Why do Schools use MACS?

[RelentlessAF]

Yes it is a lie. Saying something that is not true (you saying that Apple were the ones that invented the GUI) is lying. You can try to move the goal post now if you want by going "well they were the first to make the GUI for a computer for home use and not businesses" if you want but you're just making yourself look silly trying to twist your incorrect statement into something kind of correct.

I've actually seen old factory Machines that use a GUI that is mouse driven that are from the early 80's.

 

EDIT: There's actually a machine at the factory I currently work at the runs MS-DOS and has touch screen functionality from The early 90's.

[solomongrundy]

Macs are positive for being Virus free and fast performance, but you can get a much better PC for the price of a mac...So the school can save some money as well

Good point. I would imagine that it would be a less of a headache to manage macs compared to windows with all the viruses/malware out there on Windows.

[Guest]

I believe people use Macs mainly for aesthetics. Apple knows how to cater to the masses and having a pretty screen and cool transitions seems to be the way to go for the people of today.(Post doesn't really contribute so just ignore it)

[ttam]

Because typically when it comes to schools getting things, a lot of them come from grants. There is a big chunk of education grants that are for mac products. 

[N3rot0xin]

A lot of valid reasons have been given for the reason why schools use Macs over PCs. That being said, a majority of this thread seems to be "Macs are better then PCs" or "PCs are better then macs".

 

The most important reason in my opinion is the business side of it. Apple offers very compelling options to school systems on its products. We seem to think of Windows machines in schools as custom PCs...They're not, they're the generic compact towers and basic monitors with basic keyboards and mice that break after 1 year.  School systems dont buy just one or two or 10 at of any computer at a time. They literally buy them by the pallet and/or crate. The price per individual computer may be different per Windows or Mac based PC, but you have to consider that one company may offer a much better price-to-benefit ratio on bulk quantities over single or small quantities of units.

 

@mr.skyrim_pc,  if your doing a project on this, http://macvspc.info/pages/14.html . Theres just a few reasons why schools tend to us Macs instead of Windows. Hopefully you deem some useful information from that.

[Sauron]

In the classroom environment, computers get trashed, beaten, and abused on a daily basis. In my former school district, it was determined that the use of Apple computers would lead to less frequent replacements and thus lower overall cost of purchasing and maintaining a fleet of computers for student use. In the end, it came down to which option (Mac vs. Pc) would cost less over the entire lifespan of the device and in this instance is was the Macs. 

to be honest I doubt punching an iMac or a mac mini would do less damage than punching a full tower pc. in the case of the iMac, punching the screen is equivalent to punching the machine itself, which does not happen with a standard tower. same goes for letting it fall or other types of abuses. also, replacing defective or broken parts of a mac is harder and much more expensive than doing it for a pc. on what basis did your school decide they were sturdier?

[LAwLz]

Well it does, as I wrote earlier. It's called Open Directory.

I know about Open Directory. I never said there were no directory service for OS X, I said it wasn't as good.

I have very little experience with it but from my short time with it as well as reading about it online it just doesn't seem as good as AD, at least not if you have Windows machines on the network as well (which you will have plenty of if you have a BYOD policy).

[Leonard]

I have to do a powerpoint project for school on why schools would use macs vs PCs. I cant think of that many reasons for them to use a mac. PIease give me some suggestions.

Apple made some deals with schools to supply PCs for them so in turn Apple can brainwash the up coming youth into thinking that an Apple PC is the only choice.

[Sauron]

Apple made some deals with schools to supply PCs for them so in turn Apple can brainwash the up coming youth into thinking that an Apple PC is the only choice.

hadn't thought of that but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems

[Foxxer]

Macs are positive for being Virus free and fast performance, but you can get a much better PC for the price of a mac...So the school can save some money as well

 

Unfortunately, Macs are capable of having viruses too. Any computer can get a virus. But compared to Windows, the chances are so slim. 

[darth_bubbles]

Not in my opinion

That's not anything to do with opinions. It's fact

[Leonard]

hadn't thought of that but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems

Dude this was in the US news June last year. L.A was one of the states that accepted the proposal;.....heh check it out.....http://www.benzinga.com/news/13/06/3689737/apple-could-make-hundreds-of-millions-in-l-a-school-deal-aapl

[Sauron]

Dude this was in the US news June last year. L.A was one of the states that accepted the proposal;.....heh check it out.....http://www.benzinga.com/news/13/06/3689737/apple-could-make-hundreds-of-millions-in-l-a-school-deal-aapl

and here I was thinking that education is broken here in Italy

[Leonard]

and here I was thinking that education is broken here in Italy

Education is broken all over the frigging world as far i as know but yet still we shall overcome!

