I am about to purchased a laptop for before I go to RIT for ID. My interest lies in footwear design. MAC OR PC??? Help!!!
macbook pro!
All the footwear designers here use Mac. I would go with a MacBook Pro. I would wait though, until you get to school and then use your school discount to get the computer it will save you to get that school discount and sometimes they have deals for scanners or printers with the computer for students.
Mm
They don’t ask for any documentation of your studentness online, so you can get the discount now. Plus, in the stores, proof of impending enrollment is usually good enough.
If you get a Mac laptop now I think you get a free iPod Nano.
peeps with macbook pros, is it true there are compatibility issues with cs2?
yeah i heard there was issues with the new adobe software on the mac book pro’s, something to do with the new processors and the software isnt up to speed yet or something. and dont even think about web design.
imo:
go with the smallest size laptop you can. because its supposed to be portable… you can always plug it into a nice big flatscreen for home or the office or whatever.
most of the people i know who’ve bought the latest greatest laptops out there never actually seem to do anything with them! if you’re mostly on illustrator and a little bit of photoshop you’re not gonna need all the flux capacitors and 1.21 gigawatts. that stuffs mostly for final cut.
mac book pro…if you want to be a pro
I use a regular p.c. laptop, I’m using CS2, had no idea that there was MAC issues regarding that software!
TBH, I don’t think it really matters what you use as long as you understand the software.
In the UK, many employers refuse to provide MACS for design teams because they are so expensive over here and in a big company it can mean recruiting sperate IT support purely for MACs. I guess it’s different in the US where they don’t charge you such silly prices!
MAC is inudstry standard for design, I guess, but don’t feel ‘forced’ to have one if you don’t want. It won’t make any difference. Personally I can’t stand MACs I’m, gonna stick to what I’ve got.
If people are judging you on the type of hardware you use (and not your talent), then they are fools.
i would say get a pc just because you’ll spend less $$$$ or get more bang for your buck with a tablet pc…
MAC is inudstry standard for design
does anyone know why this is? i heard it was because macs support more memory, true?
This goes back to when Macs first showed up on the scene. Typography and desktop publishing was easier on early Macintosh systems than “IBM compatibles” costing twice as much. Adobe software and MS Office products all saw first light on Macs because they worked really well for those applications.
The gamma on Macs is a little different also, which some people claim makes color matching better, but I really don’t know that much about that.
More recently, when the G4 processor came out, the vector processing thingamajig that was part of that chip was used very effectively by design software which allowed Mac systems to run circles around PCs costing roughly the same. With slow development of Power PC processors (like the G4), the Intel/X86 stuff caught up so there wasn’t really any hardware advantage for either platform anymore.
The perception remains, though, despite the fact that in performance and use tests both platforms function basically the same. So there is no “standard”. I think that now a lot of designers, particularly graphic designers, prefer Macs because they are more in line with the sensibilities of designers. In terms of aesthetics and productivity enhancements to the hardware and the OS, there really isn’t much competition from Windows-based systems.
The perception remains, though, despite the fact that in performance and use tests both platforms function basically the same. So there is no “standard”. I think that now a lot of designers, particularly graphic designers, prefer Macs because they are more in line with the sensibilities of designers. In terms of aesthetics and productivity enhancements to the hardware and the OS, there really isn’t much competition from Windows-based systems.
so it more habit/preference than an actual functional advantage…so many people have said to me that macs are better for the 2d stuff, i started to believe that…
i just can’t see myself using a mac for everyday stuff after using a pc for so long…
Some programs will do certain things better on a Mac, while those same programs may do something else better on a PC, particularly when comparing x86 to PPC. But generally speaking, there isn’t really a significant difference in the way programs run.
Personally, I think OS X has many functional advantages over Windows, especially when it comes to window and file management, search, and workflow efficiency. But obviously, anyone making an operating system transition, whether from Mac to Windows or vice versa, may not find things to be better at first, but they’re both viable once their respective quirks and features are learned.
But obviously, anyone making an operating system transition, whether from Mac to Windows or vice versa, may not find things to be better at first, but they’re both viable once their respective quirks and features are learned.
no doubt, i do not thinks macs are bad. i do think people sometimes overstate their posstions on both sides of the mac vs pc argument though…
I’ve always owned macs, absolutely love them, never have problems. I’ve worked equally on macs and pcs at work, still prefer the macs, pc’s were always buggy or you’d have to call IT all the time to figure stuff out. Earlier this year I built a pc to run 3-d apps, so I put it all together from scratch and got a crash course in how to do everything in pc. It runs flawlessly, no buggy things, etc but I still prefer/use my mac most of the time. Putting together the pc showed me really how overly complicated the interface is and how many extra steps you have to go through to troubleshoot, network, etc. Just seems like too much going on so if somthing goes wrong, you have to look 10 places to try 100 possible things to fix it. Macs don’t give you problems, if it does, it’s easy to find what it is and fix it immediatly (on os9 at least, x has different dna but I haven’t had anything go weird yet to have to look).
