After a long hold out and years of essentially plugging my ears, covering my eyes and saying "na na na na" I finally caved and purchased a Mac (I went all out and got a 17" MacBook Pro). All I have to say is "Wow" … and I can’t believe I waited so long. Before yesterday I had not touched a Mac in 6 or 7 years. Boy has a lot changed. The Mac OS X is simply mind blowing and the ease with which things can be done on a Mac is insane. When people say "it just works on a Mac" they literally mean "it just works". I suppose I’m eating a huge amount of crow in writing this post but hey, crow tastes pretty good when cooked properly.
A friend of mine once said…
Leaving Windows is like leaving an abusive relationship, you know you need to do it, but when it’s all you know it is very difficult, you’re comfortable with what you know and afraid of what you don’t.
That about sums up how I felt about moving from PC to Mac. Windows now seems archaic compared to Mac OS X, absolutely no comparison, no contest. I’d like to get all those years I wasted back from Microsoft. Talk about being a lemming. It was painful to use, wasted a lot of my time and, caused numerous headaches. I’m sure I’ll find some warts with my new Mac, but hey I lived with an awful lot of warts on PC’s for over 20 years so I’m sure I’ll survive anything that does turn out to be a negative on the Mac. In the meantime I intent to thoroughly this wonderful piece of technology.
I’m sure I’ll have more to write about this in the future, as a whole new world of computing has been opened up for me, but for now it’s time to get back to figuring out how all this stuff works.
I’d be interested to hear what you think is so mind-blowingly easy on OSX that is, I assume, so difficult on XP. I am a longtime Windows user and got a Macbook a few months ago and have been utterly underwhelmed. I mean, it’s fine, it works, I like it. But the way the Mac fans paint it, using a Mac is like some kind of divine out of body experience. It definitely is not. It’s a pretty good OS. That’s it. My opinion of course, but I still never understand it when I see these kinds of raving posts and I have to wonder what people see as so amazing about OSX.
I really wonder how many people are making the switch to Mac from Windows. Over half of my friends that bought a new computer this year, purchased a Mac.
What I find really funny about the commercials is that Microsoft is just taking it. I would have expected them to have some sort of anti-Mac commercial, but that just has not happened. It is almost like they are resigned to the fact that Vista is a poor operating system and they don’t mind Apple reminding them about it.
To be honest, I definitely will consider purchasing a Mac for my next computer. The fact that I can have an operating system that runs trouble free, and that I can run Windows XP on it if I want to, is enough for me. I am pretty much sold.
Maybe you should have a follow up post about your good and bad experiences about your transition from Windows to Mac.
The reality is that psychologically, the new buyer has to justify to themselves that the (over)expenditure has been worthwhile, and they also realise that they having joined a new peer group with a new set of group-think rules (apple users are akin to the zealotry, superiority complex and plain delusion that is common amongst religious fanatics) that within this environment to conform – they need to gush about their new toy.
I use both xp and os-x in an office running loads of both pcs and macs and agree with Brian – there’s really not that much difference in what can be done . I actually find os-x more *unreliable*, under heavy load with a lot of applications running, os-x needs rebooted every day (often get the unending spinny wheel) whereas xp boxes can go weeks without needing a restart.
The Mac’s are not trouble free, but having total control over the hardware is obviously a big advantage over Vista as well. What I really like about my Mac is that it really “Just works”. It really is true…
J
Mark Anderson, your macs aren’t set up properly if they need to be rebooted daily, or you just like spreading FUD. The mention of ‘zealots’ and ‘(over)expenditure’ clearly confirms it. Also, you’re comparing Windows XP to OS X? XP isn’t a bad operating system, but please, the fact that your comparing it to the Mac virtually a year after Vista has come out speaks volumes. I think that we need to start a new classification of computer user: the ‘Windows Apologist’, you could be a founding member.
One big comment to reply to all of the above
1. Brian, I’ve only had it two days but I’ve been installing a pile of software, without having to reboot, reinstall, find patches, discover conflicts with other programs, etc. I do a lot of work remotely and rely on video chat, with PC’s I always had problems getting reliable video chat, with the Mac it worked perfect, clear video/audio and I could seamlessly share my desktop with another Mac user, it just worked. I’m sure as I use the computer more I’ll discover more but so far I’ve been super impressed with it’s ease of use.