[ShadowCaptain]

That's not anything to do with opinions. It's fact

 

No, its not.

 

Small example, find a laptop that matches a 13" retina pro, spec for spec, with a1600p+ display, a quad core i5 with iris pro graphics, metal chassis, 9 hour battery life, with that weight at thickness. (could also argue about including basic photo and video editing softare etc but I wont)

 

You cant just go omg an i5 for $1300, I can get a $500 hp laptop with an i5., because that isnt a spec for spec match

 

CPU performance etc is not the only way to measure a laptop. The spec is more than just the processor it has.

[Sauron]

CPU performance etc is not the only way to measure a laptop.

so you're willing to pay twice as much for a metal chassis?

[ShadowCaptain]

so you're willing to pay twice as much for a metal chassis?

 

Yes, but lets not forget the 2560x1600 resolution display, 800Mbs PCI based SSD, iris pro graphics and 9 hour battery life.

[nick99n]

mac are limited to upgrades .It may be cheap enough for them but in the long term a pc can get upgraded with almost everything

[Sauron]

iris pro graphics and 9 hour battery life.

a good chunk of competing notebooks have those. iris pro graphics are part of the intel cpu, they are not made by apple.

most of these also have an ssd. I don't know who told you the air has pcie ssds, but it doesn't (at least not the models under 2k bucks).

as for the resolution, the question remains: are you willing to pay twice as much for a metal chassis and a discreet increase in resolution?

[ShadowCaptain]

a good chunk of competing notebooks have those. iris pro graphics are part of the intel cpu, they are not made by apple.

most of these also have an ssd. I don't know who told you the air has pcie ssds, but it doesn't (at least not the models under 2k bucks).

as for the resolution, the question remains: are you willing to pay twice as much for a metal chassis and a discreet increase in resolution?

 

The competing notebooks with 9 hours battery life are a relatively similar price (12 hours in case of the air)  All air and retina macbook pro use PCI based SSDs even the cheapest models.It says so right on their website "PCI based SSD"

I know the intel CPUs are not made by apple, but not many laptops are using Iris Pro, a lot of ultra books have the weaker intel 4000 series onboard iGPUs onboard not 5000 series, the Iris Pro is equal to a 650m roughly for gaming/graphics etc.

There is nothing discreet about 1600p. 75% of 13" laptops are 900p, the rest are 1080p with very few using ultra hd +. Yes metal laptops cost more, as they do for windows computers yes.

 

Please do not say that it just a normal laptop with a metal chassis, it is blatantly not true.

[Sauron]

It says so right on their website "PCI based SSD"

it's curious they would say that when benchmarks place the performance of those ssds very close to that of a samsung or toshiba sata ssd. maybe they are based on pcie, but it doesn't make a difference for some reason.

 

The competing notebooks with 9 hours battery life are a relatively similar price

ultrabooks are, not laptops.

 

I know the intel CPUs are not made by apple, but not many laptops are using Iris Pro

a friend of mine has an i7 based laptop with dedicated gpu that cost her about as much as an i3 based macbook air with no iris pro.

 

There is nothing discreet about 1600p. 75% of 13" laptops are 900p, the rest are 1080p with very few using ultra hd +. Yes metal laptops cost more, as they do for windows computers yes.

I didn't say it was discreete by itself, it is a dicreete IMPROVEMENT over 1080p. nothing that justifies paying 700$ more. and as for the metal, are 500g of aluminium worth 300-400$? I doubt it. my bike is about 25 kg of aluminium and only cost me 200$.

 

Please do not say that it just a normal laptop with a metal chassis, it is blatantly not true.

define "normal laptop". it has a standard cpu that is sold to all companies who want to use it, some standard ram, a slightly-better-than-standard screen (if you go for the more expensive ""retina"" option) and a standard storage drive while being portable. = a standard laptop. with a metal chassis.

[ShadowCaptain]

it's curious they would say that when benchmarks place the performance of those ssds very close to that of a samsung or toshiba sata ssd. maybe they are based on pcie, but it doesn't make a difference for some reason.

 

ultrabooks are, not laptops.

 

a friend of mine has an i7 based laptop with dedicated gpu that cost her about as much as an i3 based macbook air with no iris pro.

 

I didn't say it was discreete by itself, it is a dicreete IMPROVEMENT over 1080p. nothing that justifies paying 700$ more. and as for the metal, are 500g of aluminium worth 300-400$? I doubt it. my bike is about 25 kg of aluminium and only cost me 200$.

