@deadhouseplantz: Ummmm Office 2008 is out for Mac. "if you're just writing papers, and / or into graphics".... how arogant of yourself to assume that Graphic Designers are just "into graphics". When your done typing all of those numbers into your excel sheet, get back to me so I can toss you around a few more times.

@diabolusunknownTheSecond: The study is about Amherst. If it were about Corporate America, it would have had a title about Corporate America.

imTheKing

@diabolusunknownTheSecond: The workplace still dominates with PC sales, that won't be changing. Even if Apple's Mac beat out HP to become the the number one PC vendor in the world, it would still only garnish 20% of the PC market leaving 80% for Windows and Linux... which means 79.x% for Windows.

Outside of a corporate setting, here is also a plethora of less than $1,000 of PC hardware that dominates the market. It seems that most college kids want at least an mid-grade PC since it's probably their only one, they want to but portable for class/study which is obviously more expensive than performance-comparable desktop, and there are many colleges requesting or requiring Macs. Plus, considering the cost of college a MacBook, minus the student discount, isn't that much.

Note that in May 2008 NPD reported that Macs accounted for 66% of the consumer market for all PCs over $1000.

Snce Macs can run Windows there is no downfall to buying a Mac as there was 3 years ago when a PPC Mac could leave you stranded if you encountered a Windows-only app. On top of that, there is a lot more web-based apps that are OS agnostic.

Leonard Nimrod

@deadhouseplantz: I agree with you, but it doesn't only depend on your major...it depends on how much a slave to trends you are. And how fat mom and dad's checkbook is. As a college student with ton-o-loans if I want to roll a mac its a hackintosh. The hardware is the same now days...whats the point in paying for the name and white plastic?

Joseph_Shaw_520

Also, my advice to college students, bite the bullet and get both a Mac and a PC. Don't try and be cute and use Boot Camp. I say this because a lot of textbooks now are coming in digital format. I have two classes now where the textbook is a pdf file and online. Also, the texts come with media content that can be used on iPods and Blackberries. The drawback is that I had one textbook during the spring term that used Microsoft Silverlight, so my Macbook was worthless. Which was fine, I would have the book displayed on my HTPC on our 56 inch Samsung LCD, and take notes with the MacBook.

You can get both a MacBook, and a decent enough PC laptop for less than a MacBook Pro.

deadhouseplantz

I'm currently in Computer Engineering, graduating in 2012. Most people in my class either have a PC running some flavour of Linux or a Mac. Very few of them have a PC running Windows.

And it's an iPod touch, not iTouch.

gamehead200

As a graduate student for Economics, let me give my two cents. It depends solely on the major. If you're a business major, or a major that requires heavy number data analysis, you're using a PC for Excel and Office 2007. If you're just writing papers, and/or into graphics, then by all means, a Mac is perfect for you. I hate the first 2 weeks of classes, you always hear people ask, beg, and whine if they can use Office 2008/2004 for Macs. They find out they can't, and cry how life is unfair. No, you have to hammer a nail, and you brought a hacksaw. It's college, come prepared there snowflake.

deadhouseplantz

Where is the study that shows that a vast majority of the working age populace chooses PC's and Windows over Macs? PC's must get that marketshare from somewhere.

I guess if it doesnt give you solace, you wont report it.

diabolusunknownTheSecond

I admittedly bought a Macbook for college. Meh, sure new ones are coming out, but after selling the free iPod Touch and printer I saved $400 bucks.

evangelistc01

@mmmiles: What I'm really interested in knowing is if the statistical trend of an increase in Apple laptop ownership is following a social trend or not. It'd be hard to generate a compelling argument against this, as nothing happens in isolation, and people are influenced by those around them. Call it social learning.

sridhar3

@imTheKing: You have no idea what a graduate degree is, do you??? Also, if you're going to call someone a nerd for posting comments on an internet forum. You might want to Godwin yourself when that website keeps tracks of comments and followers. Cause you just pwned yourself there skippy.