2. Marc, I read somewhere that 25% of all new laptop purchases are Mac. That number seemed surprisingly high to me, but I guess people figure if they are going to drop some cash, why not drop a little more and get something that much better. I’ll be sure to post some more on the pros and cons.
3. Mark, I’ve bought enough computer equipment over the years that I don’t have to try to justify my purchase. Sure I paid more than a PC with Vista/XP. Last year I bought a Toshiba with XP Pro, I thought it was a very good machine, and then I started running into the typical windows issues. I am self employed and in the past year it is safe to say I have easily wasted days and cost myself thousands of dollars in lost revenue due to down time because of Windows. My XP box, which I keep very clean and up to date was requiring daily reboots. I’ll let you know how the Mac works out.
4. Jensa, totally agree. Every system will have problems, it’s just a question of how many, how often, how bad, and how much are you willing to put up with. I grew tired of dealing with a lot of ‘hows’ on the PC. I’m hoping the Mac will be a much better experience.
5. Peter, agreed … enough said.
I bought a PC thinking that Vista ought to be awesome- after all those years of development, and I was getting a new fast computer.
Sadly, Vista was not and is not compatible with the non Microsoft software I have. Even some of the Microsoft apps lock up the computer, and require a hard restart.
I had to wipe out Vista and install XP.
Hasta la Vista
I still never understand it when I see these kinds of raving posts and I have to wonder what people see as so amazing about OSX.
A few things jump out at me:
1. With bootcamp I can run both os x and windows. If you’re even a little interested in using a Mac, this is like having your cake and eating it too. Windows-only means Windows only, but a Mac gives you both. This is huge.
2. More and more amazing apps are coming out that are Mac-only. Yes, there are always apps to do the same thing on Windows, but in many people’s opinion, they’re just better on the Mac. Some examples are the entire iLife suite, Delicious Library, text editors like TextMate, and I’ve recently heard griping that the Mac-only Twitterific blows away anything on Windows.
3. Command-line. I can drop into the terminal and do anything I can in unix, because it is unix. Installing packages on windows is a little like the old days of the Mac – if someone builds an installer for you, it’ll work. If there’s no installer, you can’t “get under the hood” and compile it yourself.
4. Search. I know Vista added better search, but Apple’s Spotlight versus Microsoft’s XP “find files and folders” is absolutely 100% different. You can actually find things with spotlight (and it indexes on the fly for immediate access) whereas “find files and folders” just didn’t work.
5. Time Machine. Again, it’s just backup utility, which you can argue has been done before. But it’s a completely different way of thinking about backing up: you don’t have to think about it. You just use your machine as usual, and when something goes missing you press a button, find it, then press “restore”.
6. QuickView. I can press the spacebar for most filetypes and they pop right up for easy scanning. Windows can’t do this. It’s a surprisingly productivity-enhancing feature when you work on a computer all day.
I’ve tried to pick features that are clearly more advanced, or have a reputation for being preferable to the Windows version. You can debate opinion and preference until you’re blue in the face, but you have to agree that at least some of the features listed above give Apple the leg up.
And their skyrocketing marketshare shows that people seem to agree.
I am in a somewhat unique position to comment on this, having been part of the development team for the original IBM PC, but also the co-founder of the world’s first Mac user group. I have also run IT organizations with as many as 262,000 desktop computers, many of them Macintosh.
The #1 reason to migrate: The total cost of ownership for a Mac is significantly lower – I have tracked this empirical data over hundreds of thousands of machines at numerous companies, large and small. The user support cost, desktop services cost, back end supporting infrastructure, installation and maintenance, etc. are all a fraction of the Windows world. Typically, the Mac TCO $$ is about 1/4 that of a PC, over a 3-5 year lifespan. In some cases, based on the type of user community, this cost may be 1/10th – not trivial by any measure.
Even with similarly configured hardware, Apple hardware is equal or cheaper than the alternative, particularly in the server space (OS X server is included in the price). Yes, you can but the bottom end, “junk” quality PCs for less, but that is not what most corporations buy, or even what users are happy with.