 

define "normal laptop". it has a standard cpu that is sold to all companies who want to use it, some standard ram, a slightly-better-than-standard screen (if you go for the more expensive ""retina"" option) and a standard storage drive while being portable. = a standard laptop. with a metal chassis.

 

The SSDs they use are Samsung PCIe SSDs. and they are much faster than sata drives attaining close to 730MB/s speeds

 

Ultrabooks are, not laptops? There are no laptops with 9 or 12 hour battery life, only ultrabooks, which are more expensive than your garden variety laptops, and compared to gaming laptops (which I have tons of experience with, have pretty terrible battery life, especially with their GPUs enabled) - I am the proud owner currently of 2 current gaming laptops and there are about 3 old ones around my house that my parents use. All windows gaming laptops.

 

The screen is not a discreet improvement, it is a major one. Look at all the current tech pushing for high res displays, razers gaming laptop, msi with their new 3k laptop, 4k tvs, high ppi phones. Screens are getting better, laptop screens are no exception.

 

There is no such thing as an i3 macbook air. They start at i5 and offer i7 models. and are much cheaper than the macbook pro with iris pro. In fact the new pricing for the airs is quite remarkable. Again, any brand of aluminium laptop is more expensive. Razer, MSI, Asus, anytime they use aluminium the price ends up higher. It gives a nicer finish, stronger build and lower weight, all important in laptops.

 

"Normal laptop" I was referring to none apple thats all. It has a custom built unibody chassis, bespoke all only motherboard, pcie based ssds. You do not choose retina or not, the is the air, and the retina pro. They are the only 2 models and you do not pay extra for just the display, the retina pro is more powerful in every respect.

 

Anyway, I see there is very little reasoning here and you clearly have very little knowledge of Apples machines so its hard to argue a point when you have limited knowledge and experience, but that is like most people here.

[Sauron]

There is no such thing as an i3 macbook air. 

sorry, I meant the dual core i5 cpus. still, I was comparing that to a quad core i7 cpu, which apple prices at 2k.

 

so, the macbook air only reaches 1440x900. sub 1080p. and you're advocating this as an "evolution in screen resolution"?

as for the macbook "retina", it starts from the same pityful dual core i5 with 4 gb of ram (which is really the bare minimum right now) for a whopping 1330 bucks. with a 128gb ssd and no hdd. now, even though pcie ssds are more expensive, a 128 gb model only costs about 150 bucks if not less. a laptop with the same specs would cost less than 600 bucks. as for the screen, I doubt a 13" 1600p screen would cost the same as a 28" 4k display. even when paired with a 500g metal chassis. the brands you say who make aluminium laptops usually start from quad core i5 cpus with 1080p displays (which the air has not and aluminium laptops are usually ultrabooks) and often cost in the 1k bucks range. still 300 less.

 

so, my reasonment seems little to you because I said i3? I may have been wrong with the name, but a dual core i5 only performs slightly better than an i3, especially the ulp models.

 

you are the one who seems to have little knowledge of these laptops. according to you, "the retina pro is more powerful in every respect", while the only difference between that and the air in standard configurations is the clockspeed of the cpu, which is otherwise exactly the same (unless you want the 15" model, which costs 2k at the bare minimum and therefore twice as much as a windows laptop with similar specs if not more, considering it has no dedicated gpu). now, if the screen was worth so much that it would transform a 500-600 bucks laptop in a 1300 one, why does the 13" mabook air cost only 300 bucks less when the only real difference is the screen?

 

see, experience is not a factor here. all the specs we are arguing about are available on apple's website for everyone to see. if I remember something wrong, all you have to do is tell me and I will check on the website and see if the argument I made still makes sense or not. if it doesn't, then I will apologize. but up to now it still does.

 

now, I understand that some people value looks and material over performance and price, but schools definitely should not. and macs are overpriced for their performance. at my local university of it engineering I haven't seen a single mac, and it is considered a pretty good university.

[Prokart2000]

Because people think Mac is the same as cool or fast, wich they're not.

ikr i cant use osx for shit and they are not close to fast

[ShadowCaptain]

sorry, I meant the dual core i5 cpus. still, I was comparing that to a quad core i7 cpu, which apple prices at 2k.

