Pros and Cons of Switching From Windows To Mac

It's been a couple of years since Apple ran their Switcher ads — but folks are still making the switch. Rockgod writes to point us to his list of pros and cons after he switched from Windows to Mac recently. From the article: "It took me a long time to be convinced that Windows 3.1 was a better program launcher than X-Tree Gold, but it happened eventually. Since then, I have been a sucker for every upgrade — 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... I bought the cheapest Mac available, a Mac Mini with a single-core Intel chip and the minimum of RAM — 512 MB. It cost me AU$949. Since plugging it in, I have barely used my $3000 Windows desktop... All this time later, I have almost exclusively switched to the Mac."

stay tuned, I'm waiting for my new mini

[yagualterego (975945)]

First, it isn't 10 Pros, and 10 Cons, it's 10 Pros and Cons (which I guess is technically what the article "says").

I recently ordered and am expecting a Nov 29 ship date (why?) for a new Mac Mini, the very first Mac I'll have ever owned. I'd never hesitated in the past to recommend to friends and family an Apple over a Windows box, and those who chose Mac virtually never came back with support issues.

As the blogger states, he's never looked back - my reasons for getting a Mac are more for being able to test my software on all platforms. I will review my experiences in my journal when the box gets here and I've burned it in for a few laps. I'm looking forward to it.

For the record, though the author loves his machine, I'd guess anyone considering today a Mac should look at a heftier configuration. (I'm getting the dual-core, super drive, 2G memory, 160G drive configuration.) I guessing I'll be happy with this box.

Re:stay tuned, I'm waiting for my new mini

[Firehed (942385)]

Well, when it comes to switching, it tends to mean that you liked the thing you switched to more than the thing you switched from. In this case, preferring Macs to Windows.

Uses for "I never looked back!"

[by Anonymous Coward]

"I just backed over a family of four in my SUV, and I never looked back!"

"I was miraculously born with no neck, and I never looked back!"

and so on...

Re:stay tuned, I'm waiting for my new mini

[Dahamma (304068)]

True, isn't the whole point of the article that he is now looking back and comparing the Mac to his old Windows PC?

Re:It wasn't that unbalanced.

[Fred_A (10934)]

I keep hearing this I don't get what the problem with 512 Megs is on Mac OS. My iBook has 512 Megs and runs fine. I mostly run Firefox, terminal, text editors and OOo (in X) on it (at the same time even) and never really felt memory constrained. OTOH if I had known beforehand how much disk space OS X eats, I wouldn't have gotten a 30GB model. Of course if you're going to do heavy graphics work, or simulation, or somesuch, things might be different, but it's not really platform specific...

This being said, and while OS X mostly runs fine despite a few annoying bugs (no showstoppers), I still find KDE way more comfortable to use. Notably because of much better network integration and the fact that windows don't have to be in front to get focus (none of this is really KDE specific though, more a Unix desktop thing).

Re: never looked back

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

Never trust the opinion of someone who "never looked back". When did the phrase "I never looked back" become a way to endorse a product?

Worked for Lot. Too bad about his wife...

Re:stay tuned, I'm waiting for my new mini

[TubeSteak (669689)]

Your IT guy doesn't know what he is talking about. Burning discs at an ultra low speed will not necessarily make the quality of the burn better, and it may even make it worse.

Nowadays, you're mostly correct, but the conventional wisdom was always slower = better, mostly because the faster you burn, the more errors are introduced.

Anyone who really cares should be willing to sacrifice a few discs to burn them at different speeds, then check the results with any of a variety of programs. [cdfreaks.com]

Lack of Mac Games is not a "Con"

[by Anonymous Coward]

You'll just be able to buy more of those $300 jeans with all the money you will save not buying games.

Re:Lack of Mac Games is not a "Con"

[grammar fascist (239789)]

You'll just be able to buy more of those $300 jeans with all the money you will save not buying games.

Hang on... how much material do you think needs to go into the average Slashdotter's jeans?

$3,000[!]

[jscott (11965)]

A $3,000 Windows desktop?! Fucking gamers...

