Did You Switch From Windows to a Mac or Back? Any Regrets?
Most people seem to take a hard line when it comes to their OS, but Adam’s Windows to Mac adventure has got me wondering—how many converts are out there?
Any regrets? Why?
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I’ve got mac osx on a dell mini 9 and I’m completely convinced that it is the best os to have on a netbook. It just runs so smoothly and little things like expose make multitasking on such a small screen a pleasure…
That said, I don’t think I’d ever use osx on my primary pc, although the reasons to stick to windows I think are becomming less and less..
I’ve tried I really have. But I just can’t do the iPhone. It’s pretty, it’s well built, it’s got a lovely interface, but the camera is junk and the 3G is like sippy bandwidth through a straw.
I’m going back to my 5mpx/HSDPA candybar and rather getting a netbook.
Swapped to a mac about 4 years ago when I started my graphic design course…I wouldn’t go back unless windows 7 has a fantastic UI and seamless navigation.
Pathfinder and quicksilver have made leopard even better than normal.
Bought my first Mac a few months ago. I enjoy OS X so much I recently put Ubuntu (kinda similar) on my PC a few weeks back. It’s like I suddenly realised I didn’t need anything Microsoft made anymore… there was no longer any reason for me to stay with it, and I was mighty sick of the continual issues/errors/buggyness. I won’t go back to Windows unless Windows 7 turns out to be fantastic, in which case I will dual-boot it on my Mac.
I moved from PC to Mac. My main reason was due to my line of work – web design & photography. Switching to a Mac was the best decision I have made. It is the perfect notebook for my needs. It didn’t take me long to get used to the interface and found it faster & easier to use.
I converted to mac when I got back from overseas after using Vista for 6 Months.
I’ll never go back. Everything seems to work better, even with peripheral devices.
I switched from Mac System 7 to Windows 98, then XP, OSX, RedHat, Ubuntu, XP, Vista, Win 7 Beta, XP. It really doesn’t matter. If one OS has features you specifically need (e.g. the iPhone development kit on OSX), you use that OS. Otherwise use the OS that interferes the least with your other applications (e.g. not Vista), which is why I keep coming back to XP.
I have both a Mac and a PC.
The Mac is a beautiful machine in so many ways – but for me PC still wins. Partly because there are some things about MACOS that really annoy the hell out of me, partly because PC is cheaper.
but mainly it’s because at the back of my mind is the smug, mac fanboy who believes that Apple invented everything and that no other system has any value. Did you know Mac Fanboys that nearly everything about a MAC originally worked on a PC first? No? That’s because you’re all suckers for their brilliant marketing.
That is all.
no, i didn’t.
I have worked 25 years in IT primarily in software development and architecture. I ran a .com .net development company and lived and breathed microsoft. I bought a macbook pro three years ago, and to honest I wasn’t really sure why. I installed parallels which ran xp faster than my pc mainly because I was so use to xp and found the change confronting. I unimstalled parallels a couple of months later. I now own 3 macs at home and would never consider going back to windows. The only ms app I now use is office for mac which is nowhere as good as iWork however pages is not 100% compatable. Osx is far superior to windows in most respects, for example device handling, security, backup and user interface design.
Saying that macs suck at gaming and I have a kick butt pc for games
I made the complete conversion to OSX to start coding iPhone apps 6-8 months ago.. While I don’t mind the OS, It’s nothing special & I swapped back to Windows after 3 months. I still do my coding on the mac, but pretty much everything else is done on either my Vista/Linux Desktop or my Windows 7 tablet/laptop.
To be perfectly honest, As long as I can fire up some games after work and read a few blogs, I don’t really mind what I use.
Not a fan of Mac at all. Sure windows has had it’s issues, but nothing serious enough to make me consider a mac.
Grew up with PC’s. Got sick of fixing problems with them and everybody else’s. Moved to Mac 1 year ago. Best move ever!
I’m a lifelong windows user that JUST bought a top of the line macbook pro. If you’ve ever navigated windows 7, you won’t be able to deal with OS X’s absolutely HORRENDOUS file organization and navigation. I just tried to switch to mac, I’m a very high end professional user and bought a TOP OF THE LINE macbook pro. The hardware is beautiful but untested – dosen’t support 30″ screen still and constant clicking noises from the speakers. OSX is OK if you’re a novice user. But navigating through folders as a power user is a JOKE. You need to install an accessory program like Pathfinder and quicksilver just to be able to browse ! and if you resize a window or move an icon things are all over the place ! you have to CONSTANTLY clean up folders and arrange icons.. it’s pathetic ! I’m running Windows 7 on my macbook pro and it runs INCREDIBLE the way icons auto arrange as you resize a window is BRILLIANT. Looks amazing with the glass screen and my 30″ screen runs fantastically which apple couldn’t manage to figure out with OSX. Screw apple for selling broken machines, i’m a sucker for pretty hardware: *see also: i customized it so it dosent look like a mac, so i don’t regret the purchase or feel like a sheep but i regret anytime I spent even trying to work with OSX. The one feature i do like is how you can hover a file over a folder and it will auto-browse into it, but it doesn’t work properly and jumps all over. shame on MS for not adding it to win7.. But, no cutting on OSX, preview requiring you to select all your pictures before you can navigate through a folder of pics left and right.. you can’t even read full file names no matter how short they are for the most part to! .. these things are AMATEUR ! I assert that OSX is for the amateur user only. Don’t give yourself a headache if you know your way around computers.
Windows 7 promlem: the icons, especially drive icons make me want to vomit my brains out of my nostrils they’re so ugly – and i haven’t figured out how to change those yet with no UI programs for win7 yet. However changing icons on win7 in general is much easier than a mac without candybar. Auto changing icon size in win7 with ctrl+scrollwheel is also genius.