 

so, the macbook air only reaches 1440x900. sub 1080p. and you're advocating this as an "evolution in screen resolution"?

as for the macbook "retina", it starts from the same pityful dual core i5 with 4 gb of ram (which is really the bare minimum right now) for a whopping 1330 bucks. with a 128gb ssd and no hdd. now, even though pcie ssds are more expensive, a 128 gb model only costs about 150 bucks if not less. a laptop with the same specs would cost less than 600 bucks. as for the screen, I doubt a 13" 1600p screen would cost the same as a 28" 4k display. even when paired with a 500g metal chassis. the brands you say who make aluminium laptops usually start from quad core i5 cpus with 1080p displays (which the air has not and aluminium laptops are usually ultrabooks) and often cost in the 1k bucks range. still 300 less.

 

so, my reasonment seems little to you because I said i3? I may have been wrong with the name, but a dual core i5 only performs slightly better than an i3, especially the ulp models.

 

you are the one who seems to have little knowledge of these laptops. according to you, "the retina pro is more powerful in every respect", while the only difference between that and the air in standard configurations is the clockspeed of the cpu, which is otherwise exactly the same (unless you want the 15" model, which costs 2k at the bare minimum and therefore twice as much as a windows laptop with similar specs if not more, considering it has no dedicated gpu). now, if the screen was worth so much that it would transform a 500-600 bucks laptop in a 1300 one, why does the 13" mabook air cost only 300 bucks less when the only real difference is the screen?

 

see, experience is not a factor here. all the specs we are arguing about are available on apple's website for everyone to see. if I remember something wrong, all you have to do is tell me and I will check on the website and see if the argument I made still makes sense or not. if it doesn't, then I will apologize. but up to now it still does.

 

now, I understand that some people value looks and material over performance and price, but schools definitely should not. and macs are overpriced for their performance. at my local university of it engineering I haven't seen a single mac, and it is considered a pretty good university.

 

I was talking aobut the retina macbook pros display not the air. I wish they would bump up the resolution of the 13" air, 1440x900 is ok, most 13" laptops are 1366x768 but 1080p or above would be nice.

 

You cannot compare thick heavy gaming laptops with the macbook air "those would usually be ultrabooks" Thats what the macbook air essentially is. Even microsoft chose to demonstrate how light it is showing their new surface pro was lighter than it. Its a very light machine. Something like a Asus GZ50JZ that linus is advertising is like 5x thicker and at least twice or 3 times heavier. A lot to carry around in and out of lessons all day. If 1600p displays were so cheap everyone would be using them, although scaling in windows is terrible so thats probably the reason they dont. OSX supports this very nicely.

 

the 13" retina pro with i7 is only $1599, and the air i7 is 1049, far from 2k. As for retina pro being better in anyway, it has 2x the CPU performance, 2x number of pixels, while being only a couple hundred bucks more, and still being as thin as the air, and keeping 9 hours of battery life of the airs 12. It also included intel 5000 series gpu which is on par with an nvidia 650m dedicated graphics card, pretty awesome for such a tiny machine.

 

the 15" model for 2k has a GPU in the form of iris pro. As i say its on par with a 650m which is the dedicated gpu they used last generation. it also comes as standard with i7, 8gb and 256gb pcie ssd. Also 8 hours battery life and an insane 2880x1800 display. Which I believe is one of the highest resolutions ever put in a laptop.

 

It is not about valuing looks and build quality OVER performance, it is about getting build quality AND performance. Macbooks are fast, VERY fast. A 4gb macbook air with its i5, its still a crazy fast machine, it starts up fast, opens tasks quickly, OSX multitasks like an absolute boss even on 4gb of ram. If you have never used one, I suggest trying one.

 

They also last an awful long time. My brother is an mechanical engineer for Jaguar/Land Rover, He bought his 15" Pro back in 2007 and its still doing its job to this day. Work gave him a dell i7 laptop and he just doenst use it. Even sat next to my Alienware laptop it starts up faster, and handles photo and video editiong amazingly well considering its age. 

 

They are amazing machines. I never wanted to argue they were "cheap". I am just saying you get a lot for your money. You seem to be of the opinion that it is just some $400 laptop with a metal chassis they are charging $2000 for but It is much more than that. Not forgetting the amazing free software you get included, apples fantastic warranty and support, completely free operating system and updates, You get a lot for your money with them. Not for gamers, but they are amazing pieces of kit for productivity.

 

Also I know schools get really good deals buying from Apple. When I left school I helped my Head Teacher with a deal from apple to get an iPad for every kid in school all fully insured. The end deal was a good 30% or something off.

 

Anyway, I am done here. PM me if you want to discuss further, But I have made my points and I would only be repeating myself