So Macs are great?

[Stevo]

Hey guys, long time lurker first time poster. Installed OSX on my PC ages ago and thought it looked really kewl ,had a play around with a mac mini in work and thought , what the hell i'll buy a mac. So I bought what was the top of the range iMac at the time (August or September last year), 20 inch with all the trimmings. about 2 weeks later the 24 inch version came out but ah well, what can ya do. First impressions were great, was delivered pretty quickly from the factory in Cork, nicely packed, turn it on and its ready to go. So things start of really well, it looks well, screen quality is amazing and it's super quick, not the usual few minutes waiting XP to load but then the sheen starts to wear off pretty quickly. Random crashes where the whole thing just locks up, finder jams and wont let ya relaunch it so ya end up restarting but it just hangs on the blue screen when its shutting down so you have to hold the power button. Then theres iTunes, my GOD thats gotta be the buggiest software I've ever seen in my life, fair enough i thought it was bad in Windows but who cares, its Apple software so ya know if ya want the true integrated experience buy a mac and that's fair enough. Ya click the iTunes icon in the dock and it bounces once or twice as it loads then...nothing, it hags, no gui just the icon in the dock saying its open, then ya get the application not responding message when ya right click but it refuses to be forced to quit. This happens with a few apps but the main culprit is iTunes which decides quite often that it doesn't feel like working today. The software that came with my Vodafone 3g modem also decided recently that it didn't want to work anymore so it hangs in a similar fashion when ya try to start it, I suspect that this is due to crappy quality control from Vodafone but it's not exactly user friendly that the app just hangs there without any indication that it's open other than the little arrow in the dock. The weirdest thing thats happened so far is input in text areas in browsers (both Safari and Firefox) ends up on top of previous characters and doesnt remove the characters when you delete them unless you scroll down and scroll back up the page to redraw the content.

 

So what's the purpose of my rant, well I guess it's to do with the fact that I have the same (sometimes worse) user experience on the mac as i did with Windows yet the mac fanboys would have you believe the sun shines out of Steve Jobs backside and theres never any problems with OS X. So has anyone had any similar experiences with their mac? If i had problems with a Windows PC i'd be able to sort them out pretty quickly but i haven't a clue how to sort this kinda {censored} out on a mac. To be totally honest I'm really disappointed with the experience I've had with the thing since I've got it so my next PC will probably be *sigh* a Dell. Oh yeah, the mighty mouse, worst mouse I've ever used but it looks too nice to change . Really sorry for the really really long rant but I felt like getting this off my chest. Here's the challenge, make me want this computer or it'll be replaced by a nasty plastic looking black Dell

[Gcrumpets]

i own a Titanium powerbook (the only REAL mac i own) and personally ive only had one or two lock ups with the finder...i get the same itunes problem on my Hackintosh some times...not on the powerbook tho.

 

and ive only had one app randomly quit on me...and that was garageband..when i was in the middle of a projewct and hadnt saved .....so my time with a real mac has been MUCH better than my windows experiences....which is why i like it.

 

but considering ive only ever owned one mac i cant speak for much.

[Soündless]

i have a macbook pro and i've never had any problems with it (except the ones i cause f***ing around with the OS) it is much faster than my hackintosh, and is my 3rd mac

[Suzuka]

Hmm i never had trouble with iTunes, and I'd have very few lock ups, and they were short

[iRISH]

I have been through a iMac G4, PowerMac G5, iMac Core Duo, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Macbook, and Mac Mini, And some older Macs such as the SE and Color Classic II. I Also owned Windows based PC's Such as Gateway, Compaq, And Dell. I have never had any problems like you are talking about on my Macs, but have had major issues with almost everyone of my Windows based machines.

[mac-mini]

i have a macbook pro and i've never had any problems with it (except the ones i cause f***ing around with the OS) it is much faster than my hackintosh, and is my 3rd mac

 

same but i have a mac mini and my hack is faster than my mac but thats fair because the hack has 1gb of ram and the mac has 512mb

[A Nonny Moose]

That many problems after just getting and just setting up an OS? I call SHENANIGANS.

[bxsci(macuser)]

i refuse to believe it.... i got a macbook pro and never had a single problem with it - ever ---- and the sun doesnt shine from steves ass --- that apple on the back of the computers.... is where the sun comes from - twas darkness for melenia before the macintosh was created

[GBK.Xscape]

a lock up happens to me every once and a while here on my macbook pro core 2 duo, its happend one to many times for me though, i never had a problem in windows though, (not sarcastic)

[EFI]

I have a Macbook Pro C2D (switched to a Mac Nov 06), and have only gotten 1 crash from a software...but that too it was in Photoshop CS3 Beta...where I clicked photomerge on a set of images that were not properly set for that action...and then photoshop crashed on me...but I think that was because the software had bugs. I tried it on the real CS3 release and it never happened. iTunes 7 also runs very smooth too, I havent had any lockups at all so far. Its extremely fast too, iTunes opens up before even 2 bounces on the dock. However, I like iTunes 6 better than iTunes 7, interms of stability and even the UI. Some people have stated that version 6 was more stable than 7, and I think I might agree, especially for windows users, as many of them have reported stability issues. I think you might just have been one of the unlucky ones, becuase if it gets very serious, it might be a hardware related issue. It happens, no one is perfect.

