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The Mac vs PC debate has rumbled on for years and shows no sign of disappearing yet. Although IBM compatible PCs are by far the dominant force in the consumer market, Apple has a favorable market share in certain areas such as pro audio and graphic design.
In the world of pro audio, many audio interfaces will work on either Mac or PC, and software such as Pro Tools and Cubase are also available on both platforms. This means that the same end product can be achieved on either platform, and as the audio interfaces are third party, there are no reasonable arguments to be made about differences in sound quality. Therefore the reasons people choose Mac or PC are determined by other factors such as reliability, ease of use, support and price.
Possibly the largest difference between the platforms is that Apple manufacture Macs - IBM compatible PCs can be made by anyone. Similarly, anyone can manufacture 3rd party PC hardware such as motherboards, CPUs, video cards etc There is almost an infinite number of PCs that could be built using different hardware whereas Apple keep close control on the hardware available for the platform.
The upside of this for the PC user is that machines are highly configurable and upgradeable and also cheap (the amount of competition in the components and peripheral markets ensures this) However, this also throws up some problems - it is impossible to test hardware and software with all the permutations of PC on the market.
The Mac user will have a very limited choice of upgrades compared to their PC using cousins, and the lack of competition also ensures that prices are much more stable, albeit higher than PC prices. On the other hand, software and hardware for the Mac can be tested with most permutations of hardware, and accordingly you are less likely to run into hardware conflicts.
In a professional audio environment there are many requirements we need from our DAW, but perhaps the most important is reliability. This need for reliability is the historical reason that Macs have become the dominant force in the pro audio sphere. The close relationship between Digidesign, the developers of Pro Tools, and Apple cemented this position as market leaders. The 2002 purchase of Emagic, the developers of Logic, by Apple further divided the professional audio market, especially as many people used Logic as a front end for Pro Tools hardware.
It is a fact that most of the larger studios will be using Apple computers and a large reason for this is the legacy of Apples superiority in the 1990s. There are however PCs starting to creep into some installations. Digidesign recently qualified a range of PCs manufactured by Terra for Pro Tools HD systems offering a reliable PC based alternative to the Apple line. Carillon are also continuing to make inroads with their specialist audio systems which can be tailored for many different audio applications and software packages.
The PC undisputedly has advantages over the Mac if the user is reasonably computer literate. The ability to tweak the operating system extensively and cheaply upgrade and update the PC are definite pluses, as is the larger selection of audio software available. However, if the end user is not particularly comfortable with the 'tech' side, then PCs can seem daunting prospects, especially when the dreaded BSOD appears! Macs are often labeled as computers that 'don't crash'. Whilst this is far from true (one of the most unstable computers I've ever used was an Apple laptop) it is fair to say that for a 'plug and play' solution a Mac is the better option for the less technically able.
There is still a stigma of unreliability attached to PCs. Equally, many people from the PC side of the fence accuse Apple of being more interested with aesthetics than the 'tweakability' of the machine. A lot of Mac users are also labeled (often, although not entirely, unfairly!) as being more concerned with the appearance of their computer than the actual capabilities of the machine.
In the near future there seems to be more muddying of the waters - from 2006 Intel, the largest PC CPU manufacturer, will be producing the CPUs for Apple Macs. By the end of 2007 it is hoped that all Apple Macs will be using Intel processors. Although all the implications of this move are not yet known, it will certainly be interesting to see what effect this has on the Mac/PC paradigm.
