- Joined
- Sep 2, 2006
- Messages
- 400
- Reaction score
- 11
- Points
- 18
- Location
- London, England
- Your Mac's Specs
- iMac Pro 2017 3GHz 10-core 128GB RAM MacBook Pro 13-inch 2.3GHz i5 16GB RAM
I am now switched and I thought I might share some of the experiences for the benefits of some of you that might otherwise run in to similar problems as me. I have used PC's extensively since the time before Windows and was also a Macintosh user for a few years at work around 15 years ago, so some of the concepts in the Macworld are not completely new to me (although much have changed and they DID crash a lot in those days).
I had been thinking about switching for quite a while, mainly to not having to fight with the sometimes erratic behaviour of Windows with installs that do not work, driver conflicts and the Blue Screens of Death as well as the coolness-factor of the Mac's hard and software. The decision was made easy when Intel was introduced, so that a few applications and games could still be run under Windows, but without destabilising the Windows-install (hopefully).
I put in my order on September 15 in the Apple store in London, using the so called kiosk system. WARNING – if you are in the UK, make sure that you call your credit card company to confirm the transaction if you do this. I discovered that the credit card companies consider this to be a vendor transaction (although it is really done on the internet, but from within the store) and my transaction was selected as needing additional confirmation from the vendor to get approved. Since there is no vendor on the other end of the line, my transaction was rejected, without me knowing about it. I then had some problems to get my bank to understand how it worked and to accept the transaction at all, due to the above, so I had to do it a total of 4 (!) times before it worked, but a couple of days later the order was in with an estimated delivery date of only 10 days later, which was good considering that I had asked for all the stuff to be delivered together.
The delivery date came and went and the following day, I got a e-mail putting the expected delivery date back two weeks...
The revised delivery date came and went and two days after that , I got a e-mail putting the expected delivery date back one more week....
In time for that date, the MacPro showed up, all on its own. I was also having a charge put through on my credit card for the MacBook Pro at the same time! I would have expected both to have the stuff delivered together and the the full order amount charged to my credit card once, but neither was the case. After having spent some time of the phone with Apple, the rest of the stuff arrived, individually, over the following two weeks with various odd amounts charged to my credit card.
Over the next three weeks, there were suddenly two more attempts from Apple to charge the full order amount to my credit card which were thankfully rejected by my bank!
Anyway, one very good thing with the delayed delivery was that the MacBook Pro arrived within the two week period of the announcement of the new Intel Core 2 Duo upgrade so I could get it switched! And yes, someone at Apple confirmed that they have this two week limit within which you get the new kit without questions asked when an upgrade is done. I was quite happy to get that confirmed since the trackpad on the first I got I thought did not work properly and the price was less that I paid for the first one so I got the difference refunded! I got in to trouble though asking for a 160GB hard drive when the first delivery had 120GB. Although it was still cheaper in total, it seemed to require the approval from at least Steve Jobs himself and I spent quite a lot of time on the phone getting that finally done.
Apple was then arranging for TNT to agree a time with me to come and pick up my old MacBook Pro. The time came and went but TNT did not. They claimed that no-one had been home which was not that strange since Apple had given them the wrong address! After having been told by TNT that only Apple could instruct them to go to another address and after having asked Apple to do so, I agreed a new appointment. It came and went but TNT did not since that change of address had somehow not gone through the system!! When being in contact with TNT again, I discovered (by pure coincidence, I had not been told this) that TNT have a dedicated Apple-desk and they could change the address and finally get someone over to pick up my “old” MacBook Pro. If you ever have a problem with the delivery in the UK, ask to speak to the Apple-desk at TNT, they were very helpful and knew what they were doing.
Anyway, it is all here now and it s working extremely well for the most part. I love the cleverness in the details of many solutions but you really need a book like “Switching to Mac – The missing manual” or something like that to learn and appreciate everything. After having used the Mac's for a few weeks, it actually somehow felt wrong to install Windows XP through Boot Camp, although it is also working very well.