Hey, this is fun. Who knew picking on retards was entertaining. I should see when the Special Olympics rolls into town.

deadhouseplantz

@deadhouseplantz: Yeah I'm sure most college students are going to go purchase 2 computers for their college dorm. You sound like the biggest miss at life I've ever seen. Where do you get your logic from?

imTheKing

It sure seems like the schools that require Windows machines should eliminate these policies, due to the wide proliferation of Macs.

Schalliol

@deadhouseplantz: "I hate the first 2 weeks of classes, you always hear people ask, beg, and whine if they can use Office 2008/2004 for Macs. They find out they can't, and cry how life is unfair. No, you have to hammer a nail, and you brought a hacksaw. It's college, come prepared there snowflake."

Two words: Boot Camp.

Anticitizen

"I'm a student, and i'm NOT a PC"

laxman15

The majority of Mac owners at my university are girls who bought them because "they're pretty".

Kirk Douglas

@mmmiles: exactly, these idiots refer to it as a trend yet all of Apples competitors are fighting each day to attempt a copy of their products. Everyone from Microsoft to Dell are trying to pull off the same business model as Apple and not one of them have succeeded. If anything, Dell has been losing massive market share to Apple (at least in laptops).

imTheKing

@imTheKing: Same reason people have dual monitors. You can get twice the work done with half the hassle. Now I know, buying two computers is going to take a huge chunk out of your mom's meth funds. However, some of us are educated, and actually need the convenience to get their work done. If you were able to read the words with more than 2 syllables, you would have noticed that I have textbooks that only work or work better on PC's, (thank you Shockwave for sucking so much.).

Anything else you want to troll about. It's cool, I finished my essay early and have nothing else planned for tonight. I consider gabbing to you as community service working with the poor.

deadhouseplantz

@nappleheaded: I think you meant to reply to deadhouseplantz.

sridhar3

@deadhouseplantz: You've probably been going for 6 years on a 2 year degree. Judging by your previous posts, you seem to be just another douche surfing the lines of gizmodo. Let me know when you graduate with your computer science degree.

imTheKing

@deadhouseplantz: Uh OSX runs Silverlight, and MacBooks with bootcamp are often rated best in class as a PC. I don't know what you're smoking but I want some.

w1lster

I am a Computer Science major at TTU, and have a MacBook Pro running bootcamp with XP Pro SP2, and have a Vista desktop I use for games and heavy duty work because it has a 3Ghz dual core processor. I personally don't give a good damn about what everyone else uses. Don't care what they wear, drive, or have for a computer. I drive a Titan, wear a Seiko titanium, and use Mac and Windows.

O well. These are just numbers, it doesn't really matter. Do they have any real impact? The corporate world will continue to use Windows because it works well and a lot of people know how to use. A small percentage will use Linux and whatnot, and rest will be Apple. Doesn't matter, and it won't change any time soon.

bagellord

@gamehead200: Seriously, in computer engineering? All related software for Electrical/Computer Engineering is Windows only, from my experiences. I tend to agree with deadhouseplantz on this one.

cayton

I switched to Mac after 14 years of using Windows because OSX is significantly better than Windows, and my MacBook Pro is a very nicely designed laptop. I don't miss my Dell at all, even though it was slightly more powerful, the comfort of the OS and the well designed hardware makes the overall experience significantly better than Windows.

I don't know why people presume people using Macs is a trend anymore than apeing Windows users is following a trend, albeit a dying one.

mmmiles

In regards to students wanting style over function, that gets dealt with real quick when you need to finish an assignment, and you're spending your saturday afternoon at the campus computer lab. Nothing says cool like sitting in the computer lab trying to complete you managerial accounting final project in between two Asian girls listening to Asian music, and switching back and forth between their Myspace, and Youtube videos of Oriental soccer matches. That's real cool right there.

deadhouseplantz

@imTheKing: Actually his advice is pretty good. Boot camp is neat but I prefer having a dedicated desktop. Your metaphor is poor in my opinion btw.

