I copied this from my blog. Enjoy.
I recently read on HardOCP about a Mac user's view of Vista.
(http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==)
I'm going to quote from the article and argue some points.
"Do Enthusiasts Just Like the Prospect of Roughing It?
As has been stated and demonstrated repeatedly, by maintaining vertical control of both the OS and hardware platforms it’s to be run on, Jobs essentially guarantees Mac users a seamless, integrated experience when using their machines. Strangely enough, they actually like knowing that their hardware has been tested and certified to work. They don’t want to spend hours screwing around with disjointed, myriad components that may or may not play well together. In contrast, PC enthusiasts should have no problems relating to the following questions:
Where’s the disc for my motherboard?
Do I have a PCI-E or AGP video card?
Does this machine have an on-board audio solution, or do I need to buy one?
Did it already say “Press F2 to enter setup”?
I just bought this thing! Why is my video driver 9 months old?
Why is my screen blue?
As mad as Kyle may be that Apple won’t let him shoot himself in the foot by trying to install the OS on some duct-tape and barbed-wire system, he has to respect that the segment of the consumer market Jobs targets doesn’t really want to be able to shoot themselves in the foot. They want a pre-packaged, eminently functional, and perfectly integrated system. Money is not everything. The quality of experience Jobs provides to the Apple faithful is more important than the almost-certainly engorged bottom line he’d see by licensing the software to run on other platforms. And you know what? It’s his company, his OS, and he can do whatever he wants with it."
When you control hardware and software you make a better end product for normal consumers. This is true. Console gaming proves this just as well as Mac does.
The issue comes in upgrades, modifications, gaming and overclocking.
Mac is not a gaming platform. It's a media editing platform, and a good one.
As such, the demands for hardware aren't as stringent and it isn't as necessary to upgrade/modify hardware nearly as often as on PC.
There is a learning curve that comes along with being a hardcore PC enthusiast. It does involve such tiring things as knowing what a driver is and how to install it, upgrade ram, installing a heatsink, more or less learning the basics of the machine and then applying that knowledge and technique to pushing your computer to perform better.
After the learning curve, advanced PC work becomes normal.
I'm typing this on an overclocked watercooled PC.
It took me 6 complete rebuilds to get the watercooling loop to work properly and with temps I'm happy with. Every time I was frustrated, and leaking fluid on your expensive electronics doesn't help.
There are no watercooling kits for Mac, because there is no demand to get every inch of performance out of them because of the nature of what is done on them.
It's very easy to chastise Windows for not being user friendly and making life difficult, but when you include hardcore PC enthusiasts, you're pissing into the wind.
I agree that Vista is ****. I could have told you that when they stripped out 3 big features that were supposed to make Vista revolutionary back when it was still called Longhorn.
Vista is a huge waste of time, money, and PC upgrades.
Mac OS X does work extremely well and is a better operating system. I won't deny that. Vista sucks.
What I do argue is that you can't lump consumers in with modders. Little Timmy might be frustrated now because he doesn't understand CAS latency or IRQ, but give him a few years and a few thousand hours, and he will be able to blow you away with his ability to take a mediocre system and turn it into an equivalent top of the line system with little more than a small budget and knowledge.
So to answer your contrite question, yes, we do enjoy the frustration. We might not show it at the time, but once you have a stable system running with whatever tweak or change we did, it doesn't matter. The frustration disappears and the absolute joy of being able to modify something using what you know far outweighs all of those hours and all of that cursing.