PC and Mac: Who Reigns the Computing Kingdom?
PC and Mac: Who Reigns the Computing Kingdom?
OSCAR ANDRÉS LEÓN SMITH Undergraduate Student
Quality Leadership University
Technology has revamped our ways of living, working and innovating. If it weren’ t for the amounts of advancements that have been made in the past few years, it would be inevitable to acknowledge the fact that society would still be stuck in a pre-modern era. The major tool that has been part of this“ movement” is the famous personal computer, tool that to this date holds an astounding amount of consumers. Co-founder and current technology advisor of Microsoft, Bill Gates said the following,“ We are not even close to finishing the basic dream of what the PC can be.” This quote shows how we’ re being driven into an avenue called future. Throughout the years, there has been a battle between the two titans that lead the colossal industry of the computing world. The rivals of this“ battle of the years are known as Microsoft, born in the year 1975, and Apple, born one year later in 1976. These two companies have taken the computing world by storm and are now the main faces of it; either you use Microsoft products or you use Apple products."
Opinions from consumers and experts vary on which is better. Some say PC’ s outperform Macs; others say that Macs shine when being
Figure 1 compared to PC’ s. It’ s a constant battle that never stops; just like iOS and Android, LCD and LED TV’ s, or Ford and Chevy. Each side generates different types of arguments which state which one is better than the other. The current conflict with the PC versus Mac argument is that people tend to favor both sides passively instead of choosing a winner. To this date, PC’ s are the preferred competitor of them both. This is demonstrated when the sales charts between both companies are compared. In the charts made by International Data Corporation shown on an Apple Insider article called“ Worldwide PC market staggers in Q4 as Apple’ s Mac reaches new heights”, one can clearly see that Microsoft PC’ s own 92.9 % of the computer market in the 4th quarter of 2014, whereas Apple just owns a miserable 7.1 % of the computer market( see figure 1). This is just a small taste of the misconception that people have created by saying that Macs are the way to go. The computer world is governed by PC’ s, which outshine Apple in every single aspect possible, even unthinkable aspects such as: hardware, software, stability and price points.
People today have the common misunderstanding that because Apple is a more“ premium” or exclusive brand, it’ s better than most of the PC’ s in the market. According to an article called“ PC vs Mac” by Kim Komando, PC’ s offer a larger range of customization hardware wise than Macs. The bigger the range of customization to the hardware, the better and faster the computer is. In both, laptops and desktops, PC’ s offer several variations of customizability, compared to Macs, which only offer limited options when it comes to customization. For example, the high-end Mac Pro reaches a limit of 64GB RAM, or Random Access Memory, which essentially makes the computer faster the more you have. In contrast, a custom built PC has reached the barrier of 128GB RAM making it the ultimate machine. PC’ s today have better hardware
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