro was never designed for “normal” people anyways.

Culture? Apple isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.

And now that I’ve given most of my reasons for being a PC guy, it’s times for a word from Neal Stephenson; In the beginning was the Command Line. (Okay, it’s many words, Neal Stephenson’s writing makes this post seem concise.) That link is a wall-o-text that was a 151-page paperback when it first came out, so you may want to download it (for free) from the author’s site and peruse it offline later instead. But even if you don’t want to read the whole thing, opening the first link and searching for the chapter “MGBs, TANKS, AND BATMOBILES” will give a great analogy of the competing platforms. It’s a short chapter, but quite accurate.

@SavoirFaire I myself have had enough issues with Dell and HP that even I don’t like them. I’m not surprised your family has had issues with them too.