- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Messages
- 447
- Reaction score
- 12
- Points
- 18
Three weeks into switching to my new Mac from PC, after 20 years of Windows and several years of thinking about switching.
Out of the box experience. Wonderful, as usual for Apple. Hardest part was getting this 27" iMac out of the box and onto the desk. Once there it was a piece of cake to turn it on and connect it to the Airport network I had already set up to router our network. Much easier than setting up a new PC.
Porting from PC. My 20 years of personal computing experience set up me up to deal with the complexities of switching very nicely, but a new computer user likely would get stumped at several steps. It's not turn-key, and requires a lot of moving parts to work right. I wouldn't encourage my mother to switch now that she knows how to do email with the family.
Learning Mac OS. It really is quite disconcerting at times. I thought I had lost the menu bar on the Outlook window, but after an hour of google it finally clicked that the menu bar for all open programs is always top left of the screen. But after a couple of weeks I'm rapidly getting more comfortable in Mac, and delighting in the little ease of use things I find every now and again.
iTunes transfer. That certainly was not drop dead simple, but I finally got it done right without losing all my playlists and stuff. Phew.
Windows on the Mac. I could not leave some Windows programs behind, like Quicken, but Windows 7 is coexisting beautifully with Snow Leopard under Parallels. Very seamless and simple. This was the easiest part of the switch, actually.
MS Office. I've got MS Office for Mac running fine, and I can work on my Word, PowerPoint and Excel files fine, but I did have some hangs in PowerPoint, and syncing Outlook is not a breeze. Outlook is running fine, but syncing to my BlackBerry and iPad has not been a piece of cake. The Blackberry is doing better than the iPad, which won't sync Calendar suddenly (I'll end up using Applecare to sort that one out), but after syncing the BlackBerry can't find PIN numbers in my address book (they vanished). And all my pre-switch research did not turn up the fact that I would be dealing with a 3-way switch: mobile device to Apple native app to Outlook function (eg Blackberry calendar to iCal to Outlook Calendar). No wonder it's not settled down yet. I do like Outlook better than the native Apple apps, so far.
Apps issues. All my research did not turn up the fact that although some of my favourite Windows apps have been ported to Mac OS, they are not nearly as feature-rich as in Windows. I'll end up syncing the BB to Mac for some, and to Windows for others, for example. I hope third party apps that don't use the App Store continue to find support.
Crashes and hangs. Guess what? An iMac is a computer. It can hang. Probably due to non-Apple apps, but they're necessary. But Mac OS has neat ways of dealing with hangs and I've sorted most of them out.
Ease of use. The Mac OS is rapidly growing on me, and I think I do like it better than Windows. There really are some things I can do under Mac that I had wished I could do under Windows. Hard to give specific examples,, but the feeling is more personal and flexible under Mac OS, I think. Pathfinder is a great double pane alternative to single pane Finder, and I was never satisfied with alternatives to Windows Explorer. The trackpad is great for some jobs, but I've drifted back to using a spare mouse to use for most of my work.
Cost. An iMac is more expensive than a PC. I had to buy a copy of Parallels, a new copy of Windows (PC was messy install of Vista), and a new copies or upgrades of other Windows or Mac apps.
Feeling about the future? Good that I've made the switch, but I hope Apple continues to keep it trim and simple, and the quality high. Big organizations have a way of making life difficult over time, and success can lead to bloat.
I'll drop back and update this as time goes by.
- Was the switch worth it for me? Bottom line: yes.
- On scale of 1 to 10, how good is my feeling at this point? I'd say 8, with caveats.
- Would I have stayed with Windows if I could do it over? No, I don't think so.
- Would I encourage everyone I know to switch? No.
Out of the box experience. Wonderful, as usual for Apple. Hardest part was getting this 27" iMac out of the box and onto the desk. Once there it was a piece of cake to turn it on and connect it to the Airport network I had already set up to router our network. Much easier than setting up a new PC.
Porting from PC. My 20 years of personal computing experience set up me up to deal with the complexities of switching very nicely, but a new computer user likely would get stumped at several steps. It's not turn-key, and requires a lot of moving parts to work right. I wouldn't encourage my mother to switch now that she knows how to do email with the family.
Learning Mac OS. It really is quite disconcerting at times. I thought I had lost the menu bar on the Outlook window, but after an hour of google it finally clicked that the menu bar for all open programs is always top left of the screen. But after a couple of weeks I'm rapidly getting more comfortable in Mac, and delighting in the little ease of use things I find every now and again.
iTunes transfer. That certainly was not drop dead simple, but I finally got it done right without losing all my playlists and stuff. Phew.
Windows on the Mac. I could not leave some Windows programs behind, like Quicken, but Windows 7 is coexisting beautifully with Snow Leopard under Parallels. Very seamless and simple. This was the easiest part of the switch, actually.
MS Office. I've got MS Office for Mac running fine, and I can work on my Word, PowerPoint and Excel files fine, but I did have some hangs in PowerPoint, and syncing Outlook is not a breeze. Outlook is running fine, but syncing to my BlackBerry and iPad has not been a piece of cake. The Blackberry is doing better than the iPad, which won't sync Calendar suddenly (I'll end up using Applecare to sort that one out), but after syncing the BlackBerry can't find PIN numbers in my address book (they vanished). And all my pre-switch research did not turn up the fact that I would be dealing with a 3-way switch: mobile device to Apple native app to Outlook function (eg Blackberry calendar to iCal to Outlook Calendar). No wonder it's not settled down yet. I do like Outlook better than the native Apple apps, so far.
Apps issues. All my research did not turn up the fact that although some of my favourite Windows apps have been ported to Mac OS, they are not nearly as feature-rich as in Windows. I'll end up syncing the BB to Mac for some, and to Windows for others, for example. I hope third party apps that don't use the App Store continue to find support.
Crashes and hangs. Guess what? An iMac is a computer. It can hang. Probably due to non-Apple apps, but they're necessary. But Mac OS has neat ways of dealing with hangs and I've sorted most of them out.
Ease of use. The Mac OS is rapidly growing on me, and I think I do like it better than Windows. There really are some things I can do under Mac that I had wished I could do under Windows. Hard to give specific examples,, but the feeling is more personal and flexible under Mac OS, I think. Pathfinder is a great double pane alternative to single pane Finder, and I was never satisfied with alternatives to Windows Explorer. The trackpad is great for some jobs, but I've drifted back to using a spare mouse to use for most of my work.
Cost. An iMac is more expensive than a PC. I had to buy a copy of Parallels, a new copy of Windows (PC was messy install of Vista), and a new copies or upgrades of other Windows or Mac apps.
Feeling about the future? Good that I've made the switch, but I hope Apple continues to keep it trim and simple, and the quality high. Big organizations have a way of making life difficult over time, and success can lead to bloat.
I'll drop back and update this as time goes by.