04-09-2010, 04:27 AM

How did you get into Mac? Were you born a Mac user? Switched from Windows/Linux? Or did you (like me) come to Mac from Windows via Linux?

Slight personal interest of mine, has no 'point', just interesting!

04-09-2010, 04:35 AM

Well you could say I was born a Mac person. My Mom always tells me I first touched a computer (which was a old Mac) before I even turned 1 year old. But I've been a Mac user until sometime in 2003ish than I went into Windows, but until yesterday I'm a Mac person again lol

04-09-2010, 05:02 AM

I used my friends father's Apple Lisa and my jaw hit the floor. He sold the Lisa when the Mac came out and bought a Mac Plus. I was even more impressed. There was no Windows at the time.

My family was quite poor so I had to use a Commodore 64 and later Atari ST (My First GUI) then Amiga then finally I was able to afford a Used Mac Plus. I have liked Macs and their GUI since that first run in with the Lisa though.

Windows 1.0 - 2.5 was very bad. 3.0 got better then 3.1 and 3.11 was a lot better but really it was 2K and XP that gave me a lot more respect for Windows.

I have used every Windows from 2.5 - Windows 7. Always keep being drawn to Apples GUI. There is just something about Apples GUI that always drew me to it.

If my family had the $$$ I would have owned a Mac Plus the day it was released but glad I got to use other systems as I learned so much more about computers that way. The Amiga was a very nice machine at the time for such a low cost for example. The Amiga excelled at Multitasking for it's time. Amazing OS/Machine.

04-09-2010, 09:41 AM

First used Apple's II, IIe and IIc in high school.
Got an Atari 1200XL since my family couldn't really afford an Apple.
Been a Windoze user since Windoze 95 through to Vista because of my work.
Wife surprised me with a MBP on Christmas '07 becasue she got tired of me complaing about my desktop PC and Vaio laptop getting the BSOD.
Been happy with my MBP ever since!!

04-09-2010, 09:46 AM

I used Windows because the majority of my friends had it except two, at the time and when I would complain about this or that instead of making fun of me they said take mine
home and use it awhile and tell us what you think. I was hooked from that moment on
still use Windows occasionally but only at work. So when I see people cut down the Mac's
it tells me they have not really tried it yet its not perfect nothing is but it is the best IMO
out there currently.

04-09-2010, 10:01 AM

I'd say the proper terminology would be how did you get into using a Mac or how did you get into Apple.

I needed to use Logic.

04-09-2010, 10:59 AM

I wanted something different .... and it clearly worked out well for me.

Cheers ... McBie

04-09-2010, 11:03 AM

I had used Macs quite a bit in High School and later in college. Never really cared for them until I saw OS X a number of years later. When Apple switched over to Intel and it became possible to have the best of all worlds on a Mac, I bought my first one.

04-09-2010, 11:24 AM

I've been a Windows user all my life, but I always hated having to re-install every 9 months or so because of Windows messing up. Then I was getting a laptop to use for transporting (mainly to and from school), and I'd already been playing with Linux for a bit (due to being sick of Vista and wanting to play with Linux) and thought I'd have a play with OS X as well after using eMacs and iMacs at school and fell in love with it. So I got my MacBook Pro at the end of 2008, and know I'm never going to look back .

One of the things that really turned me over was using eMacs at school. There were still a few left over from before they replaced them with some G5 iMacs, and it was running on a 700Mhz processor and 384MB of RAM and running OS X Tiger very quickly. Not that much slower than my home PC.

04-09-2010, 02:21 PM

My PC was dying and I was tired of fixing them. I figured I spent more time working on them then actually doing anything. I had used macs in grad school. I remembered how they just worked and I spent very little time fixing them.

So I decided to get a refurbished mac, that was Dec 2008. My wife wasn't happy about the switch. Fast forward to Dec 2009, when her laptop died.

I picked out a dell laptop for her, gave her the info to look over. She just looked at me and said she wanted a mac. I about fell out of my chair.

