By Karl of Beach Bum Communications
For those who are interested, here is a summary of my experience on the Mac vs. PC issue. For PC fans, please know that I do not have any particular bias against Wintel. I’m all about what works best, and it seems from my years in the business that Apple’s approach (developing both OS and machines together) seems to be the better one, though admittedly it does not result in the relatively low cost machines of the PC world.
As somebody who comes out of the high-end advertising/marketing world in general and Hollywood in particular, I can tell you from over two decades of personal experience... there’s a reason those of us in the creative community by and large use Macs. Actually, there are several reasons.
Funny thing is, in all the studios and big ad agencies, the “business side” of the operation (as opposed to the “creative”) runs on PCs. While there are fanatic defenders of Wintel on that “left brain” side of the house, the majority of those folks have envied us creatives for a long time now. I see it (and hear it) nearly every day.
“Gosh, I wish I had a Mac like you guys...”
Hollywood is big business. The big agencies and studios spend millions every year on computers, software and I.T.. If they thought they could get away with it, they would have forced PCs down our collective throats over a decade ago. In fact, a few agencies have tried this – and utterly failed. It turns out that penny wise very definitely can be pound foolish in the extremely high pressure world of entertainment production and advertising.
PCs are just so much more complicated, prone to problems and finicky. When you’re in a high-pressure environment, where work has to get out the door tonight (if not yesterday), you simply can’t afford to have machines that aren’t reliable. Period. And that’s the bottom line.
Outside of Hollywood, the big (and small) corporations adopted PCs because the front-end cost was (and still is) much lower. There wasn’t any large advocacy group for Mac (or anything else for that matter) and this is why Wintel came to dominate in industry, and by extension, around the world.
Except, I should add, in the realm of professional creatives.
Speaking as one, I can tell you that I don’t have time or patience for equipment that doesn’t work right. It’s why, despite several attempts over the years, I simply can’t use a PC for what I do. And then there’s the ergonomic issues. The Mac OS and Mac software just tends to be better written, less buggy and more intuitive. Macs have traditionally come fully loaded with more good software, making them more useful right out of the box, too.
In the entertainment business, I do know a few stalwart PC-using freelancers (fortunately, programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc. are cross-platform compatible) with Wintel machines, but they are few and far between. And, I should add, they are geeks.
You almost have to be when doing high-end graphics work, regardless of what platform you’re using. This was true for the guys that used Silicon Graphics stations back in the day, and PaintBox even before that. But you don’t want to have to be a geek to get work done, and in the realm of high-end PC apps, you almost have to be.
I even know a few independent motion graphics/film production/3D guys who use a “PC farm” for high-level rendering because the machines are definitely cheaper. But their front end is always a Mac.
Besides the fact that creatives would mutiny if forced to use PCs, Hollywood secretly understands the cost/benefit ROI value of owning and using Macs. It comes down to this: they look at Macs as capital investments. They look at PCs as short-term operating expenses. In other words, just like pencils, white-out and rubber bands. Put another way, they know that in the long run Macs are not just valuable, they’re profitable – less headaches, less downtime, fewer tech calls, higher production rates, etc.
I’ve even seen industry studies to this effect.
Interestingly, in recent years I’ve been seeing more and more small-to-medium sized agencies switching entirely over to Mac. However, the ossification, inertia and plain stupidity at the big agencies and studios will never permit this to happen at their level. More’s the pity.
In my opinion, when it’s all said and done, Macs just work better. Heck, they’re even fun to use.
I wouldn’t trade my Macs for PCs under any circumstances, though I should note that I am going to be using Wintel for a few Internet marketing apps that don’t have a Mac version. Drats!
To throw in my two cents, I would say this...
Spend the extra money on a Mac. Over the long haul and at the end of the day, you’ll be a lot happier.