<p>Love intuitive aspect of Apples, less spyware/virus, Final Cut Pro. But PCs are much, much more common, Vista may make them more intuitive and lessen the gap (total guess). Love itunes and potential phone for Apple.
Will Leopard be able to differentiate that much from Vista? Dont know.
Major? Maybe math or neuroscience but really not sure. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>You might want to try searching for this topic on CC because there are many long threads on it. For most of the things you'd want to do either one would work. I think Windows is plenty intuitive enough - it's not terribly difficult to do the things most people want to do. Apples have nicer styling and have traditionally been somewhat more expensive than PCs with more expensive attachments but maybe this has improved since I've last paid that much attention to it.</p>
<p>iTunes and internet phones function on PCs as well.</p>
<p>The new MacBook and iMac with the Duo Core processor can run both Windows and Mac OS. You hold down the Option key while restarting and you can go from one operating system to the other.</p>
<p>gadad:</p>
<p>That's true but doesn't one then need to purchase the Windows OS separately as an added cost? If one has a Mac wouldn't its OS suffice for most users obviating the need for Windows?</p>
<p>Ever since we got XP we've had no problems with Windows. Well almost no problems, sometimes something weird will happen and my geeky Linux using son will tell me it's all Bill Gate's fault. I have Microsoft Office on one computer, Open Office on another, both work pretty much flawlessly. itunes seems to work fine. I've just never been particularly tempted by Macs. I love to diss Gates myself, but I feel like most of what aggravated me about Windows before - the blue screen of death - has mostly been fixed.</p>
<p>Oh, the blue screen of death; dealing with that now on my son's 5 year old laptop! He bought a new laptop in September after the blue screen, but was able to fix his old one. I now own the old one to play on in the den as my computer is a 5 year old desktop. Blue screen appeared this weekend and I don't have the patients to deal with it now. Son said he would take care of it when he is home for spring break.</p>
<p>I am getting a Macbook for my birthday in a month and thought about running the Parallel program with Windows so I could still run OS and Windows at the same time. Boot Camp on the Mac only allows you to run Windows with a reboot, while Parallel lets you run both OS and Windows side by side. After much thought about what I use my computer for, I realized I didn't run any programs on Windows that couldn't be run on OS, so I am saving my money and not putting Windows or Parallel on the laptop. That is a huge savings not running two operating systems!!!</p>
<p>There are a few discipline specific programs that do do not have corresponding software on the MAC, but as I recently discovered many of those don't run well with Vista either, which is starting to be installed on new machines. Currently, the Mac with its ability to run three (4 if one counts Vista) operating systems runs more software than any commercially available computer in the world. It is also a dream to use.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad: That's pretty much true, but some programs still aren't configured for the Mac OS. For instance, my younger son is an avid chess player and the Internet Chess Club operates best on Windows. Daughter #2 likes to use Windows Media Player for various applications. We bought the home and school edition of Windows for around $100. I've offered it to my D in college, but she's no longer interested in Windows.</p>