Are we doomed to forever argue about Macs vs. PCs? Didn’t the latest commercials already kill that off?
In a story featured on Romenesko, Medill senior Janessa Goldbeck talks about why Medill has replaced Macs with PCs at McTrib. She finds several journalists who say Macs dominate multimedia journalism. Some replies from other journalists in the comments say PCs dominate the editing, writing and design of their papers in general. MyMedill blogger Matt Weir weighs in as well.
I’ve found Macs more user-friendly than PCs, and they have some multimedia software for video and audio editing unavailable on PCs. And yeah, they’re different and it’s helpful to know both.
But the differences aren’t that important.
Macs and PCs are more similar now than they have ever been. Software such as Quark, InDesign, Photoshop, and Flash are basically the same on both platforms. Both both use Intel-based processors. Mac OS X even has Boot Camp, which lets you run Windows programs on your Mac. And the actual online content, like photos, text and video, work perfectly fine on both.
What’s far more important than operating systems is learning the principles behind producing copy, audio and video, so that whatever the latest gadgets and programs are, we use them intelligently.