Re:$3,000[!]

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's Australian dollars, not real money.

Re:$3,000[!]

[antifoidulus (807088)]

I'm assuming he means $3k AU since he mentions how much the mac cost in Australian dollars earlier in the blurb. 3k Aussie dollars is about 2275 [yahoo.com] USD, still a bundle but....

Re:$3,000[!]

[ianmh (818287)]

How is that a problem? Some people do not want to build their own machine, how much is your time worth? Some do not know how. Others just have a lot of money, and some just need their computer to look like a giant alien head.

Re:$3,000[!]

[Shados (741919)]

As someone already mentionned, its a matter of what your time is worth to you.

Example: I built my own machine, AND paid 3000$ for the thing. Obviously at the time it was a total monster in that case. #1 I regreted building it myself, because when shit hits the fan, I had to maintain it. However, thats not my point here. #2 The reason I spent so damn fucking much on a computer, is so I wouldn't have to deal with it. This box is like 4 years old (or something, I didn't keep track) and runs very, very respectably just about everything. Aka: I didn't have to upgrade it in 4 years, and its still an upper tier machine (save for the video card, and the only reason the video card has issues is Nvidia's rediculous DX9's implementation in their first batch of cards). And the way things are going (aside the video card), I still won't have to touch it for at least another year, while still running high end apps like Visual Studio and most games.

That buddy, when you have a busy life, is priceless.

a step above any Linux distro ?

[rs232 (849320)]

"The GUI: It didn't take me long to get used to it. It is super smooth, even on the cheap Mac Mini .. It makes Windows XP look very late-nineties."

"It's Unix!: You've got a very, very nice GUI but under the hood is good ole' Unix"

"It is only when you open the Terminal and get to a shell that you see all the ancient Unix directory structures, combined with Apple's more hip and happening directory names like Applications, System, etc"

"Notice I didn't say anything about viruses, trojans, spy-ware? I haven't been infected in three months on the Apple .. I don't run as an administrator. This simple action protects you from about 99% of malicious software. It is a simple fact."

"unless you are a rabid freedom-fighter it is a step above any Linux distribution out there. KDE and GNOME are still a long way away from achieving the polish that Apple has delivered with Mac OS X"

Why I dropped MacOS in favor of Linux

[ArbitraryConstant (763964)]

The primary reason was the hardware. I don't mean this in the sense that I have a particular affinity for homebuilds, or that there aren't any other reasons. The cost was simply prohibitive with Apple, and this was big enough to cut short any consideration I might have otherwise given to the platform, regardless of merit.

I needed a workstation, but I have no use for a quad-core machine, so a Core 2 Duo or Athlon64 could easily meet my needs. I also needed a large RAID array and a scratch disk, as well as other things like multiple ethernet ports, PCI/PCI-E slots, and so forth. With Apple hardware, the only way to get what I want is to spend large amounts of money on stuff that won't benefit me (like that extra Xeon). When I tried to price out a Mac Pro to meet the same requirements it couldn't be done without more than doubling the price. Even if I were willing to go around upgrading the thing with cheaper 3rd party hard drives, RAM, etc, that stuff wouldn't be covered by Apple's warranty, and that's a big downside for me. Even then, it would still cost thousands more, and it wouldn't even be that much easier than a homebuild when all was said and done.

A secondary reason was that I've had an iBook up until recently, and getting the various *nix software I need was significantly more annoying there. A good distro's package manager will have many times the selection of the Mac alternatives such as Fink and Darwin Ports, and the time I spent compiling the missing stuff by hand on MacOS was significant. This easily overwhelms any savings of effort that I might have gotten from MacOS initially, and that's not even that much with easy distros like Ubuntu. I'm not a rabid freedom fighter, I just know empirically it's a lot more trouble for me to use MacOS.