The Apple environment is far less proprietary than Windows, in that it is all about the data, not the platform. Microsoft proprietary formats for Office documents, Exchange protocols, ActiveX, modified kerberos security, even the WWW “standard” breaking IE, provide barriers to entry for any competitor. Most Microsoft business products do not interoperate cleanly with non-Microsoft products, and buying into any one piece of the MS puzzle, dictates buying into other MS products, unless you are willing to expend major integration dollars and headaches (e.g Active Directory). The OS X environment, with its’ UNIX underpinnings, adherence to open or at least published standards, and every effort made to interoperate with the closed, proprietary Microsoft world, make the Apple computing family a joy to manage. Yet getting Windows machines to interoperate with the standards world of UNIX and open source standards, is not trivial, as they do not conform those same barriers.
A significant part of this is the Mach kernal/BSD core environment. This BSD core is very similar to the trusted computing environment used in secure computing, like NSA, or DoD. The robustness of this environment, combined with the inherent security designed in from day one, makes for a system that is, for the most part, bulletproof. To the best of my knowledge, nonoe of the security challenges of breaking into a standard Mac configuration have even been compromised. As such, all the virus/spyware maladies that plague the PC world, are, for the most part, a non-issue for OS X.
The REAL cost savings comes from OS X server. These environments run the lowest system admin ratio per supported user of any platform, even the notoriously stingey AS/400 world. Elegant in it’s simplicity, the human interface for OS X server admin makes Windows converts wonder how they ever worked on Windows servers. The machines run transparent to Windows users – they have no idea that the back end systems are not Windows, and yet, you need far less administrative talent to operate. Now with virtualization from Parallels or VMWare Fusion, you can run Windows concurrenly on the same hardware (or exclusively, albeit without the benefits of OS X). AND, the requirements for CALS (and the cost of these user licenses) goes away. BTW: These OS X Server cost savings were NOT in the 10-25% of PC Total cost numbers – this is additional savings opportunities.
You lose a few things – Apple has created a stable environment, primarily from the UNIX underpinnings, but also because they control the hardware. This minimal diversity in the hardware means that limited resources can work hard to make sure that the software just works – they don’t have to support thousands of products. Case in point – an early Macbook Pro was exploited for security problems, by going through a 3rd party driver for an expansion card. The Apple software did not suffer the same malady.
You also lose the massive software library for Windows. OS X ONLY has 25,000 of so current native applications, and a tens of thousands of X Windows apps available, which should keep most people from having complaints. The consistency of human interface, and overall software quality for the vast majority of Mac apps, makes for a more productive and less support required environment.
Still, the transition costs from anything to something different, are significant. Most companies have Microsoft proprietary environments deployed (like IE6 and ActiveX), that do not run on anything but Microsoft browsers. Custom applications, often in VB or .NET environments are Microsoft lock-ins as well. The transition is not cheap by any means, but the payback is significant.
I’ve been using Windows for almost 19 years and have decided over the past several months that it is time to make a permanent switch to Macintosh. The final straw happened when my hp pavilion developed some sort of motherboard issue that wouldn’t let it connect to wireless networks …. 7 hours and 5 disconnected calls with some technicians in India and I decided I will switch over to the Mac – my limited usage with them in cyber cafe’s or friend’s homes convinced me that it is a superior machine …
I will be purchasing a MacBook Pro. I figure I could do fine with a MacBook, but the more power in the Pro (and the silver!) makes it seem like the perfect choice.
I’ve been doing tons of investigating and Google research trying to “delve” into the world of Apple/Macintosh. I’ve learned a lot of things. I was originally planning to wait till around September to purchase the laptop, but I discovered a site called mactactic.com that said the time to buy a MacBook is now and there is no point in waiting …
I saw that Leopard was being released then so I figured a new MacBook would accompany it. But this brings me to another question something I realized last night …
is Leopard a new OS? or simply an upgrade to OSX Tiger – meaning will I have to purchase Leopard or will it be a free update for OS that will come on the MacBook Pro I purchase?
I have full confidence that switching to Macintosh is the right decision. If anyone has any other advice they can offer me, I’m a sponge and more than willing to listen. Thanks.
I tried my friends Mac but I just couldn’t get to grips with it. Is it just me? So many other people have raved about it that I definitely think it’s worth checking out. I notice they have really good product placement, I see a few shows have the actors all using Macs., and the advertising campaign is pretty thorough.
I get real frustrated with Windows, and many times have felt tempted to quit this relationship….. but have only ever been with this….
I guess the price is the biggest consideration right now and wonder will it be worth it.
I will continue to research the pros and cons and perhaps have another go on my friends Mac.