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Well kind sir, you did just rate a survey and your input may very well instigate a more in depth survey in the future. However, once we get outside our work environments, it is these three companies that dominate conversations in instances where the conversation turns to the subject of using a computer and I believe there is a lot of value in these survey results. As a tester with no dev experience or training, I am always pleased when my votes match the CP community.
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Awesome. Looking forward to a more in depth survey, though I fear there might be a hindrance to that: Few people actually use more than one program of any type constantly, so answers would be biased more along the lines of "What do you use" as opposed to "How do you compare these relatively?" Not that such results aren't useful in themselves also, just that the tendency would be to indicate the former and not the later no matter how you state the question.
Take an example of an email client (I'd forget about web browsers - been done to death with no clear winner every time): Outlook, Apple Mail, GMail (and then in my case I'd add Mozilla's Thunderbird, someone else might say "What about Evolution, Claws Mail or any of a huge list of email clients[^]?"). How many do you think use more than one of those? Perhaps GMail might be an exception as many might use it on mobiles while they use one of the others on desktops/laptops. Even IT-nerds might only have used the others once or twice as a test run, found their favourite and then stuck with that.
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Not really: the survey worded as it is measures the "trust" us developers put into these firms regarding the quality of the software. Do we, IT professionals, trust more an unknown product from Apple, one from Google or one from MS? On average which one do you believe to provide better software?
Actually surveys too convolved or with too many choices rarely yield valuable informations.
Geek code v 3.12
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- r++>+++ y+++*
Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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irneb wrote: I use very few programs from any of them.
Are you saying your phone isn't iOS, Windows, or Android?
And that your tablet isn't either?
Because the market share for anything other than those three is really tiny these days.
As far as browsers go IE (MS) and Chrome (Google), are the "major players" (http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php[^]) with Firefox next (but they don't make anythign else) and Safari (Apple) following but a long way down.
You want word processor, spread sheet, database, ...? Same kind of thing: same companies at the top, with Open Office in there replacing Mozilla.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Exactly what I was saying: Such a survey would at best only give an indication of the amount of people using one or another. Not how well they rate the software (because most wouldn't ever have used an alternative in anger if at all - thus no way to actually make more than a subjective comparison).
And no, my phone used to have the Samsung version of Android, but I've since installed my own custom mod (still Android though, but I wanted to get rid of all the cr@p ware packaged with Samsung + Google and only have the apps which I want). Don't have a tablet as my phone doubles for that too.
As for my PC's: At home (main PC) Kubuntu 64bit 14.04, with VMs for FreeBSD, Win7 pro, Win10. Firewall/NAS/Gateway/Media Server - Lubuntu 32bit 14.04. Laptop Win7 pro. My only reason to still have Windows is because of Revit, I cannot find a similar program in any other OS - same reason that at work I'm also stuck on a Win7 PC. For all other programs I'm using none of those 3 software companies, e.g.:
- On the PC
- Browser = Firefox
- Email = Thunderbird
- Office = LibreOffice
- Raster Edits = Gimp
- CAD = BricsCAD (on Linux) and AutoCAD (on Windows)
- Media Player = Kodi
- Music Library Manager = Amarok
- Video Edit = Avidemux / Pitivi
- DotNet IDE = SharpDevelop (inside Revit) and MonoDev everywhere else
- JVM IDE = Eclipse
- Other Programming = Emacs / LightTable / Qt
- On the phone
- Browser = Dolphin
- Email = K4-Mail
- eBooks = Calibre
- Maps = Waze
- Video = Kodi
- CAD = AutoCAD 360
So you see my point? Other than Android and Windows I use none of their software.
modified 30-Jan-15 1:20am.
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The surveys are meant to be straw polls, not rigourous scientific surveys. Making the survey as comprehensive and water-tight as you suggest would end up with a big TL;DR from those arm-chair voters out there.
If you wish to suggest a survey, go for it.[^]
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I've never really used an Apple product except iPod Classic and iTunes. I love the iPod, but they took mine out of production (160GB). I really really really really really really really really really REALLY HATE iTunes. Worst software product ever. By far. It doesn't get any worse. Seriously. Any company that makes iTunes deserves my 1 vote. What's so bad about it? Well... What isn't, really? It syncs the wrong way, removing songs from my iPod and it auto-tags my MP3's, doing all my hard work undone. I also couldn't get used to the interface. And it needs this other crappy Apple software to run. Some update service or something.
I've used a Macbook for about an afternoon and I also didn't like that, but that's probably because I'm more used to Windows.
I know some people who bought Apple products (mainly iPhones) and for some reason they all broke. That might be a coincidence, but the "it just works" doesn't seem to hold up.
