- Virus cleaning - Some idiot accidentally installs 25 IE toolbars - Windows update breaks everything - Wifi drivers decide to stop working - The thing won't POST one day until you remove and reseat the RAM. Not an MS issue, but common on cheap hardware.

I've almost never seen an iMac require attention after setup. When's the last time a PC tower operated by nontechnical people ran nicely without IT attention for 5+ years?

I think the key here is non-technical users. I know many users who have fairly recent Mac hardware that stayed on Snow Leopard because of Rosetta. I cringe to think how many similar users were affected by issues such as the recent Java browser vulnerabilities but no longer receive support for that version of OS X.

In this case, OP mentioned Erik's did have an "IT" employee. I'm guessing the IT individual's knowledge did not extend to having dedicated POS machines or understanding the concept of user profiles and group policy/rights. With cloud-based/hosted POS systems now, security concerns don't necessarily stop at one's browsing/computing platform.

Thanks. My work experience would confirm the 'non-technical user' thought. We're mainly Mac based with the odd PC. The PCs are usually on the brink of death due to crapware that someone thought to install. The Macs seem to avoid this, in part perhaps because to the users are so unfamiliar with the system that they don't try to install the crap.

I've got an iMac that won't keep a wifi connection up for more than an hour or so. I'm not alone, if the support forums are any indication.

The $6 usb/wifi dongle from Monoprice stays connected for weeks at a time.

Wifi modules, just like DVD lasers, eventually burn out. Usually it manifests itself in dropped connections after a period of time. I've got an old Linksys WRT54G that can't keep the wifi on for more than 20 minutes.

Five years, hell three years out the mac hardware is obsolete and unable to use the newest OS. I hope your software is still supported on the old hardware! How is your custom POS developer going to test for that by the way?

As long as we're pulling out anecdotes, I've put together PC's with that service lifetime, for use in business. I've serviced brand new iMacs that don't support certain printers, or other hardware, and the users of these require very much attention indeed.

> Five years, hell three years out the mac hardware is obsolete and unable to use the newest OS. I hope your software is still supported on the old hardware! How is your custom POS developer going to test for that by the way?

Why would their software suddenly stop working on old hardware?

Edit: it's common for OSX to drop support for old hardware. It's also common for software to improve overtime with upgrades and bugfixes. Developers don't want to support old software indefinitely, unless you can do so with newer tools on newer hardware. Simply researching the limits of legacy systems is a massive waste of time, supporting them is a nightmare.

Try to find a modern version of some software on OSX 10.4, for example. Development has likely frozen years ago, meaning bugs won't get fixed, security is out the window, and everything sucks forever.

An MS-based system doesn't necessarily require more maintenance. PerformanceBike ran on NCR/Fujitsu(I forget which) POS registers for some years before being replaced with a Windows-based POS system (Datavantage). There were also backend Windows PCs that handled functions such as corporate communications or printing in-store signage. Besides hardware replacement from the vendor(similar to how you might have HP/Dell hardware replacement), Performance managed to support the stores with only one dedicated MIS engineer until they had expanded to 60+ stores. Granted, the backend/POS programming was handled by developers. Additional resources were available if necessary such as facility networking changes provided by overlap of other MIS staff as well.