Datasheet

12
Part I: Informed Switching Starts Here
On the other hand, thousands of software titles are available for the Mac, and
they cover the needs of most users quite well. In fact, some great software is
available only for the Mac. Every new Mac comes with the following:
✓ Apple applications: These applications handle your e-mail, instant
messaging, address book, calendar, and (of course) iTunes.
✓ The Apple iLife suite: This collection of programs lets you manage
photos, make movies, authoring DVDs, create websites, and compose
your own music. It even teaches you how to play an instrument.
✓ The Mac App Store: An easier way to buy quality, inexpensive software.
Pioneered for the iPhone. It attracts an army of developers, big and small.
✓ A built-in camera and powerful FaceTime videoconferencing software:
All new Macs (laptops and iMac desktops) that have a built-in display
have the camera, and the software works with industry standards.
Some longtime Windows-only software is now available for the Mac, as
developers have realized that they were missing an important market. One
example is AutoCAD, widely used by architects and mechanical designers.
Another is the popular QuickBooks accounting system for small business,
though it lacks some features of the Windows version. Moreover, the Mac OS
X operating system is built on top of Unix, and Apple follows the Single Unix
Specification (SUS). Therefore, a large amount of software developed for Unix
and Linux operating systems can run on your Mac, including many popular,
free open-source packages. Much of that software doesn’t run in Windows.
Finally, Macs can also run Windows, so you can still run the odd program
for which an equivalent isn’t available on the Mac. All new Macs run on Intel
microprocessors — the same ones that power most Windows machines. In
fact, any Mac sold since mid-2005 is also a full-fledged, strictly kosher PC,
one that can run the Windows 7 operating systems as well as any PC on the
market. So if you must run software that’s available only for Windows, you
can use it on a Mac, too. Yeah, you have to buy and install Windows sepa-
rately, but I walk you through that task in Chapter 16.
“Macs are dying out”
Macs were close to dying out in the 1990s. Their share of the personal com-
puter market was less than 3 percent. That share has been climbing steadily,
however, and at last report was 15 percent in the United States. Market share
doesn’t tell the whole story, however. Apple commands some 35 percent of
all profits made from selling personal computers. Its competitors are locked
in a death spiral, competing on price and doing everything they can to shave
costs at the expense of quality. The success of the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod,
and the iTunes Store makes more PC users consider Apple. More than half
of all new Macs are purchased by people who were using Windows, and
40 percent of college students buy Macs.
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