The unexpected benefits of Mac...

I switched to Mac mainly because I was tired of force quitting a lot of programs. I also switched because I wanted a more secure operating system than Windows. There were many smaller reasons why I made the switch, but there were also many benefits that I never expected. Several of these are as follows:

1.) Photo Booth: When I got my Mac I never expected to use the built in camera. I'm not a big fan of webcams so I figured that I'd never put the webcam to use. Then I discovered Photo Booth. This program has to be one of the most fun pre-installed programs on Mac. The pictures you can make on it are hilarious. Its a great thing to use in between classes when you're bored.

2.) iMovie HD: The fact that you can add great quality graphics to home movies with a pre-installed program is just plain cool.

3.) iPhoto: By far, the easiest photo editing and photobook making software that I know of.

4.) Ease of networking: The fact that my Mac realized I had a home wireless network during its setup made connecting it to my home network that much easier.

5.) The Sleep Light: My macbook sits on a desk in my bedroom. I can't explain it, but for some reason that pulsating light helps me sleep.

Those are just some of the benefits I never expected when I bought my Mac.

I'd like to hear what kinds of unexpected benefits other switchers have experienced with their Macs.

Here is one that surprised me (switched about seven months ago). Widgets! Now when I got my Mac, I knew that widgets were neat, but coming from Linux and before that Windows, I had never worked with them before, so they were an interesting curiosity, but certainly not a key decision point.

Fast forward to today. I must check spelling in the Dictionary widget a dozen times a day. I'd be lost without my real time stock updates from the stock widget. And what would I do without the weather widget - I check it all the time! And then there is the fun ones, like the ProdMe widget, which does a remarkably good imitation of a grandfather clock - I love it!

Widgets - they surprised me. I didn't understand what I would want them for when I got the Mac, now I couldn't even consider a computer without them.

What do you think? I think that qualifies as a totally unexpected benefit!

Absolutely it does. I completely forgot about widgets when I posted. I have the "live webcam feed of Old Faithful" widget. I'll admit that the cam serves no real purpose other than the fact that I love Yellowstone, but it's still a fun thing to have. I also use the dictionary widget often since I use my Mac to type college papers.

omg. i actually just tried photobooth right now.. love it.

I got my new 15" macbook pro about a week ago. On the whole i am ecstatic with it, however i have to disagree on one point. iPhoto sucks in a huge way! It is the main reason i am keeping my PC - as a storage tower fr all my photo's (around 4000 so far and climbing rapidly) and because i can use Picasa on it, which is so much better than iPhoto its not even funny!

Everything else is great!!! it just works!

TheCustomer99 said:

The Sleep Light: My macbook sits on a desk in my bedroom. I can't explain it, but for some reason that pulsating light helps me sleep.

Click to expand...

i loooove the sleep light. i can stare at it forever. and i don't even do drugs...

hey, did you notice the charge capacity lights on the bottom? hit the little flush button on the battery and see what happens!

One other completely unexpected benefit of switching, for me anyway, seems completely counter intuitive. Saving money!

I came to Macs from Linux, having used it for about 2 years after getting THOROUGHLY sick of Windows and the daily grind of virus', attacks, Norton updates... it went on and on.

So, I moved back from the world of free open source software to the world of Macs, a world of commercial software. I expected to start paying through the nose for software again.

Guess what? It hasn't happened. In fact, I have saved some money vs. Windows, which amazes me. Yes, I have had to shell out for some shareware I really wanted, but a lot of stuff - a LOT of stuff - is built right in and comes with Mac OS X.

A KEY example for me is encrypted virtual volumes. I have always wanted to ensure that my financial and other personal records were very secure, and have always managed to keep encrypted volumes as the mechanism. On Windows, I had to pay a small fortune for software to do this. On Macs, it is free - built right into the whole .dmg setup in Disk Utility. See:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107333

for details.

Other examples: iWeb, iPhoto. I have also been consistently and repeatedly amazed at just how capable Preview is.

Just one more unexpected benefit!

I really need to start using iPhoto and Automater, all my pictures are just randomly put in folders. I also hear good things about Automater so I'm going to try to get comfortable with that later tonight.

Hmm... I guess one unexpected benefit from my switch, which I didn't really thought about, is that I got rid of the hideous cable jungle under the desk that usually plagues PC-systems.

There's actually couple of pics in the official setup-thread, if you're interested.

eric said:

hey, did you notice the charge capacity lights on the bottom? hit the little flush button on the battery and see what happens!

Click to expand...

I've had my powerbook nearly two years, and I just noticed them the other week. It's a cool idea