I had noticed that she had been using my mac a lot recently. I asked her why she changed her mind. She wanted a mac because it just worked. She never had to ask me anything about it. It did what she wanted with no hassle.

We both have been very happy with the switch. It took me for ever to get used to installing programs though. The idea of just dragging it over boggles my mind. Its just to easy I tell you!

04-09-2010, 03:41 PM

Yup, just tired of windows. I actually counted the number of re-installs I had to do, and the number reached 13 before I cursed microsoft and bought a mac.

I only browsed the internet, never downloaded anything, and the firewall was at highest possible security. My mind is still boggled as to how horrible a computer it was...

04-09-2010, 04:12 PM

Used a Apple IIe back in High School but never really used/owned any Mac's..after I got my iPhone 3G, I thought developing for it would be cool..so I picked up a Mac Mini and was hooked..sold my Windows/Linux PC and fully converted to Mac..

Regards

04-09-2010, 04:56 PM

I have always been interested, in fact fascinated by computers. But i everything i know about them is self taught (a lot of bad lessons too) or help from friends or boards like this.

I bought my first ever laptop 4 years ago. A compaq with vista. I do not use a computer for much other than, Email, surfing the web and downloading music and burning discs for DJing with.

Not long after i bought my laptop i came back to my flat in Thailand wasted. I went on the laptop and thought i was Bill Gates. To this day i do not remeber what i did but it never ran well from that day. I gave it to my mate who is a wizz kid with computers. He normally take half a day to fix any problem with computers. It took him TWO DAYS to fix mine. I asked him to start from scratch as i had saved all my photos and music onto an external.

He told me in the 20 years he has been working on computers mine was the hardest to fix. It was a combination of me, trojan horses and viruses.

I was obviously well aware of Apple computers but knew very little about them. I needed a new phone last oct so after years of Sony phones i bought the 3GS. I thought it was going to be very hard to use.

How wrong was i???????????? I was and still am amazed by it. Unfortunately 3G is not wide spread in Thailand yet, only places like Bangkok have it so i dont get full use of it

My old laptop still did it’s job, so i could not really justify buying a new laptop. Then my girlfriend said my step daughter would like a laptop last nov.

I said no problem. Stood up, put my old laptop in my car, dropped it off at my computer mate and told him it was for my step daughter could he wipe it clean and install windows 7 and any other things a 15 year old Thai girl would need.

I got back in my car and went to the local Apple store and bought a MBP with snow leopard with 250 GB HD, a 320 GB external and came home.

I was really nervous about using it at first. This board was the first port of call when i came online with it, so this board and the web blog TUAW have helped me with the very few problems i have had.


I use a crappy 2g Dongle for my internet connection so that slows the Mac down, i will be moving house soon so that is why i do not have a proper internet connection at home.


I am not a techie guy like most of you, i wish i was, may be one day i wil go on a course and learn a lot more.

The only program i bought for it was Microsoft office 2008. I need that for work.

The best was i can explain my mac is.................It just works, it’s as simple as that.

I have had zero problems with it, i love it.


I am also very careful about what i do on it. I use Onyx to do a weekly clean up. Before i did that for the first time i spent about 2 hours on google checking up other sites opinion of Onyx and what to click and not to click.

My set up is very simple. I have about 6 items in the dock. I have it hidden on the left hand side of the monitor and get on fine like that.

I love reading this board and TUAW for info, and i wil admit 60% of what you guys talk about goes over my head haha.

My next purchase is the magic mouse and Mobile me.............


So that’s my short but very happy experience with Apple. I will not be going back to PC ever or using any other make of phone.

Cheers

04-09-2010, 05:08 PM

Being heavily into porn a macs the only safe way to go

04-09-2010, 05:10 PM

I actually decided to purchase my first Macbook in Feb 2010, well because I had an iPhone and I thought it was so great that I began to play with Mac's more at apple stores and at friends places....next thing I know, my Sony Viao didnt looks so good, so I went and got the new Macbook. The OS and the style of the notebook really won me over, now that I've had it two months, I'll never go back to a PC. If it wasn't for the iPhone, I might have never went Mac.