Another way this advantage applies is that the software I need comes almost entirely from one place. With MacOS, it was a mix of Fink, Darwin Ports, stuff I've compiled myself, various .sit and .dmg files downloaded from various websites (Apple, VersionTracker, etc), and so on. With Ubuntu, it's all available from a single interface. One front end handles all the installations, removals, and updates. Even proprietary things like video card drivers and Sun's Java are handled this way. This cuts way down on the time it takes me to get a system set up with all the various apps I need. Downloading something from VersionTracker isn't difficult, but doing that over and over again for dozens of different things takes a significant chunk of time. With Ubuntu, I've found that I don't need to do it all at once, because clicking a checkbox and clicking "apply" in Synaptic takes seconds -- installing an app is barely more difficult than lanching it, and making a list of things I need would be more trouble than installing them when I notice they're missing.

I've seen what Macs have to offer, and I don't think I'd be interested even if it didn't cost so much more to meet my needs.

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[PatrickThomson (712694)]

I disagree. Polish is the art of making less seem more. It's a time-intensive process and isn't really one geeks do very well - it's that indefinable quality that makes good closed-source software feel good. Don't get me wrong, I'm used to gnome and KDE, and they're impressive efforts, but they've not had hundreds of focus groups full of arts students and old ladies.

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[no_pets (881013)]

No shit. When I read the part about dragging text from the browser to the desktop in OS X and it actually created the file for you I was thinking of my mom (i.e. an old lady). Mom has never been able to grasp the concept of cut-and-paste despite my many attempts to teach her. A few times she seemed to be able to do it then would forget. I even gave her a keyboard (Logitech) that indicated "copy" and "paste" on the "c" and "v" keys to no avail. Kudos to Apple for having productive focus groups that must have included old ladies because a room full of *nix geeks would never have come up with that. Instead, it would have probably become an arguement over the lusers that couldn't freakin' cut and paste like everyone else. :-)

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[metamatic (202216)]

Gnome.

Now, if only it put the file where you actually dragged the text to, instead of in a completely different place that you can't see so you think it didn't do anything.

Which kinda reinforces the original point. Even when Gnome does get the functionality right, the implementation is wrong.

But that's so much more work

[Gorimek (61128)]

Put it this way. Say your system has 100 features, and your "polish" level is such that the average user can understand half of them. Effectively it has 50 features. To reach 70 available features you can either improve the polish to 70%, or implement 40 new features.

And I claim that for the vast majoriy of software, doing the actual "polish" work is much more bang for the buck.

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[nine-times (778537)]

Let's see, OSX's interface is...

simple..............check
uncluttered.......check
low color...........most interface elements are black/white/grey, so check
high contrast.....if not enough so, you can increase the contrast, I suppose, so check
has a terminal...check

So you're an OSX fan, then?

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[overunderunderdone (521462)]

Polish is not "eye candy". Eye candy is merely flashiness. Polish is everything being intentionally designed, fully thought out, finished. Something can have a lot of eye candy but still be very rough & incomplete. Something can be polished yet very visually simple (though certainly designed). "Eye candy" is often a way to compensate for, or distract from, a lack of polish.

A few good examples of what people mean by polish are in TFA under #8 "Lots of other nice little things". Not a single one of them is "eye candy" they are not even related to visual design at all... but they are exactly what people mean when they say that Mac OS X is polished.

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[The Amazing Fish Boy (863897)]

How vain do you have to be to prefer a nice GUI to having several hundred dollars in your pocket?

vain: [reference.com] excessively proud of or concerned about one's own appearance, qualities, achievements, etc.; conceited: a vain dandy.

It's not vain to want a nice GUI. First because people don't usually show their GUI off, it's something they use, unlike say a flashy car or clothes (although those don't necessarily reflect vanity).

A nice GUI is useful to some people. It's not just about the shiny buttons, but it works differently/better. The GUI is part of the function of the software, so to say it's "vain" to want a nice GUI is to say that it's "vain" to want nice software.

And some might say wanting "several hundred dollars in your pocket" is a "vain" act, anyway.

Re:a step above any Linux distro ?