It's more like, buy a Prius for commuting and looking hip; while owning a truck for when you actually have to work and need power.

SgtToastie

@deadhouseplantz: why wouldn't you use boot camp?

nappleheaded

@sridhar3: I think the techtardedness of the average person is a sliding scale.

Leonard Nimrod

@imTheKing: aaawww, that's sweet. You want to troll? Fine, let me simplify down for you. By graphics, I mean you have to use images and graphics for your essays and reports. You know, for classes pertaining to communications and journalism. However, by proofreading what you just typed, I can tell you would know nothing of college and the activities that pertain to it. Then again, what do I know about college, I've only been going for, um, six years.

deadhouseplantz

@sridhar3: why wouldn't you use boot camp?

nappleheaded

@deadhouseplantz: Why in the world would you not just use Bootcamp. Thats like saying "Don't buy a BMW 5 series, instead buy a Honda Accord because its good on gas and buy a Bently because its a luxury based vehicle. Your advice sounds like its coming from Geek Squad.

imTheKing

@Joseph_Shaw_520: I've been a part of the OSxProject since the switch and I wouldn't recommend it to the average 'PC' user or someone who wanted to save a few dollars by using older tech. There is just too much fiddling and research involved to get the drivers working right. Then you have update issues, odd quirks and Windows keyboard layout. It's just not an option for the average computer user for their only machine. Desktops have more support but they aren't the most popular for students for obvious reasons.

Leonard Nimrod

@Joseph_Shaw_520: Don't confuse the fact that you can't afford a Mac with the difference between building / buying a hackintosh and getting an actual Mac. Whether anyone wants to admit it at all, Macs are built like bulletproof vests. Thats one thing a lot of college students love, you can bang it around and it wont chip off plastic debris. Not only that but try getting support on a Hackintosh. Whether your tech savy or not, the average college student most likely has no clue at all about how to fix a computer. On top of that, you dont have to install some ripped / modded X86 OSX.

imTheKing

An interesting, although unsurprising trend. It's hard to say if the reason for increasing Apple computer ownership is due to Apple marketing and production of aesthetically-pleasing products, or simply because everybody else seems to have one and that's what all the cool kids do these days (instead of doing research and actually understanding what they're getting themselves into based on whether they buy a Windows or OSX computer).

On another note, it's surprising how few tech-savvy people I go to school with. You would think that, with technology pervading almost every aspect of our lives these days, more people would be able to understand the basics of Office and GMail. Maybe my school is just weird.

sridhar3

@imTheKing: "Thats one thing a lot of college students love, you can bang it around and it wont chip off plastic debris."

What are you smoking? Macbooks are notorious for cracking(My own included) and my budy dropped his MBP 5 inches and the aluminum crumpled and destroyed his optical drive.

SgtToastie

@laxman15:

i'm the 12th cylon, and i'm a pc"

you know only a small niche group is going to be remembering that line for a while...

jrghoull

@sridhar3:

"You would think that, with technology pervading almost every aspect of our lives these days, more people would be able to understand the basics of Office and GMail. Maybe my school is just weird."

thats actually the trend. people are becoming more and more tech savvy, but at the same time, are using simplier and simplier software. the same goes for tech purchasing. they may be buying alot more of it, but the average consumer is the average consumer, and they dont do that much research unless its a MASSIVE purchase (a car for instance)

jrghoull

LIES! VIVA PC!

Chewbenator

Do college kids today turn in files for their papers instead of printing them out?

MichaelScrip

I am sure the free ipod with purchase of a mac helps a bit. you know those damn kids and there ipods. And yes it is a trend. look at mac users and note the clothing most of them wear. or go to an apple store. kids craving attention in there.

aeroworks

@imTheKing: @deadhouseplantz:
Hey guys, I'm a PC and I can do everything perfectly fine. I don't need software especially formatted for a Mac, and I have no need to use any Mac-only software (oh yes, there is such a vast amount of this!). Once you get used to not paying a premium, you'll realize that a nice PC is better than a shitty PC and shitty MacBook.

