Mac growth Ping!
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Posted on 09/03/2008 2:04:19 AM PDT by Swordmaker
This year 60 percent of the first-year class brought Apple computers to school, bringing the school total to 40 percent Apple and 60 percent computers with Windows based operating system, a Library and Technology Services staff member said.
The LTS Web site says that for the 2003 to 2004 academic year, about 79 percent of students had Windows operating systems and 20 percent had Apple computers with one percent of students using the Linux operating system.
Information on the proportions of students who had computers with Windows and Apple computers last year is not available.
"Apple has a fantastic ad campaign going on," LTS Director of Networks and Systems John Turner said, suggesting that this could be a reason for Apple's recent success.
The free iPod that students can receive when they buy an Apple computer for college is an incentive, he said.
Dan Gutman '12 said he liked certain programs Apple computers offer, such as GarageBand to record music.
"I kind of felt like [Apple computers are] the future," he said.
Turner said that Brandeis works carefully to be "very Mac friendly" and "as agnostic as possible" when it comes to students' computers. He said that originally Sage only worked when it was opened in Internet Explorer, but LTS pushed for the program to work on the Safari Web browser for Apple users.
He said the school does not accept computer program vendors if their programs do not work on Apple computers.
Turner added that most administrative programs also work on Apple computers, but for those that do not, a program called Parallels allows users to run the Windows operating system on an Apple computer.
The University uses Parallels software to operate the magnetic locks that open with swipe cards.
Chet Berman '12 said his family always used computers with Windows but found the new Windows Vista operating system "horribly incompatible" with certain applications, so he purchased an Apple MacBook for school.
Berman said he likes his Mac but has had some problems operating Safari and gaining access to the secure Brandeis network.
On the other hand, Turner said, some students continue to use computers with Windows because they were popular in the past and people are "influenced by what [they] know and what [they've] done."
Turner said he has found from speaking to new students that parents' suggestions and the higher cost of Apple computers kept some students from purchasing a Macintosh computer.
Turner noted that 70 percent of students who brought computers with Windows use the relatively new Vista operating system, which comes standard with the computer.
The rest of the students who use computers with Windows have older computers or downgraded their operating system to the old standard Windows operating system, Windows XP, because "they all know Vista sucks," Turner said.
Aneil Tripathy '12 uses a computer with Windows and said that he has not had problems using Vista, although some of his friends have had trouble.
Turner said that for students having problems, Brandeis is an authorized Apple care warranty center and an authorized Dell repair shop and that LTS can fix other computers.
"If Apple continues [to make a] great product, more freshmen will bring them," Turner said.
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Sounds like a pretty unscientific poll to me. I have no horse in the race but I have always used, out of habit I suppose, a plain old PC running Windows or Vista and a Laptop ditto. I have looked into purchasing an Apple but cannot in any way justify the huge price differential based on my use. Besides I haven’t had any problems with my PC’s over the 18 years or so I have used them with the exception of a burned out power module in 1995 on a Compaq desktop.
Brandeis is in the Socialist State of MA and most lefty’s I know despise Bill Gates simply because he is so filthy rich and his company is so huge. They have been instructed by their lib folks to despise Gate’s and love “little Stevie” who started his company in a garage (so did Bill Gates). It’s a classic case of David and Goliath and besides that college kids almost to a one are brain dead and will follow the crown and do anything determined to be “cool”, in this case own an Apple.
What kind of nonsense are you peddling?
There is NO linkage between computer operating systems and poltical leaning. vide Rush Limbaugh.
And, who’s the David and who’s the Goliath in your warped world?
Finally, please get off the completely discredited “huge price differential” myth. Unless you want less computer. Macs are competitively priced feature for feature and have been for some time. They just may not make the Yugo equivalent model you want.
Sorry to get your panties in a wad but for ther purposes of 90% of the population who use their computers for email and surfing the web along with possibly speaking to friends and family via webcam, an Apple is easily twice what a similarly equipped Dell or HP would be. Cheapest I could find in a Mac was their Mini-1.83 GHZ, just 1 gig of ram and an 80 gig HD which has a Cd burner only, no monitor, no keyboard, no mouse, just bare bones and it costs $600.00 at Best Buy.