[jellomizer (103300)]

Um My Mac earned me more money then I spent for it. Even though in reality my Mac was cheaper then any other system out there with the same specs with a good enough reliability rating. Just by using a Mac and getting use to the extra Nice GUI, it help me make better GUI's for my customer applications. Even for windows applications. Actually the time it takes me to make these advancement to the app over time adds up to be more then if I didn't have a Mac. Also Mac Interface make sure that I am spending more time on Billable Hours (Handy for Commission based Jobs) and less time on Non-Billable time for me to say research the name of the CD Burner software that came with my Linux Distribution, or having to download install it, figure out how it works, test it. Time is Money, The Less time I am focusing on stupid tasks that the computer should do easy anyways, vs spending more time on actuall work. Makes me more money and my powerbook well earned it extra $100 (Which it wasn't)

Mac OS X vs. Ubuntu

[transporter_ii (986545)]

Probably more relevent to the /. crowd would be this article from someone that switched to Ubuntu from OS X and then went back to OS X:

http://digg.com/apple/Mac_OS_X_vs_Ubuntu [digg.com]

Let me say that if I could go into a store right now and buy a reasonably priced copy of OX X that would run on a plain PC, I would be running OS X at the moment (Yes, I understand that running on *any* hardware would make OS X less stable, but I would be willing to take the risk...and huge amounts of people would rather pay more for Apple's hardware and stability, and I wish Apple could see that and make us both happy).

But since that isn't going to happen, I'm really considering going to Ubuntu because I think MS is just going insane with Vista.

As the above mention, he doesn't think Ubuntu is too far behind OS X.

I would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this?

Transporter_ii

Re:Mac OS X vs. Ubuntu

[scarolan (644274)]

Here are some brief thoughts on OSX vs. Ubuntu. My wife has a Macbook Pro running OS X, and I have an Acer Aspire laptop running Ubuntu 6.06, so I've had a chance to use both.

Macbook Pro:

* Nice eye candy, some people like the way windows do that slurpy thing when you minimize them, etc. Personally I don't like the dock, find it a bit big, clunky, and lacking real information about what programs I have open.
* Most everything 'just works' the way it's supposed to. If you can get into the "Mac way" of doing things, eg, iphoto, itunes, etc. then you'll be right at home. The drawbacks are that OSX is not very customizable the way Gnome (the default Ubuntu desktop environment) is.
* Terminal application is somewhat lacking. It has basic features but cannot be customized very much. If you do a lot of work on the command line you'll probably want a third-party terminal application to get your real work done.
* The wireless setup is not straightforward, and if you're not used to it can be a bit confusing.
* If you want an office suite, you have to pay quite a bit extra to get it. MS Office for Mac is something like $379 or so. If you're a student you might get it for less.

Ubuntu:

* Easy installer, even on newer hardware seems to work well. I had out-of-the-box wifi connection with the Atheros chipset adapter in my laptop, even with WPA and WEP. I've never had a Linux laptop working wifi before I tried Ubuntu.
* If you install EasyUbuntu, you'll have most of the proprietary codecs and other stuff that most people want to be able to watch DVDs, see Flash movies, play mp3s, etc.
* Takes a bit more hands-on tweaking to get it working exactly the way you want, but is much more flexible and customizable than OS X.
* The office type applications are finally getting to the point where a business user or student can be productive with them. For example, Evolution (the Outlook clone) has come a long way as far as usability goes, and it syncs just fine with my Palm Pilot.
* Free (as in beer).
* There are a few downsides. You won't be able to run some Windows-only applications without an emulator, but I guess that could be said for Macs as well. Also, with any Linux distribution you pretty much have to learn some command line to really be able to use your system to it's full potential.

Re:Mac OS X vs. Ubuntu

[Inoshiro (71693)]

You must be joking.

"* Terminal application is somewhat lacking. It has basic features but cannot be customized very much. If you do a lot of work on the command line you'll probably want a third-party terminal application to get your real work done."

The defaults are stupid, but once you get it setup with white text on a black background and a reasonable font, it's pretty equivalent to Konsole for me. Konsole has the terminals in a nice tabbed bar that are nameable, while the Mac version just has different floaty windows, but the two operations I do (new terminal window and next/prev terminal window) are identical in behaviour.