Kicken

@deadhouseplantz: oh and since your on your 6th year living with your parents, do you still get allowance money for doing the dishes?

imTheKing

@deadhouseplantz: dickwad. Many students live in dorms their entire time in college. Take for instance Manhattan colleges. Do you understand how expensive it is for a student to live outside of the dorm. They have a hard time affording the dorm let alone an apartment.

I'd be willing to bet that I make a substantial amount more than your entire family. So keep flapping your lips. Did anyone tell you that you didn't need a degree to work for Best Buy?

imTheKing

@Anticitizen:

"Two words: Boot Camp."

Or better yet, VMWare/Parallels/VirtualBox + Office 2007.

Not that I understand exactly what you can do in Excel 2007 that you can't do in Excel 2008, except for, I guess, VB. Also, if you're really serious about number crunching, you're not using a piece of shit spreadsheet like Excel, but rather apps like SPSS, SAS, R, and JMP (of which three can run natively on Macs) ;-p

Dearhaw

@imTheKing:

I'm going to disagree with you on the build quality. I have a ThinkPad T42 that I still lug around with me to every class, that has seen other laptops (including several Macbooks)crumble in the same span of time. It's the build quality of the IBM that I can attribute to that.

Kirk Douglas

@Leonard Nimrod:
I would say that the fact that 66% of Computers sold in May 2008 over 1000$ is likely due to the fact that many people who would spend that much on a computer also have some interest in building their own. That, and that it is much easier to just upgrade a PC than buy a new one.

Kicken

@imTheKing: Again, you know nothing about college. No one lives in dorms past their freshman year, and those are usually financial aid low income cases. Most college students either live with their parents, or hey, live in a house or apartment. Tell me something, the mall you work at, does it have an Old Navy or does it have a Gap? I'm guessing Old Navy.

deadhouseplantz

@frigg: In some cases, just the Macs.

Kirk Douglas

@mmmiles: Well designed hardware? Apple uses off the shelf components and rebrands everything. It's not like they actually make hardware. So few big named companies do that these days. Pop open your precious little Apple machine and take a look at the brands on the inside. It's so much cheaper to just use off the shelf components these days and outsource all of your manufacturing to another company. What Apple primarily does is enforces what hardware can be used with their systems. That's why people will say it's "well designed". No, it's quality control via eliminating options.

Zencyde

Facebook is disgusting, and I'm not all that fond of macs either... This sounds like it's coming from a fan-boy...

cowpop

@sridhar3: That phenomenon is dissipating as Macs are becoming commonplace. They are less of a trend and more of a presence, and so Mac users are less trendy and more... just people who bought a mac because they like it.

frigg

Peer pressure anyone? I bet those kids are scared to go to school with non Mac notebook. I think that famous picture with all the kids in class having macbooks and just one with an Acer is horrific, 1984 stuff.

raindogmx

@Kirk Douglas: "... because 'they're pretty.'"

the girls or the macs?

frigg

@MichaelScrip:

teacher usually specifies what they want. never really thought of it as turning a file in, but i guess i myself have done that a few times (again though, it was usually on teachers request).

we'll have less and less hard copies of papers and what not as time goes by, but we'll still be using paper for a long time to come.

i bet eventually though things will go the opposite way. everything e mailed or handed over electronically, with the exception of once in a while whre the teacher will request a hard copy. of course even then it wouldnt have to be paper...god knows a 10 megabyte flash drives already cost next to nothing...

jrghoull

@diabolusunknownTheSecond:

More people know how to use Windows, so the average workplace has no rational choice but to buy Windows PC's. That and they are cheaper to fill an office with than Macs

michaelwiggins

Two things sold me on my Macbook:

1) The touchpad and keyboard and hands down the best I have ever used on a laptop. Because that's something I will never be able to improve it was a big factor in my decision. Two finger scroll is awesome.

