Is Mac Or PC Better For Designers?

When it comes to choosing between a Mac and a PC people have always struggled. Designers, in particular, have found that it is difficult to choose a platform that is unambiguously better. Often what ends up happening is that people convince themselves that a Mac is too expensive and go with the PC, thinking that it will be “good enough.” But there’s a small cadre of designers who feel like they have to have a Mac, just to fit in.

The question is whether all this heartache is worth it. A lot of what happens on the Apple side has to do with “marketing optics” – the idea of how one should be seen if one is a designer. But are Apple really a step up?

Adobe Photoshop Came To Mac First

Many people associate Adobe with the PC, but it was actually first introduced to the Mac nearly 30 years ago by Thomas and John Knoll. The reason they did this was that the 1988 Macintosh was the only computer in the consumer market at that time that had a color display. PC users had to wait for more than two years to get their copy of this game-changing product in 1990.  

Interestingly, Photoshop has got Apple and Adobe in its DNA. Even now, most Premiere Pro training takes place on Macs of one variety or another, and it’s clear that the two are meant to work together. But it should also be pointed out that a lot of this is just historical accident.

Designers Love Macs Through Historical Accident

One of the reasons why designers love Macs so much is that they are the computers that they have always used. Early designers used Macs because they were the only systems which had the design software they needed. In other words, there wasn’t anything particularly substantive about the Mac that made it the go-to choice: rather, they just happened to have the right product stack at the right time. After decades of use, Mac owners are loyal to the brand, knowing that they will do what they want them to do.

These early historical beginnings have had large ripple effects in the design industry as a whole. The first designers who used Apple products became mentors and then passed down their love of Macs to their apprentices, thus continuing the cycle. Because designers aren’t a particularly technical crowd, they weren’t so interested in the actual differences between PC and Mac. Instead, they just wanted to know whether what they were buying would work, and to hell with the competition.

Good Reasons To Prefer A Windows PC

It turns out, however, that there are some good reasons for preferring a windows PC. One of those reasons is that Windows PCs typically cost considerably less for the same level of performance than their Mac counterparts. Also, PCs tend to have greater systems compatibility with clients, especially in areas outside the creative services industry where more than 90 percent of users are on Windows.