"* The wireless setup is not straightforward, and if you're not used to it can be a bit confusing."

You just be joking. MacOS wireless is the easiest wireless I've ever setup. Even doing complex LEAP/PEAP stuff is yonks easier than on Windows. And don't talk to me about Linux wireless -- that's just a fucking joke.

"* If you want an office suite, you have to pay quite a bit extra to get it. MS Office for Mac is something like $379 or so. If you're a student you might get it for less."

Or you could get iWork for 49$ [wikipedia.org]. It's got what you're most likely needing (advanced page layout and presentation software) unless you're sitting down to do serious spreadsheet work, which would require Excel. Apple's supposed to be adding a spreadsheet application at some point. I expect it to be as well thought out and designed as Keynote and Pages, and will happily upgrade.

"* Takes a bit more hands-on tweaking to get it working exactly the way you want, but is much more flexible and customizable than OS X."

You know, a large number of people don't change the defaults. I'm unconvinced it's that much of a big deal for people to make some small adjustments in how they work, especially when it allows you to be a lot more productive overall.

"* The office type applications are finally getting to the point where a business user or student can be productive with them. "

I'm going to talk about Keynote v3 here. I arrived at a presentation I was giving with my notes ready, but found I'd be standing on a platform far away from my laptop. Solution? I quickly customized the presenter display so that my laptop would show my presenter notes in 48pt font, and then pulled out my Apple remote which I could use to control slide next/previous while giving my talk. How awesome is that? It just works -- that's Apple.

I've yet to see anything that approaches their iWork suite in terms of being useful for me. Pages is a lot like LaTeX, except that it's easy to make your pages not be printed in Times New Roman (I've written 4 papers in TeX, and still don't know how to make it sans serif). In Pages, I just change the styles in the styles drawer, which are applied to the paragraphs/etc/tagged with that style. You can easily import/export from things like MS Word or PDF, and generally have full control of your document easily -- despite it being a GUI! Plus, I've yet to fight with it like I remember fighting with MSWord autoformatting when I learned to use word processors a decade ago.

iWork is not old -- the first iteration was released in 2005. Why is Linux office software stuck copying MS ideas when Apple so quickly put out a different suite and had it work so well?

Re:Mac OS X vs. Ubuntu

[1u3hr (530656)]

Also Linux will need out-of-the-box support for Windows apps. This is critical for it's success

IBM's OS/2 had that. That was one thing that led to its demise. Ability to use MSOffice fles is fairly useful though. And Vista will have a whole new set of APIs and supporting apps that use them will be a huge task.

Not that much of a sucker

[nacturation (646836)]

Since then, I have been a sucker for every upgrade -- 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, XP...

He at least had the good sense to skip Windows ME.
 

Re:Not that much of a sucker

[mccalli (323026)]

"He at least had the good sense to skip Windows ME."

That's implicit in his statement. He said he took every upgrade...

Cheers,
Ian

Huge Mac con: mouse acceleration sucks

[Hamster Lover (558288)]

God I hate the mouse acceleration on my Mac Mini. Either you set the acceleration high so you don't need, you know, the entire desk to move the mouse a reasonable distance at the loss of fine movements, or you set the acceleration low so that you gain precision at the cost of having to drag and drop the mouse a few dozen times to get the cursor across the desktop. Windows doesn't have this problem. If you move the mouse a tiny amount your cursor moves in tandem; move it a lot and so does the cursor. Wow. Why can't my Mac do that? It's so retarted.

Don't get me wrong here, I love my Mac, but the mouse thing drives me nuts.

Mouse Acceleration Solution

[by Anonymous Coward]

To solve the Apple's mouse acceleration problem, install a utility called SteerMouse or better yet, buy a third party mouse like Microsoft and Logitech and use their driver. Then your mouse acceleration will be just like Windows. Switchers are always complaining about this and rightly so, it's a pain if you aren't used to it.