Anyway, from what I've seen the quality and pricing is so far off I wish I could vote another 1...
Would they still produce my iPod Classic with 160GB I'd probably voted a 2
But enough with the Apple bashing
Windows makes very decent stuff nowadays. I loved the Windows Phone. To bad it's not getting picked up by app makers and vendors of services, so I switched to an Android. True, Windows 8* was awful, but Windows 10 seems to go in a right direction again. Loved Visual Studio 2013 and the Community Edition! And they're open-sourcing everything or making it free, which I can appreciate
IE remains the worst browser out there. Looking forward to Spartan!
Gave them a whopping 4!
Google is somewhere in the middle. I like Android, but I like it less than Windows Phone. Chrome is my favourite browser, but only because I dislike the competition.
Gave them a 3, which is not bad.
Again, iTunes is the worst. I'm getting mad even thinking about it. Grrrr...
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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I'd swear Apple makes their software (iTunes and Quicktime) run like crap on Windows on purpose.
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Agreed
I do not fear of failure. I fear of giving up out of frustration.
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I couldn't agree more with you. Spot on.
For a Lazy<Person>
a.WritesALot
next
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Sander Rossel wrote: iTunes. Worst software product ever.
Not that I have anything good to say about iTunes, but you have obviously never had the privilege of working with Lotus Notes or SharePoint if you think iTunes is the worst software product ever
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All 3 are doing pretty darn good. Still room for improvement but still very good.
Each has a couple things that make you scratch your head but the vast majority of their stuff is solid.
Contrary to popular belief, nobody owes you anything.
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I really disagree.
Try using Apples Numbers like a real spreadsheet. yeah, it is cool of you want to spend some time formatting something small. But use it as an alternative to Excel... No thanks. Or, like me, don't open the App store for about 2 weeks. Then open it, and WAIT FOREVER for it to download God knows what.
On the Microsoft Front... Office 365 with major incompatibilities in viewing and handling various of their OWN document formats, and missing key features (watched a 2,000 user client admit they can't switch due to incompatibilities with their existing documents, despite them WANTING more tablets and Macs to be available to the users).
Google... For 2 years I have put up with document preview in GMail that was skipping an entire paragraph in my word file. They just fixed it. Their PDF support ignored errors and displayed a PDF just fine, except even Acrobat refused to read it... No mention that the file had issues. Errors are being ignored.
Oracle? Lets see, the came out with a MINOR Patch Release (11.02.03 -> 11.02.04) that BROKE a public API (Thin Client Connections). Not to mention NOT fixing Java Issues, AND THEN suing over Google using the Java API... (as if that is a thing, and one hopes it NEVER becomes a thing).
I say they are average at best. I would prefer to see HALF as much software progress, and TWICE the software quality from all of them.
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I had to do the same, not much exposure to apple and google but most of it is positive, MS is a dogs breakfast of apps covering such a wide range that the question becomes irrelevant.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I still struggle to comprehend iTunes and my iPhone.
Guess I should use it more than once a month.
I was thinking of inbox on my iPhone to rate Google.
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Can the hamsters please align the radio buttons with the captions. The misalignment is driving me nuts.
Thanks,
/ravi
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--
The trouble with people, is that they want to hear only what they want to hear.
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It means you require a smoke afterwards.
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pure pleasure
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I guess the answer highly depends on what "quality" means. The answer could be very different whether you focus on functionality (good software has a high number of useful features) or stability (it doesn't crash) or usability (even a DAU can use it). I'm not very used to Apple products, but from what I've seen so far, they focus on 2 and 3, while the functionality is often terrible compared to competitors. Microsoft used to focus on 1, while stability sometimes was at a loss.
What do you prefer?
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I really do love the softwares Microsoft is making these days, yes I agree in past few years they left off their quality and created more and more products and their versions. But now, they've left it (or maybe they're telling us so) and they're creating good softwares. I was going to vote them for a 4, but I clicked on 5 because of their .NET framework, cross-platform development and Visual Studio - best IDE.
Google on the other hand, makes good software, but they're not memory friendly which leaves behind the meaning of "good software". I mean, their Android IDE, for example takes away enough RAM to prevent my computer machine to do any other work. I suggest, Google should keep working on their search engine (because they've got a great service) and try to let the software experts (Microsoft) handle other tasks; this don't mean I hate Android, if you're counting system softwares too, then yes I prefer Android over Windows Phone.
Apple, well I have never used i-* products, and I am not interested in ever using them. So neither did I love them nor hate them, so voted a 3.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Well, said.
I am still amazed at how much memory Chrome consumes.
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