I have a few things that are a bit irritating (for some of which there might be solutions that I am not yet aware of), though such as for example:
I am having some problems with the wireless connection where the MacBook Pro loses the connection if I connect my Windows laptop from work and I have to reset the router to reconnect, which is irritating. If anyone is having problems to connect to a wireless network, reset the router as a first action. It might save you loads of time.
I also tried to install the Palm Desktop for Mac and it does not work on my main user, but if I set up an additional test user, it works on that one. How infuriating is that?? Have tried repair permissions, reinstalling in all possible ways and even copying the files across as well as having been in contact with both Apple and Palm, but it just do not work. I know I could switch and use the test account as my main account, but I can not be bothered now with all the settings that would need to be changed again.
Since I have both a desktop and a laptop, I am also trying out .Mac, but if Mail is open when I sync the mail account settings it corrupts the preference file and it all needs to be set-up again (by syncing with .Mac so it is not difficult, but irritating). Are you not supposed to be able to have Mail open when you sync? Does not make any sense to me.
Also had a disappointing experience with Toast 7 Titanium. I had sworn never to use anything from Roxio again after having had Media Creator conflicting with and external DVD-writer on my PC. I noticed that everyone was saying that Toast was fantastic, so I bought it. I then needed to burn some 3.7GB of photos for some of my wife's relatives that were visiting (yes, they take a LOT of pictures). So I fired up Toaster and burned a DVD that could be read by both Mac and Windows. I tried the DVD in my old PC and some of the files were corrupted and could only be read partially. The same files could be read with no problem on the Mac, though. Since I was a bit short of time I used Nero on the PC and burned a new DVD which works fine for both Mac and Windows. Both a bit disappointing and embarrassing....
Finally, I am not very happy with the wireless keyboard and mighty mouse. The connections get lost more than it should and the mouse actions does not feel precise at all. I do not think it is a matter of habit or has to do with the weight of the mouse. If I connect an other mouse, it feels less wobbly. The scroll-button also lives a life of its own where for several days last week, I could not scroll downwards, but now suddenly I can again. Weird. All in all, I think that mouse is a product that looks better than it works.
Sorry if this turned out to be very long. There are loads of other observations that I could have mentioned, but maybe some other time.......
I had been thinking about switching for quite a while, mainly to not having to fight with the sometimes erratic behaviour of Windows with installs that do not work, driver conflicts and the Blue Screens of Death as well as the coolness-factor of the Mac's hard and software. The decision was made easy when Intel was introduced, so that a few applications and games could still be run under Windows, but without destabilising the Windows-install (hopefully).
I put in my order on September 15 in the Apple store in London, using the so called kiosk system. WARNING – if you are in the UK, make sure that you call your credit card company to confirm the transaction if you do this. I discovered that the credit card companies consider this to be a vendor transaction (although it is really done on the internet, but from within the store) and my transaction was selected as needing additional confirmation from the vendor to get approved. Since there is no vendor on the other end of the line, my transaction was rejected, without me knowing about it. I then had some problems to get my bank to understand how it worked and to accept the transaction at all, due to the above, so I had to do it a total of 4 (!) times before it worked, but a couple of days later the order was in with an estimated delivery date of only 10 days later, which was good considering that I had asked for all the stuff to be delivered together.
The delivery date came and went and the following day, I got a e-mail putting the expected delivery date back two weeks...
The revised delivery date came and went and two days after that , I got a e-mail putting the expected delivery date back one more week....
In time for that date, the MacPro showed up, all on its own. I was also having a charge put through on my credit card for the MacBook Pro at the same time! I would have expected both to have the stuff delivered together and the the full order amount charged to my credit card once, but neither was the case. After having spent some time of the phone with Apple, the rest of the stuff arrived, individually, over the following two weeks with various odd amounts charged to my credit card.
Over the next three weeks, there were suddenly two more attempts from Apple to charge the full order amount to my credit card which were thankfully rejected by my bank!
