Section 24. Powerful Bundled Software

24. Powerful Bundled Software

The last time I bought a PC, it came with 20 gigabytes of watered-down software I didn't need, want, or like.

By contrast, my Mac came bundled with full-featured, powerful applications without parallels in the PC universesuch as iChat's "out of the box," zero-configuration video conferencing and GarageBand's sophisticated virtual sound studio, complete with digital instruments, a sound effects library, multitrack recording, and one-click podcast publishing. Can you spend less on a PC? Sure. Will that bargain PC be able to do right out of the box what the brand-new Mac in Figure 6 can? Nope.

Figure 6. Right out of the box, with nothing more than bundled software, new Macs, like this MacBook, outperform many comparably priced PCs. (Image courtesy of Apple.)