Search features are better in OSX and OSX’s auto-transfer from an old mac is also an amazing feature MS should steal already.
lol, Sounds like you really didn’t know how to use it just yet. When I first switched, I had a feeling of “Wow, this is weird” too. There was even a brief period of “I miss Windows….” Now I’m sooo into Mac. You said before that you’d JUST bought it. What do you think now after you’ve used it for several months?
I switched 2.4 years ago. Never going back.
Tried Mac’s and it’s a fun TOY, could not use it as a business tool.
In case no one new Apple invented the first ever computer, the Apple II. And designed the first ever GUI. PCs have their strong points of course but owe a lot to Apple’s innovations.
(And yes Apple has also used some Microsoft’s ideas as well)
Shael, I’m sorry, but i’m going to let you sit there and abuse us most intelligent mac users.
Having been brought up in a window’s environment at home up until aged 10, I started using the original iMacs at school. I showed them, and they bought an iMac G5, while I bought an iBook G3. We’ve all been more than happy ever since.
The iMac is still as good as it was 5 years ago, and I’ve since upgraded to a MacBook Pro, and love it as much as I could love a computer. It does everything for me. Not even one complaint.
You’re an idiot if you think the file system is for NOVICE’s. I’m simply offended, because along with millions of other PROFESSIONALS throughout the world, we’re making decent money, and working at a far superior productivity level than you are, which is demonstrated by the fact that you spent THAT long writing such a pointless and “horrendous” comment.
I hope you’re very happy on your PC, but if you think you can talk to people who definitely know what a quality operating system is, think again. Because we’re a community. And believe me, someone will get you down. Now, that must be one amazing OS if you’ve got people PERSONALLY defending it. We are OPEN MINDED (try it sometime), and are happy to listen to someone talk about a computer who actually knows how review it.
If anyone else agrees with me, chuck in a comment of support for me. These people need to know how to respect others.
I grew up with Mac, as my mum owned a graphic design business and used nothing but. The first PC that my family owned was a Pentium III 550MHz with XP that my dad bought. Being the avid gamer that I am, since then I’ve always been using PCs, but there’s always been a Mac nearby. What can I say, I live on both sides of the fence. A big, chunky, annoying PC for gaming, and a nice, compact, friendly, virus free but gaming-illiterate Macbook Pro for lectures and projects. It serves me quite well.
I will say that I definitely prefer Macs though. Everything just freaking works.
I use OS X + Windows XP (with bookcamp), got everything covered.
I have recently bought a macbook pro, and am quite happy with my purchase. I do like some of the features on the mac, but i must say that I think the whole “macs are more user friendly” is purely an apple marketing trick. There are some improvements such as the multi touch trackpad, but there are some flaws with the interface as well (just like any OS i guess). What I find really hard to get used to though is the fact that you can only adjust window sizes from the bottom right corner of the window. This is annoying in iPhoto when you want to tag someone’s face and you need to make 5-6 fine adjustments to get the right size in the right place. Also not having a directory tree to navigate around the filesystem makes things a lot harder, sure you can get used to not having one, but having one there definitely makes navigating to what you want faster. Oh and shift-highlighting of files just doesn’t work the way it should, anyone who has used this will know what i mean.
Customizable features on OSX are also limited, for example if you close the lid, the system goes into suspend mode and stops what it was doing, so if you are running some program doing calculations or copying a file or something and want to move the laptop, you need to do it with the lid open, if you close the lid, even just for a brief moment while you move the laptop to another room it will suspend and stop all running processes.
Besides these things though, most of the time i don’t really notice which OS I’m using, they both do pretty much the same thing.
I used to dislike the mac UI (and still dislike the pre OSX UI – I prefer win 98), but after my uni forced me to use macs more extensively, I grew to prefer it. I swapped about a year ago, and while windows 7 looks nice, the hardware of most PCs is trash. Laptops are thick and VERY ugly, heavy, and tacky, the MBPro (etc.) isn’t. Yes there aren’t anywhere near enough games for Mac (and the old games don’t seem to ever come down in price), but I don’t really care about computer gaming. Macs are definitely superior for things involving Audio, Video or Photography the OS and the hardware just makes everything so easier.
And after using the computer for a while, you learn that there really isn’t anything you need that is a PC-only software (apart from games if you need them).
Used mac for 10 years, tried Vista. Will never go back.
I didn’t like the way i felt i had to defend my Mac, i didn’t like that I coulden’t use every application I had without mounting Windows. Now all that is gone. I feel free, confident and resolute that I made the right choice. I am proud to be an ex-fan boy… my eyes and open and although it hasn’t changed my life, it certainly changed my perspective on how people buy into advertising and trends.
I switched from a PC to a Mac about a year ago. I went through the classic process of fear/anxiety/uncertainty about changing, file compatibility etc, but the catalyst for me was two broken PC motherboards within 12 months. I don’t think I’ll go back. I don’t even need MS Office for Mac – iWork does all I need. The only thing I miss is MS Access, but I’ve been working with other database apps since, and don’t really feel the loss at all. There were a few culture shifts in getting used to the file setup, but it’s easy to find my way around, and I don’t have to worry about the whole system crashing if I have more than three programs running at once.
I know it sounds corny and fangirl-ish, but the Mac really does just work. I haven’t had to deal with the crashes that were a major feature of my life before, and all my previously backed up files have been seamlessly integrated into the new system. Now when I use my husband’s WinXP system, it just feels slow, clunky and unwieldy. I know PC has its uses, but I’m fine without one. :)
There is only 1 reason not to get a mac…
- GAMING… (you could still run bootcamp/parallels)
If you do not need this then get a mac,
- more reliable
- faster op system
- no need for antivirus
- always being updated for free
- Better programs
thats it,