Anyway, one very good thing with the delayed delivery was that the MacBook Pro arrived within the two week period of the announcement of the new Intel Core 2 Duo upgrade so I could get it switched! And yes, someone at Apple confirmed that they have this two week limit within which you get the new kit without questions asked when an upgrade is done. I was quite happy to get that confirmed since the trackpad on the first I got I thought did not work properly and the price was less that I paid for the first one so I got the difference refunded! I got in to trouble though asking for a 160GB hard drive when the first delivery had 120GB. Although it was still cheaper in total, it seemed to require the approval from at least Steve Jobs himself and I spent quite a lot of time on the phone getting that finally done.
Apple was then arranging for TNT to agree a time with me to come and pick up my old MacBook Pro. The time came and went but TNT did not. They claimed that no-one had been home which was not that strange since Apple had given them the wrong address! After having been told by TNT that only Apple could instruct them to go to another address and after having asked Apple to do so, I agreed a new appointment. It came and went but TNT did not since that change of address had somehow not gone through the system!! When being in contact with TNT again, I discovered (by pure coincidence, I had not been told this) that TNT have a dedicated Apple-desk and they could change the address and finally get someone over to pick up my “old” MacBook Pro. If you ever have a problem with the delivery in the UK, ask to speak to the Apple-desk at TNT, they were very helpful and knew what they were doing.
Anyway, it is all here now and it s working extremely well for the most part. I love the cleverness in the details of many solutions but you really need a book like “Switching to Mac – The missing manual” or something like that to learn and appreciate everything. After having used the Mac's for a few weeks, it actually somehow felt wrong to install Windows XP through Boot Camp, although it is also working very well.
I have a few things that are a bit irritating (for some of which there might be solutions that I am not yet aware of), though such as for example:
I am having some problems with the wireless connection where the MacBook Pro loses the connection if I connect my Windows laptop from work and I have to reset the router to reconnect, which is irritating. If anyone is having problems to connect to a wireless network, reset the router as a first action. It might save you loads of time.
I also tried to install the Palm Desktop for Mac and it does not work on my main user, but if I set up an additional test user, it works on that one. How infuriating is that?? Have tried repair permissions, reinstalling in all possible ways and even copying the files across as well as having been in contact with both Apple and Palm, but it just do not work. I know I could switch and use the test account as my main account, but I can not be bothered now with all the settings that would need to be changed again.
Since I have both a desktop and a laptop, I am also trying out .Mac, but if Mail is open when I sync the mail account settings it corrupts the preference file and it all needs to be set-up again (by syncing with .Mac so it is not difficult, but irritating). Are you not supposed to be able to have Mail open when you sync? Does not make any sense to me.
Also had a disappointing experience with Toast 7 Titanium. I had sworn never to use anything from Roxio again after having had Media Creator conflicting with and external DVD-writer on my PC. I noticed that everyone was saying that Toast was fantastic, so I bought it. I then needed to burn some 3.7GB of photos for some of my wife's relatives that were visiting (yes, they take a LOT of pictures). So I fired up Toaster and burned a DVD that could be read by both Mac and Windows. I tried the DVD in my old PC and some of the files were corrupted and could only be read partially. The same files could be read with no problem on the Mac, though. Since I was a bit short of time I used Nero on the PC and burned a new DVD which works fine for both Mac and Windows. Both a bit disappointing and embarrassing....
Finally, I am not very happy with the wireless keyboard and mighty mouse. The connections get lost more than it should and the mouse actions does not feel precise at all. I do not think it is a matter of habit or has to do with the weight of the mouse. If I connect an other mouse, it feels less wobbly. The scroll-button also lives a life of its own where for several days last week, I could not scroll downwards, but now suddenly I can again. Weird. All in all, I think that mouse is a product that looks better than it works.
Sorry if this turned out to be very long. There are loads of other observations that I could have mentioned, but maybe some other time.......