After a few years with a Dell desktop, I decided to upgrade my home computer this past February. Following Donovan and Josh’s lead I went with a Macintosh. Recently I’ve been talking with a few people (some who post here) about whether or not they should make the switch too. I thought I’d post a few thoughts about this and a bunch of screenshots from my computer (click any of them to enlarge) to convince assist any of you who might be considering doing the same thing.
1. There’s not a lot you can do on a PC that you can’t do on a Mac – This surprised me a bit. Unless you’re really into games, you’ll find that just about everything you do in your PC life can be easily transferred to a Mac. Microsoft Word documents, presentations, adobe files, you name it. Hardware too: Printers? Yep. 2 button mouse? Uh-Huh. Keychain hard drive? Check. You can connect to other computers (PC or Mac), transfer over your old files, do whatever you did before in just about every case.
2. There’s a lot you can do on a Mac much easier than on a PC – Email, internet, etc. all go without saying… but everything you need to edit video, create your own music (either by recording with your own voice/instruments or manipulating pre-recorded loops), and organize your collection of digital photos comes standard with an Apple computer. All of these things are possible on a PC (although you would need to purchase separate software in some cases), but on a Mac it’s actually easy to use, intuitive, and even (gasp) enjoyable!
3. Stability – Even though I didn’t have much of a problem with this using Windows XP, I know that many people do. Stuff just tends to conflict or stop working after a while unless you are very careful. Macs don’t seem to have this problem as much. I think this is partly because Apple software is designed to run only on a half dozen machines (all made by Apple), while Windows probably has to run on... who knows, thousands of different models made by hundreds of different companies. There are huge benefits to having the same company design the hardware & software side of things.
4. Cool Stuff – I know this isn’t much of an argument for some people, but Mac’s are definitely a lot cooler. Spotlight and Dashboard are two good examples of this. Apple seems to have a knack for understanding how ordinary people use their computers and how to create helpful tools to make it easier to organize and work with information. Also the interface looks much nicer in my opinion (though I still like the taskbar at the bottom of XP better than the Apple Dock).
5. Support – This is a huge area for me. When you have a problem with your PC you pretty much have two options: call a friend or hire the Geek Squad from Best Buy (AKA: Rent-a-Dork). On the other side, Apple has excellent support in two ways: First, there is a guy who is paid to sit at the “Genius Counter” of every Apple Store and help people with whatever problems they have with their Macs for free. If you aren’t sure how to set something up, lose some information, or run into other problems, they’ll help you fix it – just take your computer in. Also, there are some great discussion boards at Apple.com filled with a bunch of really nice and helpful nerds who know a ton about Apple and are anxious to share it with you. I’ve used this a couple of times to figure out how to do stuff or ask for advice and it’s a great resource.
6. Less viruses – Eventually they’ll probably be around as Apple grows more popular, but for now they’re not a huge concern. I haven't installed antivirus software, and I’m so glad about this because Norton Antivirus seems to really mess stuff up on the PC. To me installing Norton is like eating a big lump of meatloaf before the big race.
7. Price – No doubt, the high-end stuff is too pricey. But the Mini (starting at $500), iMac and iBook seem reasonably priced to me.
8. Stuff I don’t like – I've got two problems with Macs: The first is that there really isn’t a workable desktop publishing program that's as good as Microsoft Publisher for the Mac (which I use to create flyers and announcement emails). Secondly, even though I love iCal, the scheduling program that comes with Macs, the to-do list options aren’t as good as they are in MS Outlook. That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. If it wasn’t for those two things, I think I’d probably talk to Tom about putting my work PC on ebay.
Summary: I think Mac’s are great for people who like computers. The OS feels very refined, stable, and intelligent. Just about everything I do is easier/nicer in my opinion.
But more importantly, I think Macs are great for people who hate computers. In my experience over the last few months they are much more user-friendly, less problematic, and if you do experience issues there are better support options.
Ok, I’m done now. That was way too long.
of doing something a little different (he's now somewhat regularly posting podcasts from his site), I'm hoping to post a picture every few days or so on a sister-site to this one. The link is www.m59.typepad.com/images/ or you can just click here.
It may have been 3 weeks since our last trivia contest, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten about our last winner.
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