For looks

[shirizaki (994008)]

I'm buying my Mom an iMac, for the sole reason it's SEXY. It's slim, compact, and doesn't make alot of noise. Better tha the dell portable desktop they just made. Macs are like computing with a built in safety net. You can almost never break it. The only people I know that hate windows are the poor souls that manage to still run AOL, download weather bug, and install every piece of software that wants to install itself. I run windows XP, with firewall and firefox, and I watch what I download. My virus infection rate? 0. People need to LEARN how to surf, instead of just going out there all willynilly.

Re:For looks

[the_humeister (922869)]

I'm buying my Mom an iMac, for the sole reason it's SEXY.

Your dad isn't doing it for her?

Getting used to...

[Lord Satri (609291)]

This are done slightly differently on OSX than on Windows. Getting used to adequately use OSX takes time and experience. This can be frustrating. It *really* helps if you have friends who can help you make the best out of the OS.

One simple example. I love Spotlight. This feature changes the way we work with computers. If you switch from Windows and no one told you to try if that feature is for you, than you're missing one potential benefit for switching. Same for many other features. Mail is very good too (I'm an open source fanboy, but hey, I'll use the best free/open tools available :-).

Be curious. Try things. Discover your new OS. Maybe the icons view is not for you and you'll prefer the column view? It's worthed to attend to some Mac User Groups in your area. They'll be able to show you some nice tricks, and, important, answer the questions you have. (oh, there's some great mac-oriented mailing lists for that too)

Switching is *not* that easy, especially if you're not a geek (but since this is /. ...). Learn, ask questions. After a time, you'll probably like your mac more than your windows machine. Why? It depends. Generally, it's for the details. The little intuitive things that makes you happier using a Mac.

Upgradability?

[drdanny_orig (585847)]

I'm enticed by the new iMacs -- particularly that juicy looking 24" -- but it would appear that it's impossible to add hardware to those machines. Over the years, I've gotten used to extending the life of a PC by upgrading components like memory, vidcard, etc. I get the impression that few MacHeads do things that way. I'm not sure I could get used to that way of life, since I love to tinker, and it's kept my last desktop machine usable since early 2002 and it's still my main workhorse. I'm guessing that the Pro models are more upgradable, but those prices(!) keep me from making that jump. Has anyone managed to open up a new imac and replace a hdd or the like?

Re:Upgradability?

[phillymjs (234426)]

We don't do component upgrades often because they are less necessary in the Mac world. For the last five years we have enjoyed an OS where version n+1 runs (or at least "feels") faster than version n did on the same hardware. The only thing that really needs to be added internally to most Macs is RAM. For more HD space, that's what those nice FireWire and USB 2 connections are for. And when it comes to video-- let's be honest, what really drives video card upgrades on the Windows side of the fence? The latest flavor-of-the-month GPU-hungry game, that's what. Like it or not, this is still not much of an issue on the Mac side. When a (consumer-level) Mac user really wants better video performance, their existing machine is probably a couple years old... They'll likely just buy a new Mac and throw the old one up on eBay to offset the cost. Since migrating your stuff to a new machine is a completely automated and (IME) painless process, and since Macs retain their resale value much better, it's a quite palatable option.

~Philly

Re:Upgradability?

[kherr (602366)]

I'm enticed by the new iMacs -- particularly that juicy looking 24" -- but it would appear that it's impossible to add hardware to those machines. Over the years, I've gotten used to extending the life of a PC by upgrading components like memory, vidcard, etc.

The Mac world mindset is different, for one very basic reason. An out-of-the-box Macintosh has all the hardware (most) people need: built-in Bluetooth, wifi, USB, FireWire, DVD burning, etc. There's little need to have an upgradable machine because each Mac has just about everything already.

RAM and hard drive are the only components people really upgrade. RAM is pretty easy in all Macs. Hard drives (and optical drives) can be done, sometimes easily and sometimes not so much. I've personally replaced hard drives in "non-upgradable" iBooks and PowerBooks with little effort.

Video cards are really the main stumbling point of the closed Mac models. But the 24" iMac has an upgradable video card, so expect to see some third-party offerings eventually. Or go with the Mac Pro, which is the upgradable tower Mac. The reality is, though, that 3D gaming lags on the Mac platform and you probably don't need the hottest video cards for the available games. If you're into professional video or something you'd be wanting a Mac Pro anyway, where you can swap out the video card.

