Related link: http://wood-inc.com
I’m not a designer, but I certainly appreciate great design. And I love watching a great designer work. One such designer is Jennifer Wood. I’ve seen her take a client’s rudimentary ideas and turn it into something magical. But like any great artist, great work doesn’t just come from great talent, it also takes great tools.
Of course, she’s a Mac user.
It really is something to watch someone with the skills who really knows their tools and has that craftsman synergy with them. I’ve seen a lot of people work on different platforms, but there is nothing better than watching a talented person work on a Mac. They seem to almost develop a relationship with their machines and their software.
“As a small design firm, Macs are critical to what we do. For speed, efficiency, and reliability (above all else), you just can’t beat Apple products.”
-Jennifer Wood, Wood & Associates
This really got me thinking…are Mac users also better tool users? What type of artist chooses a PC over a Mac?
Are you a Mac craftsman?
Prior to OS X... a lot of artists chose PCs
You almost have to throw gas on a flame war as that is all this article really is.
Prior to OS X, Mac memory issues were the bane of many an artist trying to push their graphics packages to the limit. I, as well as many others I know, cursed the irrepresible Mac bomb for always coming up when applying this filter or that.
Face it, until Apple got with the program and adopted a kernel that could handle dynamic memory management through the most non-mac technology around (UNIX), it was a pain to have to hand tweak the memory used by an individual application. This alone pushed a lot of people to the PC platform with all of Windows ugly bits.
I am not a Windows proponent either. Make mine Linux, crufty but stable.
Macs are better now due to the stability and "mature" OS features brought to it by the Unix-like operating system at its core. Apple was wise to realize that it was a hardware, interface, and application company, and let someone else build the core.
The Stubborn Ones
I've got an artist friend who primarily uses his PC at work. He's grown up on PCs, and he's got the same toolset on his PC as on his Mac (Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, etc.) So why bother twisting your mind around the different workings and approach of a new OS when your current one works just fine?
Far superior...
While many applications on different platforms have similar toolsets, the Mac as an instrument in itself is what makes it a superior tool. The design of the machine, the workings of the OS, the placement of items, and finally the stability and reliability of the platform...easily put the Mac above all other solutions.
It isn't so much just looking at the application toolsets themselves...it is the way that the applications are woven through the hardware and the OS. There is a grace and elegance to the way a Mac solution works above a PC solution. Can any one really deny that?
Take it to another level...watching a person who really knows how to put all that together and create something great...that is something to see!
Memory management
as my last comment was deleted, perhaps for being too harshly worded, I will say try again in hushed tones.
Prior to OS X, an artist might choose a PC because, frankly, Windows had better (modern) memory management than what was available on a Mac.
With the advent of OS X's Unix kernel (and modern memory management), Macs are more stable.
Another reason an artist, typically of lesser means (starving artist being a cliche that holds) might also choose a PC due to cost considerations. Mac hardware is often more expensive, Mac OS upgrades generally come closer together and might be considered minor (free) updates on a PC but cost actual money on the Mac.
You asked the question... those are two answers why an artist might choose a PC over a Mac.