[my1stmacisaHACK]

have it replace then.. but first try updating your software.. it might help

[A Nonny Moose]

a lock up happens to me every once and a while here on my macbook pro core 2 duo, its happend one to many times for me though, i never had a problem in windows though, (not sarcastic)

 

I'm still calling SHENANIGANS on this guy. I've never had an computer fresh out of the box act like that (not even Windows boxes).

[U.C.]

1) Repair Permissions. They can cause a lot of troubles if out of order

2) Install Onyx and Run all the three maintenance scripts. Also Update your pre-binding. Last button in the maintenance tab

3) Clear out all the caches including System and Kernel with Onyx

 

OR

 

Download YASU and run with everything selected

[aqua-mac]

Do what U.C. suggests and if you still have problems, there is a fair chance you have a stick of dodgy ram. If you have added any ram, take it back out, if you have more than 1 stick, try with both individually. There is a lot of less than perfect ram out there and that includes the stuff Apple supply.

[Ictinike]

Make sure your updating everything xD

 

Anyways.

I've ALWAYS had a Mac since I was 6, I'm now 17. Since I was 10 I had one I called my own.

OS X is a wonderful and so far the best OS from anyone that I've ever used. Your iTunes problem is strange, I've used iTunes for over 3 years and not once had any problems with it excpet once when I forgot to update and my iPod messed it up a bit.

 

You should love your computer, don't look at it with a skeptical eye. Take some time and visit apple.com/osx/downloads sometime. Go look for fun programs made by small companies that make your computer even more interesting.

 

Much of the software packaged with the Mac is for light and easy users.

Theres a huge amount of QUALITY Mac software out there, you jsut gotta look, and you'll start loving your computer alot more.

Don't think what comes with you Mac is all you get.

If you'd like me to point out a few nice apps just send me a PM. :-)

[Stevo]

Hi Guys,

Cheers for all the advice. I'll have a look at testing the ram when i have 5 mins to spare. Turns out the problem with iTunes was being cased by my iPod. Reformatted it and iTunes has stopped acting up, problem with text areas still has me totally stumped though. I'm very tempted to do the old fashioned Windows fix and reformat to sort out the problem. It makes it nearly impossible to type something cause you cant see what you're typing. Has anyone come across this before? If i figure out what's causing it i'll let you guys know, just in case it happens to some other poor newbie who hasn't a clue how to fix it!

 

Cheers,

Stevo

[Quelkin]

Most of my problems have been traceable to the area between the mouse and the chair

[cringemaster]

Hi Guys,

Cheers for all the advice. I'll have a look at testing the ram when i have 5 mins to spare. Turns out the problem with iTunes was being cased by my iPod. Reformatted it and iTunes has stopped acting up, problem with text areas still has me totally stumped though. I'm very tempted to do the old fashioned Windows fix and reformat to sort out the problem. It makes it nearly impossible to type something cause you cant see what you're typing. Has anyone come across this before? If i figure out what's causing it i'll let you guys know, just in case it happens to some other poor newbie who hasn't a clue how to fix it!

 

Cheers,

Stevo

 

Thats all firefoxe's dogings. I had the same probles with an earlier version. Upgrade FF or just use camino or safari.

[Guest Ramm]

Odd.

 

My "fake" OS X has never locked up or CTD'd.

[willgonz]

I thing to remember. You can always install OS X onto an external drive. Keep a drive handy. Should you need to boot from it and troubleshoot, you'll have it on hand. You could have a fully loaded drive and all your apps by using Carbon Copy Cloner. Select the bootable drive option. Another thing, if you have other Intel Macs, boot them from this drive if needed. Just because it was created on another machine doesn't mean it won't work on another unlike Windows.

[Stevo]

Thats all firefoxe's dogings. I had the same probles with an earlier version. Upgrade FF or just use camino or safari.

 

Yeah that's what I thought as well but it happens in Safari as well.

[mac-mini]

well i have known reformatting to work but if you decide to make sure you back up your data

[Snerler]

My hack has thus far had 0 problems, although an intel iMac at work has messed up a few times over the last few months. My Windows computers have pretty much 0 problems too.

 

 

Just reinstall the OS again to make sure that its not a hardware problem.

[tommyhill]

I'll tell you what's strange, sometimes you can here stories about lemons, true honest lemons, that give so any problems you are like "what is this guy talking about", try re-installing, or the only thing I can think of is 1 out of two memory chips don't work to well. But you probably don't have 2 installed. Cause I can remember a time when I tried to install some memory I had gotten from work and it went in alright and was recognized ie the system looked alright, but when I started launching things started acting wierd, crashes with everything...

[OSXtasy]

.......the truth is comming out, hehe. How many times have I ranted about Quality Control?????? Obviously, I'm not crazy afterall. I wish you the best tho Stevo.