2) Window management in OSX is better than with Vista. This is important on a small screen.

At the time I bought it, it was not much more than comparable 13.3" notebooks and the free ipod was a nice bonus.

jsforbes

@Zencyde: The design of the product dickwad.

imTheKing

@evangelistc01:

That's exactly what I did, haha. Sold the ipod touch the last day before the new ones came out.

By the way, don't you mean 500 dollars? If you got the free touch, then you must have been using the higher education bonus, which grants you an immediate 100 dollar discount at check out.

michaelwiggins

@Kicken: You can join DeadHousePlantz in the poor section. Clean up in 10.

imTheKing

@Leonard Nimrod:
66% of brick and mortar store.

k2001

@cayton:
He's a freshman, which means that likely the only software he's encountered so far is Matlab. He has yet to learn of things like spice, Code Composer, all the random suites for working with FPGAs, Visual Studio, etc.

And as a programming TA, my mac students can be quite whiny and annoying.

RockLobsterNet

I think I'll stick with tabletPCs... And Lenovo, after this Asus compy's done.

Reilaos~

@jrghoull:

I guess my point was it doesn't matter what kind of computer you type it on as long as you can save it in a format your teacher can open.

MichaelScrip

@deadhouseplantz: Office works just fine on OSX. I'm writing a paper using MS Office on my iBook right now. Everybody has it. If you don't have it, your other Mac using students can just drag and drop it over to you. It is really not that big of a deal. By the way, Office 2008 sucks

EricIvar

It's too bad the makers of the smaller laptops (asus) don't market their wares. I would think these 9" screen would sell like hotcakes, inexpensive and useful.

BiZarRroBALlmeR

@jsforbes:

Yea, nobody talks much about the window management, but that is a major selling point for me. I have the 13.3" macbook and the only program I use at full screen size (other than movies of course) is garageband. Internet and such works just find at 3/4 of the screen.

michaelwiggins

The Mac is just an overall superior computer & OS. Besides I can also run OS X, Linux and Windows side by side if I need to.

paja

Heh, I'll probably be one of those 14 freshmen lugging my desktop to college. Unless I end up renting an apartment with some of my friends. Either way, I plan on using this pretty machine for awhile.

20GB

@Kirk Douglas: Until I started reading Gizmodo, I had no idea how many nerds actually liked Macs.

The stereotype you just described actually was more prominent in my school.

michaelwiggins

I live a few miles away from Amherst college; there's a reason Macs are more prevalent there; $$$$ in general is more prevalent there. A Mac/apple product is the perfect accessory to the BMW your parents gave you when you graduated high school. Just down the street from Amherst College @ UMass Amherst I'd bet the ratio of Macs "vs." Windows is more like 5% to 95%.

*disclaimer* my percentages are guesses not based on a study but on having lived at Amass/Zoomass and having seen what most students have.

hoffmanbike

438 incoming students?..... what a tiny college. and it's huge in liberal arts. Art majors are much more likely to have Macs than other majors and types of people simply because professional art programs like Photoshop generally run better on OSX. While Macs are being purchased more due to their untrue PC slamming ads, this is plainly a one-sided story coming from an Apple fanboy which turns the entire article/opintion into basicall propoganda (though i did like the restraint of this fanboy as most tend to be much more up front when it comes to their PC bashing whine).

JasonLongus

We need a study to show what is common knowledge? Of course more of the working populace uses PC's, that's why Windows has a 90%+ marketshare. What this article highlights is the fact that NEW college students use more Macs than PC's. And, if you'd care to apply brain power to that, you might deduce that they are more likely to use Macs when they are in the "working age populace". That is the "somewhere" that marketshare comes from. Quit whining about an article that doesn't state the obvious and doesn't bash Macs.

GianniViper