Think before you switch...

I am a recently switched over user (9 Months). I went from using Windows to using a MAC. I am a network engineer with over 10 yrs exp (Citrix). Now before I start I love my MAC (Powerbook G4 17") and would not give it up. However I have found that using MAC OS X has it's issues. For instance I turned on File-Vault which I sincerely regret as since I enabled it my iTunes have been corrupted twice in less than one month. I lost all my playlists but not my music. I had to recreate my playlists both times and now with Backup 3.0 opposed to Backup 2.0 you can now backup the playlists. Yeah finally... File Vault has seem to causes serious issues and personally from my own experience I would not recommend turing it on.... I have other issues as well with iPhoto. File-Vault constantly has to "Recover unused disk space" during power down of your mac, which adds to a long power off. Total joke.

As for gaming support no need to even comment :blind:

Tiger... I first had Panther on my powerbook than upgraded to Tiger. Not only did all my VPN software stop functioning, Virtual PC's, (switched networking) Some other Apps did not function, needless to say the upgrade path from 10.3 to 10.4 was not very thought out by Apple. Half the 3rd party stuff did not work. So I had to go back to Panther. When upgrading Windows is far simplier and I have had far more success when upgrading Windows opposed to MAC OS X. Especially being able to rely that my apps will work...

Stability... This has been disapponting to say the least. Sorry Mac fans WindowsXP is very stable and my Windows XP workstation has been far more stable from an OS perspective than MAC OS X 10.4.2. However the MAC has far less updates, spyware, and viruses to worry about etc.

Conclusion from me. I do prefer my MAC to my Windows counterpart I love Safari and you cannot even compare it to IE. I love iPhoto as windows has nothing even close, as well as iMovie, and iDVD. The address book and Mail client far exceed anything the Windows world has to offer. I love the .mac account and sync utility. I have never seen anything like that on Windows. However I am disappointed in the stability of OSX. I am going to attribute that to turning on File-Vault (stay away, far away). I am hoping for more success with 10.4.3 and if I lose my iTunes and iPhoto library again I am going to be pissed... Windows is not all that bad and I hope you never totally switch. It is wise to know both OS's before you can make any opinionated comments on either OS's.

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If you like window freeware programs, try picasa. It's a dirty rip off of iPhoto but it works really well and has some features that iPhoto does not.

Yeah file vault I hear has some serious problems.. I never turned it on, so I have none of the problems that you are talking about.. I have no stability problems etc. If I was in your shoes I would probably reinstall the OS, not turn File Vault on and go your merry way

I'm going to write an article on such matters myself. I have only ever used Macs, they are my choice, and I cannot see myself ever use anything else.

However, like you, as 10.4.2 stands, I have a few reservations about OS X as my experience has gone. It has on the whole been stable. Has it been more so than a Windows XP box? Well, Windows very rarely entered a stop error itself, or crashed due to Windows. It was a 3rd party app that caused me to terminate processes etc. However since finally getting an OS X box, namely the PowerBook, I have had some irritations that have bugged me, that are OS related, not third party.

Apple has without a doubt an extremely good OS, but it's not perfect, and I think it would be arrogance and stupidity to ignore that there are some issues all in the name of being Apple, and OS X being the saviour to the disenfranchised.

Don't get me wrong, OS X is wonderful and I'd never buy a PC with Windows, or indeed PC, I'm a mac person through and through. But I think I'd be deluded to ignore the fact that there are some issues.

That said I don't just easily get by without Windows, I truly do not need Windows at all, but I do expect some improvements which naturally means I am expecting a lot from 10.4.3.

I know Tiger had many under the hood changes to how the OS fundamentally works, hence the sticky transition for some from Panther to Tiger. But even so, these things need to dealt with seriously to boost OS X's credibility even further.

Anyway to keep things short, there's my few pennies on the matter. I just don't think it's a healthy thing to think OS X is perfect, and that it needs no improvement, because it does.

That said my PowerBook is wonderful and for 95% of the time I don't have a cross word to say about it. However there are some silly faults that really are not on.

Vicky
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Just to add my main gripes:

- Classic seems to seriously mess up my system to the extent it refuses to boot, I would dearly love to have Word 5.1 on this, and FileMaker 5...

- Seemingly after a few days running, the system periodically hangs and will not respond until moving to the dock or dragging the title bar. Due to a graphics chip error as per the system logs. resolved by a reboot but no reboot should be needed, shouldn't really happen in the 1st place. Also combined with serious refresh issues leaving windows drawn very wrong.

- Mac Help, The Help for OS X itself always breaks after a few days or few hours. It has been 'broke' now for 2 months in 10.4, 10.4.1 and 10.4.2. I should not need to trash preference files to make this work, it should just work. I hope 10.4.3 fixes this; all other help files work, except Mac Help. I may consider myself an expert, but I also know when to put my hand up and ask for help. Very sloppy, and not just my PowerBook but others too.

That's it really, there have been a couple of kernel panics, mostly due to an awful USB ADSL Modem with equally awful drivers that hope to ditch soon. I have had a couple of freezes, like today out of the blue using command + tab, and a couple of weeks ago in Painter

But everything else is good. If these things could be resolved I would be one tremendously happy bunny.

Vicky

Yeah they are saying that 10.4.3 has over 550 bug fixes etc.. so I would say there are some problems with the current version Panther was by far more stable in my opinion. It would be sad if anyone thought OS X was perfect.. it has a long ways to go, but I do enjoy it a whole lot more than Windows. XP is a much better beast then anything before it, but I do not enjoy it like I do my Mac

I think that hits the note Murlyn, I really enjoy my Mac, really I do, it's a pleasure to use :flower: But to get some of these issues resolved would be very good for the Mac in the long run :flower:

There are only two things I can think of that are still messed up in Tiger here after the 10.4.2 update. From Go if I click network, a lot of times it will appear then disapear so I have to instead click computer and networking from there. I hope the 10.4.3 takes care of it. Also I used to in Panther be able to right click on a mounted DMG on the desktop and duplicate it. Doing that since 10.4.0 causes an error.

Otherwise I have not had any other problems with Tiger since the .2 update.

kmarty009 said:

As for gaming support no need to even comment :blind:

Click to expand...

To be honest, I'm a little sick of everyone complaining about this. It's basically common knowledge that PCs are "better" for gaming. That doesn't fit with my own experience, but hey, the majority rules I guess. HOWEVER, I do not see this as a legitimate complaint from a switcher, because anyone doing their homework would know that a lot of people seem to think that Macs are inferior gaming machines.

That said, I have found my admittedly high-end Powermac to be exceptionally stable and solid with plenty of games available for the platform (all the ones I want to play, anyway.) Any gaming devices I have used have worked from the moment I plugged them in, and I have had no problem with any of my games crashing.

Here endeth my posting.