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Who put the 'crap' in 'Crapintosh'?

Zack Whittaker has taken a few days off to "get his head together", so in the meantime his best friend, Elliot Harrison, has stepped up to the firing squad to cover this week.The hate campaign certain Windows users have against Macintosh users must stop!
Written by Zack Whittaker, Contributor

Zack Whittaker has taken a few days off to "get his head together", so in the meantime his best friend, Elliot Harrison, has stepped up to the firing squad to cover this week.

Mac vs. Windows
The hate campaign certain Windows users have against Macintosh users must stop! Not only are these naughty people so very ill informed, but also quite rude. This article will explore (with genuine fact) why exactly Macintosh is more productive, cheaper, better looking and more reliable to invest your student money in than anywhere else.

I will begin with a quote, (and lord knows how we English students love them):

"In a world without walls or fences, what use do we have for Windows or Gates?"

Here, here, well said, whoever you are! And, in light of this piece of literary genius, boys and girls, I come to you with a simple plea. Students across our fair planet, throw your chunky PC’s out of the nearest window, (careful not to hurt yourself) run to the nearest Mac store and waste the whole of your student loan on a brand new Mac.

Many of you may have seen the Mac parody adverts on the television, the ones with comedy duo Mitchell and Webb? Naturally I use the word ‘comedy’ lightly. The problem with Mac’s popularity lies in the filming of these very adverts. People are simply not aware that Macs to great things. These adverts (foolishly) give the Macintosh a light hearted, and friendly approach to computing, a sell which doesn’t quite match the hard sell that rival PC companies have.

By rights this should be a good thing. But it isn’t. Having an ad campaign completely boasting simplicity doesn’t do justice to all of the amazing things you can do with a Macintosh. I don’t want a white background and a semi cool Mac fan telling me very calmly that ‘did I know that I can...rar rar rar’. Boring!

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Not helping with this ‘sissy’ image is that Macintosh tend name their products using an abundance of neologisms ‘iPod’, ‘MacBook’ and for the actual operating system ‘OS X’.

This causes confusion in the minds of many, as the word used to define the machine, doesn’t necessarily capture its true potential. It also paves the way for genius individuals to conjure phrases such as ‘iSuck’ and ‘iPretendIamBetterthanyouButIamNot’, and the lovely colloquial ‘Crapintosh’. Wow, thanks, I’m off now to edit a photograph in double quick time, whilst watching a movie, recording an album, doing a podcast...and having a little sulk.

OK so I'll admit, in terms of advertising the aforementioned Macintosh operating system seem far less attractive than the Microsoft equivalent.

Let’s face it with names such as “Vista Ultimate” or “Windows Server”, which not only seem gargantuan (which many would buy out of sheer fear of not doing so) but also appear to do exactly what they say on the tin. To be fair, over a decision on a name basis only, between “Mac OS X” and “Vista Ultimate”, I’d go for anything that says “ultimate”. This sadly, only results in a deep sense of regret you should have made the other choice.

If you are indeed someone who’s felt that feeling time and time again, and is starting to believe as I did, that there must be something better; make sure you read on. Salvation lies within. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is Mac.

Macintosh today as a company is better than ever, especially for students. And thank god, they’ve got a bit meaner. Take a look at this statistic: "Apple recently closed the single largest educational sale ever - 23,000 iBooks." And this number is only going to increase as time goes on. Apple has opened a brand new factory recently in California, enabling them to whop out thousands of the new MacBook (a gorgeous looking piece of kit) in a state of the art manner near to perfection. Better still, statistically is it more productive than a PC.

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A business Mac user gets $24,000 more work done per year, his or her computer is down 14% less, and it costs less to support than any other platform. So, when you do your work on it, you’ll get better grades! Not only that it’ll last longer and not be worth nothing once you’ve got it home. It’s a no brainer, really.

The new factory also enables Macintosh to lose the old plastic casing for the MacBook’s and replace it with lovely shiny brushed steel, naturally cut and moulded with surgical precision, just like the ‘Powerbooks’ of yesteryear.

Apple has over $4.2 billion in cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet. This statistic means Apple have the money to constantly revamp their products making sure that they work well for the customer. The new range of iPod devices has only been out a couple of years, and they have many models spanning many generation; but buy a Mac and you are part of a constant process of development.

The Mac
This money also helps to provide the customer with unrivalled technical support, coming as standard. If though, you do wish to be treated like a monarch, choose the ‘Apple care plan’. This permits you to much more support and extends your warranty a great deal.

The Mac is very reasonable for your budget as a student, especially with the discounts they offer for students. They provide phenomenal processing power even as standard, along with masses of storage for the price they even start at. This allows you to do pretty much whatever you want on it. They also look very pretty compared to the horrible plastic black/grey rivals (yuck).

For students, the best bit is on the Education store on the Mac website, with extreme discounts by simply choosing your institution (although only available from your institution’s internal network or via VPN at home). Not only will you find the prices dramatically slashed, but you may be lucky enough to choose a free iPod and printer with your purchase. Name me another company which does that for everyone at certain times of the year? Don’t try, because you can’t.

There really is too much to say about Apple. Please students of the world, if this article has struck a chord with you, and you want to be the coolest student on campus, and still have some spare cash left, just get a Mac; it's so very easy. Trust me, I’ve got one.

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