Mac vs. PC people

Recommendation site Hunch is another one of those applications that knows a ton of random stuff about its users. In case you’ve never signed up, you start by answering a bunch of seemingly unrelated questions, and based on your answers, Hunch offers recommendations by correlating your answers with preferences for you and others. This graphic, in collaboration with Column Five Media, shows differences between Mac and PC people within the Hunch community.

Among the findings: Mac people are 95 percent more likely to prefer indie films; PC people are 26 percent more likely to prefer fitting in with others; and as for cable TV networks, Mac people prefer Bravo, HBO, and Showtime, whereas PC people prefer Syfy, History, and USA.

[Hunch | Thanks, @trendyle]

26 Comments

  • Nice comparison. It would be great to see something similar, contrasting users of different web browsers. My guess is that the Chrome and Firefox users, although they are mainly on PC, would have profiles more like the Mac user.

  • Sebastian H. April 26, 2011 at 1:50 am

    Some nitpicking on the numbers:

    Does “7% more likely” mean that they have a value that is 7 percentage points higher (then the wording would be misleading) or is it really “7% of the X percent of the reference group” (then it wasn’t very informative without the base reference because e.g. 7% of 3% is pretty much zero)? Confusing.

  • jellydonut April 26, 2011 at 5:46 am

    So basically, Mac users are hipsters, and PC users are regular people. Gotcha.

    Seriously, this seems to have been influenced more by the first item (Mac users are younger) than anything to do with the choice of platform.

    • younger… or older. Wasn’t the range something like 35-49?? Life doesn’t end at 49…

  • I wonder about the neither category, more specifically how they determined who fits there.

    Anyway, here’s a classic infographic on how different computer cultures view each other:

    http://weedoom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Linux-Windows-Mac-as-seen-by.jpg

  • Interesting graphic. I think however a more interesting comparison would be taking PC users and Mac users above a certain gross annual income. Macs, being almost twice as expensive as PC’s usually calls for a more richer crowd than the PC’s. And the PC has a greater reach than the Mac.

  • As I type this from my local indie coffee shop eating my vegetarian Bahn Mi sandwhich, I’m not sure whether to be proud or ashamed that the “Mac Person” profile fits me almost exactly.
    Also, I agree with Sebastian H. – reporting stats as “X% more likely” can be misleading and should be frowned upon in most journalistic instances…

  • Heh. Mac person fits me almost exactly except for the age – but then, I’ve owned Macs since the Mac Classic.
    I agree with Romy, income likely plays a role. I don’t have any kind of official statistics but WAY over 50% of surgeons/physicians in any group I’ve worked with (in North America and the UK) use Macs (i.e., at least 10x estimated Apple market share).

  • Gerard St. Croix April 26, 2011 at 1:16 pm

    How come sexual preferences weren’t registered? I’m sure we can all guess, but still…

  • I get the feeling that living in a big city is the key demographic for the mac users from this list, moreso than mac ownership.

  • Joan Rivers April 26, 2011 at 3:03 pm

    its probably important to remind the audience (though i wouldnt suspect it of readers of this particular blog!) that hunch users are not necessarily a super accurate proxy of the general computer-using population.

  • it’s like the apple ppl are trying so hard to be cool…huge turn off…the culture around apple is why i won’t buy apple…good job and good luck w that! you want a bigger market share? stop being tools

  • Mac is a closed off platform. Windows/PC is an open, extremely customizable environment.

    I know where I would rather spend my time. (Though i actually spend more time on my mac due to iphone development).

  • I run Fedora Linux on my home desktop and netbook computers. I’m an 8 on the 10 point Conservative scale. I have Master’s degree and an Android based Smartphone. I’m in my mid-50’s.

  • schubert malbas April 28, 2011 at 3:10 am

    nobody’s saying it, so I will. Why do I feel that many comparators hoist Mac users as more tech-savvy and as cool as cucumber, while PC users are, ahem, quite boring… Or maybe it’s just me… overthink, overthink.

    yours truly,
    PC & Linux evangelist

  • Really not a fan of this one. Feels like something digg users would retweet / vote up though…

  • this has been made by someone who has mac for sure ¬¬

  • there is a “i am better than u” thing going on with mac folks and they need to just get over it. i was a career mac guy for 25 years and then i just decided to go (and take my business) where the money was…and that is definitely in PC clients. don’t take my word for it, look at the stats. cut the peer pressure mentality and GO WHERE THE MONEY IS!! over 90% of the world is using PCs!! i still cross platform and love the mac but i also love to eat, pay rent and the bills.

    • imajoebob July 14, 2011 at 1:32 pm

      No, there’s a whole “They think they’re better than we are” whine that many PCers constantly drone. Mosr Mac users’ attitude is Live and Let Live. As for your “Go where the money is,” I completely agree. Apple is worth more, more profitable, and has more cash than Microsoft. And every other tech company on the planet 9including agnostic Google). Go ahead, spin that.

      • joebob –

        not whining, joebob, just giving you stats. as far as the “go where the money is” comment…i meant money FOR YOU to make, joebob, not them. and by the way…i have NEVER met a PC person that had a “kill or be killed” attitude (versus your “live and let live”) against anyone, let alone a MAC person. I stand on both sides of the fence (as I stated) and definitely “live and let live”

  • I am unique in that while I work in Excel and Access on a daily basis (With heavy VBA use), I have two Macs in addition to my two Dells.

    I run Parallels 6 on the iMac and Mac Book Pro, with Windows 7 Ultimate and Office 2010. And they run great!

    I just installed Office 2011 for the Mac, on the Mac Book Pro, and I really like it. I still have Office 2008 for the iMac.

    Most people that do what I do hate the Mac. I however prefer it.

    That said, I spend 60 to 70% of my day on the Dell.

    I also have an iPhone and iPad, and several iPods.

    So give the Mac a chance. It does not crash!

    Christopher

    • imajoebob July 14, 2011 at 1:40 pm

      Get a copy of FileMaker Pro, and you’ll walk away from the Dells. I was consulting for the NHS in Britain and tried to use (their) Access to run a database of 100K records. It took 15 minutes to load and more than an hour to run 5-criteria queries. I brought in my Mac and imported the data into Filemaker. Less than a minute to load and open, less than 8 seconds for the largest (12+ criteria) queries.

      The same design that “optimized” Macs and OS X for graphics translates perfectly to crunching data (it’s all about the numbers). give it a shot, you’ll never touch a PC for database management again.

  • Ambivalent July 22, 2011 at 5:04 am

    this statistics are totally useless, you could just skip all that information and say Mac users are more likely to be more wealthy people who think they are ‘more stylish’. since there are 22 million Mac users versus 900 000 000 – 1 billion PC users you can’t really compare that who ‘groups’ on any level. it’s like comparing every Mercedes user to rest of the car owners in entire world and since I have mentioned entire world there is a ‘small’ issue with this study. Is it just me or did anyone noticed how this study isn’t on a global scale and you didn’t mentioned anything about respondents. by looking some stats they all share one thing.. they are all come from US and I know that because I’m European and 99% of people here don’t even know who is Rachel Maddow or Jim Lehrer not to even mention they don’t watch the USA channel.

  • Very interesting statistics. I definitely fit the mold of the Mac user on many points, for example I love bistro fries, Parks & Recreation, and I much prefer hummus to a patty melt, lol. Oh! and I’m vegan, so I guess I’m in that 80 percentile ;)

    I put together a survey recently asking people which operating system is better for graphic design and got some interesting responses. For the most part it seemed like a tie. If anyone wants to read it… – http://designfiles.net/design-tutorials/mac-pc-graphic-designers/