In article ,
"Etaoin Shurdlu" wrote:
Your first real job, right? You came out of school where they said artists use a Mac. Right? Well, you learned wrong. Most graphic designers do not use a Mac. It’s a myth.
That depends on where you are. Here in the market I work in, where I have been working prepress professionally since 1992, Macs outnumber PCs at my clients (advertising agencies, prepress service bureaus, and design firms) by approximately 5 to 1.
Not everyone uses Macs, but many people use Macs.
I use both. My office has several Macs and PCs; at home, I use Macs, PCs, various generic Linux boxes, and a Sun SPARCstation. I began using PCs in 1982 and Macs in 1984.
For design and prepress, I prefer Macs. Here’s why:
1. Macs have built-in, system level color management. PCs do not.
2. Macs can interface with PC networks and read PC disks. PCs can not interface with Mac (AFP) networks unless you buy special software, and can not read Mac disks unless you buy special software. In practical terms, that means if you own a Mac, you can accept jobs from any computer. If you own a PC, you can accept jobs only from PCs; you can not accept jobs from Macs on Mac media without special software.
3. Macs can use PC fonts. PCs can not use Mac fonts.
4. Macs are more expensive when you first buy them, but the TCO (total cost of ownership) is lower over the entire lifetime of the Mac. Macs tend to have fewer reliability problems and longer useful lifetimes.
5. Got a Mac? No worries about viruses. That’s bad news for me; I charge my clients $90 an hour to clean up viruses. It’s good news for you, though.
There are many myths about Macs that you will find as you do your research. Some of these myths were once partly true; others have no basis in fact at all. These myths include:
– Macs are more expensive. This is sometimes true, though the initial cost is not that high; typically 5% or so above a roughly equivalent PC. However, if you factor in the additional cost of things like FireWire (standard on Macs, an optional extra on most PCs), and the additional cost of PC/Mac networking and media-reading software (such as PC MacLan or MacOpener), the additional cost difference becomes irrelevant. However, in a business environment, what is important is not up-front cost, but total cost of ownership and return on investment. Mac systems have a quantifiably lower total cost of ownership, in part because of slightly longer useful life and in part because of less downtime due to things like viruses, and a correspondingly higher return on investment.
– Macs can not be upgraded. I don’t know where this myth comes from, but it’s entirely untrue. Professional Mac systems such as G5s are based on PCI and AGP expansion busses, just like PCs; they have removable processors, just like PCs; they can be upgraded just like PCs.
– Macs can not coexist with PCs. This myth is exactly backwards; Macs can read PC disks and PC files, network with PC file servers, and write PC-readable disks just fine. PCs do not coexist with Macs; PCs can not read Mac disks, talk to Mac file servers, or write Mac disks without special additional software.
– Macs have less software available. In the business of design and prepress, this is simply not so. All the standard desktop design, publishing, and image editing packages are available for both. However, the Mac has a wider variety of special-purpose software used in the newspaper and design industries, such as imposition software, color profiling software, newspaper page-pairing software, and workflow software. (Most people do not know what "imposition" or "page pairing" are, and most people have no use for such software, but in the professional newspaper and design industries, this may be a relevant factor.)
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