So then I just break it down to interface and the mac’s interface is more intuitive. PC tries to think for you too much on some stuff (hiding my icons), then is stingy on the knowledge on other things…too much time wasted searching for stuff that’s not placed very intuitively. I’ll still use my mac all of the time unless I’m doing 3-d or google earth, those are the only things I touch the pc for.
You can use either. Most programs are available on both machines. I had a Mac and am now going back to a PC. I went back to a PC because there are problems with Adobe Creative Suite running on the new Macs. There is a conflict with the operating system and the new Intel chips. The programs have to run through another program called Rosetta which is where the problems lie. I have heard that it causes considerable lag and a few bugs when translating the program. I bought a PC and upgraded it to better specs than a MacBook Pro for about $1000 less. I also have a 4 year warranty instead of the Apple Care 3 year. And because there is no conflict with windows running Adobe CS2, I can use all of my programs with no problems. On advice from Apple (stores, my service center, and corp.), wait to buy a Mac until Adobe releases CS3. I spoke with Adobe and they confirmed that there are conflicts with the new Macs and their software and that CS3 would probably not be out for another year to a year and a half. If you need these programs now, my suggestion is to buy a PC or buy an Apple Certified Refurbished PowerBook G4. Mac does sell refurbished computers with the old PowerPC chips and will still allow you to purcahse their Apple Care extended warranty. The older models have no problem running the Adobe Software. The other option is to buy a new Mac, then install Windows and run the Windows versions of Adobe. I contemplated this, but decided just to buy a PC because I figured, what was the point when I can buy a PC for $1000 less and do the same thing. My other suggestion is to call Adobe and call Mac to further research this if you have any more questions about either one.
PB
i cant get more technical than that so im gonna go esoteric:
i’d liken it to if you were planning on being a carpenter by trade…
sure you could buy some discount tools from a bargain bin somewhere and bang out a similar job to what you would using a really expensive set of tools…
but if you’re gonna be using those same tools EVERYDAY FOR THE NEXT GOD-KNOWS-HOW-MANY-YEARS, it might make a difference to you what tools you invest in.
personally i find macs to be smooth, solid, stable and reliable - whereas pc’s feel like scratchy, clicky, ratty, fragile looking things that i wouldnt want to be working on late at night for some crucial deadline…
but if i didnt do design i probably wouldnt touch macs.
fin.
Having decided on purchasing a PC, now I am trying to narrow down the selection. Which units support design programs and activities best??? Less overheating, crashing, and slow performance!
i purchased a 17" toshiba satellite, it was recommended by many. The thing overheats like a motherf. After some research I found a ton of people with the same problem. The heatsink gets clogged up with dust. I would not recommend a toshiba.
I used to answer Mac to this question. But both of my last two places of full-time employment have provided me with suped up Dell PCs. It almost hurts to admit this, but I love the Dell. I can move around among all my files faster with it than I can my Mac, which I still use at home. Here, I still have my old faithful Mac G4. I’ve had a Mac (or two) at home for the last 10 years or so. Yeah, you feel a lot cooler when you’re using a Mac. But I’d be lying if I said it makes me more productive.
Since it is a footwear design-specific question…
What is the controversy over? What software does footwear design require?
So far in this thread I have seem people mentioning Adobe Creative Suite … Photoshop and Illustrator and etc. and that is about all.
Damn near every modern Mac running (and why do you PC people insist on saying “MAC!” as if it is an acronym? Its a Macintosh, like the Apple. Get it? It is not “Machine Address Control” you geeks!) will run CS2 like a charm. The problems of the first-generation Intel chip machines will likely be solved quite quickly and in the meantime, yeah, maybe avoid them? I’m running a 1.25 Ghz Powerbook and run that package smoothly, no issues. The gloom-and-doom crew should calm down and just POSTPONE purchases of that sort until the bugs are worked out and focus on the more core issues… and those are becomming less and less important.
Macs are cool, they are designed with the user expeirence in mind, and it shows. PCs are basically Microsoft platforms, hardly ANYONE really runs a Linux or X Windows environment on them, so if you have issues with Microsoft products … because you are baffled why worrying about things like… we don’t need to get into that. If you run a PC for just a few applications, you probably won’t have the same sorts of complaints that someone does that is trying to do everything in the world with one. But, they are STILL harder to maintain yourself if you aren’t familiar. Still. If you don’t have issues… well, you are lucky.
SO WHAT SOFTWARE is important for soft-goods design that isn’t a common design tool for everyone else?
What is specific to the industry? What allows you to get natural drape … what programs work with stretchable materials, or allow you to design patterns in weaves more cleverly than making a ‘pattern’ in Illustrator? What lets you draw a 3d object and then explode the patterns flat for cutting?