OS X Satisfaction Chart

[Y-Crate (540566)]

One of my fellow goons created this to illustrate the mentality of someone going through the Windows > OS X switch, and I thought it was relevant to this discussion, as it perfectly illustrates the joy and agony of moving from one platform to another:

The OS X Satisfaction Chart [stunningabsurdity.com]

Unpopular on slashdot

[maxrate (886773)]

I use on a daily basis: Mac OS/X Tiger, Ubuntu, Fedora Core and Windows XP Pro. I consider myself an advanced user and a very good sysadmin on many platforms. I still prefer Windows.... - why? I'm not sure myself! (No I do not work for Microsoft). I've been trying to switch to OS/X as a primary OS admitting that it's driven mostly because of peer pressure - it's just not happening for me. I don't feel that compelled to switch - I don't see a good reason and I'm being opening minded about it, I feel like it's much more trouble than it's worth. Is there anyone else that feels the same way? I feel alone!

I go back and forth

[chocolatetrumpet (73058)]

I also use Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu Linux on a daily basis- desktop, laptop, and server, respectively.

There is something about Windows XP that just makes me feel efficient. I can get things done really quickly. If I need to do any sort of tedious computing task, I'd like to do it on windows.

However, sometimes I get in a "mac" mood and want to use my laptop. But as flashy and cool as it is, everything usually feels clumsy and cumbersome. Simple tasks seem to have many steps and seem to take longer. I feel like I am swimming in molassas, as opposed to water with windows. But it's a warm and comfortable molassas.

Ubuntu is bringing a very polished product to the table. If open source ever catches up with applications and drivers, Ubuntu could be a very real choice for many people. Linux was my primary OS on and off through college. Mark Shuttleworth is doing a great service to the public with Ubuntu. If I ever made it big time like he did, bringing high quality open source applications to Linux (video editing, etc.) would be high on my list. As they stand, Linux applications are simply too limited/unstable for my daily needs which include music and video production.

I still think that a mac is an excellent choice for the "casual computer user," due in no small part to the fact that you can bring it back to that Apple store and they are going to fix it. Computers are complicated machines and they have problems. The Apple Store is not going to tell you it's a hardware problem and so it's not their fault. They're not going to tell you that it's a software problem so it's not their fault. They're going to fix it, and that's what casual computer users need - service and support.

The windows desktop/mac laptop/linux server setup has been working very well for me and satisfies all of my OS moods, so I will probably continue with this for a long while.

OSX Talks to Everyone

[Greyfox (87712)]

OSX gets along quite well with Linux (X11, Samba and ssh) and Windows (Remote desktop, Samba.) It also syncs to my Symbian 60 cell phone using bluetooth, can use the cellphone to connect to the Internet via bluetooth and does wireless networking on most Apple systems. It seems to be able to use those problematic Microsoft file formats and and you have your choice of DRMed and unDRMed media. It has a better selection of games than Linux does, though not as good a one as Windows does (No EVE Online client for OSX but you apparently can play WoW...) You also have tons of open source software that you can install on it.

Overall I'd say OSX is an excellent choice for Windows users who want the advantages of UNIX without having to learn arcane lore, for Linux users who need a laptop that will just work without requiring a virgin sacrifice during a full moon and for people who need to talk to a variety of different systems in a heterogenuous network. It's a bad choice for Microsoft executives, MCSEs or anyone else who makes a living on Windows being the dominant OS in the market. If you're somewhere in the middle you should probably pick OSX for the better security. It's not perfect, but any improvement is better than nothing.

Happy after Switch to OS X

[magic (19621)]

I used to use Windows exclusively, with Linux at work when I had to. I recently got a Mac and figured that I'd still use Win32 most of the time. Boy was I wrong.

After using OS X for a few months, I'm very happy to use it *all* the time. My 'favorite' apps--Firefox, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, iTunes, PhotoShop--all run there. After I figured out the OS it seemed slick and easy to use compared to Windows. And the things I like about Unix are all there at the command line when I want them. Now my PC is for games only, and with the amount of hassle of PC gaming, it is second string there to consoles.