I bought an HP 2.63 GHZ dual core, cd/dvd burner, 4 gigs of RAM, monitor, keyboard and mouse and bought it all for UNDER $500.00 INCLUDING shipping and 3 months zero interest financing.
I am not claiming the Apple isn’t a fine computer only that it is overpriced for what it offers for the greater majority of people.
As for the politics, we all know that kids follow the crowd and all or almost all are sappy liberals who are fed garbage which I have myself heard about the bullying tactics of Microsoft, the main supplier of OS’s for PC’s. Plainly6 put Steve Jobs is the “anti” Microsoft. But as I said I have no horse in the race save that which presents best value for me. If my needs change I would buy an Apple in a heartbeat because I have heard and read of their really great record of dependability. I don’t find the (price) difference near to worth it based on my lack of any problems with Windows and the other computers I have run it in over the years.
My daughter brought her windows lap top this fall to college.
She was told she should go with an Apple by next fall for the Graphic Design Classes.
I agree that sounds like a great deal. I can't argue with the price.
Brandeis is primarily a Liberal Arts school and private, correct? Mommy and Daddy can affort to send Junior to an overpriced school with an overpriced computer. You very rarely see Apples in Engineering departments...atleast none of the ones I have attended or taught at.
A friend of mine went to Apple and I had a chance to use it. In a short 5 minutes, I was hooked. I will consider a Mac for my next computer.
JoMa
Macs are definitely spreading in engineering schools - especially since the majority of the JPL engineers have switched to Mac at their own expense (look at any of the documentaries on the Mars Rover projects for proof).
It’s even more interesting since NASA still has an organization wide ban on the purchase or support of Macs, so the Mac owners are on their own.
My daughter was told to get a Mac because of all the viruses on the university network. That, and the free iTouch was a huge incentive.
It depends. Apples are, hands-down, the best computers you can get if you’re going into a graphics-related field, or even if you don’t want to do anything more on your computers than write papers or surf the internet. Even before Boot Camp, which allows Apple computers to dual-boot Mac OS X and any other OS the user feels like installing, I noticed a lot of Macs in the computer science department of the school I was attending, although we’d occasionally have to look a bit harder than everyone else to find the necessary software or an acceptable substitute. Of course, after Boot Camp was released a year or two ago, the popularity of Macs went way up, so now most students I know in engineering and computer science departments like that they can have a Mac, then switch over to Windows when they need to use a Windows-only program to do their homework.
Does that say something about all students or just Jewish freshmen?
Note, The website where I found the number of students at Brandeis University apparently has n error. The number of students is not 25,000 but 3,200. Sorry for the error.
Swordmaker
Although Brandeis is a Jewish sponsored university (Wikipedia says its the only one), it's non-sectarian. Incoming Freshmen are a mix of religions.
What it says about all Brandeis students is that 40% of them are using Macs. Freshmen are arriving with 60% bringing Macs.
Sure, but there are still 227 billion Windows machines.
Which means, what, 227 trillion viruses? ;’)
You're only comparing specs. The problem for the PC is that although the Mac mini costs more it is much better suited to those tasks for the average joe casual user type. There will be a shorter learning curve, less frustration and more actually doing what they bought the computer for -- email, surfing and family communications. Set up is pretty much a no-brainer, all those apps are brain-dead easy and on the Dock from the beginning, and all of them work together.
Here's an experiment. With a just-bought computer that has email and networking set up, take a picture of yourself and send it to the family. On any Mac with a camera (not the mini or Mac Pro) open Photo Booth from the dock and snap some photos. Select the photo or photos you want from the film strip below the viewfinder and click the Mail icon, address the email and send.
On any Mac without a web cam, you'll just have to plug in a web cam first. Notice I didn't say anything about installing drivers and such, and remembering to install the drivers BEFORE you plug in the camera as is usual on Windows.
Here's a personal experience along those lines. I bought two identical UPS, one for the PC and one for the Mac. Here's the procedure for the PC:
What has my being a "newbie" got to do with the relative merits of a PC vs a Mac? Surely you are not one of the morons that somehow equates the length of time a poster has been on FR with intelligence, are you? Anyway, I have no argument with the fact a Mac is easier to operate for the entirely computer illiterate. I just don't believe the cost difference is warranted by this and besides when something DOES go wrong, the Mac user hasn't a clue where to even begin to fix what could probably be fixed with something as simple as a system restore or an even simpler reboot.
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