-m

What do you want to do?

[kreyg (103130)]

Since a computer is just a tool, it all depends what you want to do.

As a game player and game developer (PC, consoles), using a Mac would be a painful exercise in disaster.

But if it runs all of the applications you want, in a more user-friendly and efficient environment, then why not switch?

Hardware is irrelevant - software rules. The OS is irrelevant, whether it runs the software you want is all that matters.

Re:well...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Your sexual preference could come into question

That's right. Once you stop using Windows, people won't think you're so gay.

Re:well...

[dynamo (6127)]

Sexual preference?

Look, man, I love my mac.. but even I won't take it THAT far.
Besides, they don't have a port for that yet.

Re:well...

[BlueCodeWarrior (638065)]

Well... [fu-fme.com]

bytesex

[OrangeTide (124937)]

Most guys here prefer having sex with their computers over women anyways. quad GPU, raid0, dual core rigs. how can women compete really.

Re:Disappointed

[Y-Crate (540566)]

It is just as slow, crashy, inconvinient and annoying as the rest (With a few less annoying "update me" popups than Windows, perhaps).

I've never known anyone to consider OS X as crash-prone as Windows.

Expose is cool, and the smooth movements of some appearing windows (rather than a one-frame screen-update) is also nice. But these are the only 2 serious improvements I've seen. Things are still very slow to launch, programs crash, and things fail for configuration reasons.

Programs are slow, crash-prone and things can be misconfigured? That's obviously the OS's fault!

It doesn't have any easy and useful way of exposing available keyboard shortcuts (as in KDE's readily available shortcut settings dialogs, Emacs's show-keybindings command, etc).

The keyboard shortcuts are listed directly next to the menu option in drop-down menus. Example [stunningabsurdity.com]

For people with a background of both Windows and KDE, who had no troubles with either or with Gnome/etc, it is still very difficult to figure out how to make shortcuts to applications, copy files (rather than make shortcuts), etc.

It's under the FILE [stunningabsurdity.com] menu under "Make Alias" and in the right-click contextual menu [stunningabsurdity.com] under "Make Alias". I'm not sure how this could be implemented in a more effective manner.

All in all, the Mac is yet-another-lousy-GUI, in my opinion.

A computer is not a GUI.

Disclaimer: I'm a KDE fan [though I believe all of today's GUIs, including KDE are very lousy], and not too fond of closed-source applications in general.

I think you mean to say "It's different from what I'm used to and it's closed-source, therefore I hate it."

Re:Disappointed

[caseih (160668)]

OS X is one of the few OS's to allow total customization of keyboard short-cuts. You can assign almost any combination to any menu item on any program. The downside is you have to do it from System Preferences. Although MacOS has always been mouse centric, it's actually more keyboard-friendly than windows or even linux (Gnome is only now getting good keyboard shortcut access via atk and other accessibility things). Shortcuts are very consistent and work in almost every program. Command-Q to quit, Command-W to close the window, Command-H to hide the entire app (very useful -- almost eliminates the need for multiple desktops when combined with expose and command-tab), Command-S to save, command-O to open, etc.

One thing that annoyed me to no end was the apparent lack of a way to communicate with dialog boxes using only the keyboard. Most of the time command-first letter works, but often it doesn't. I found that if I turn on some of the accessibility options in system preferences, suddenly I can tab between buttons and use the space bar to activate buttons (enter always activates the default button, not the one you're highlighting).

Knowing about how to set shortcuts, the default shortcuts, and the accessibility options has really made OS X more efficient on the keyboard for me than any other OS (well almost -- I still like activating menus on linux and windows with alt-letter). Certainly it's not as bad you illustrate.

I agree that all GUIs are lousy to a degree. Case in point is CAD software. The old autocad shortcuts (still available on autocad to this day) are the way to fly. Puck in one hand, 2 and 3 letter shortcuts in the other. Modern GUIs just don't lend themselves well to CAD.