I wrote about my move from Windows to a Mac Mini a few weeks ago and now is the time to summarise my feelings after five weeks with a new computer, and a new operating system. It is never easy to move to new hardware and software, but I have been surprised at how natural the transition has felt.
Let’s be honest, there are not too many differences between Windows 7 and Mac OS X in terms of day to day usage and both offer a quick and simple experience which can flex around the needs of the user. Where they differ, at least in my experience, are the performance levels over a period of time. I have noticed that the Mac plods along at a consistent rate no matter what I throw at it; there is no drama when updates are required and it just seems to work. My experience with Windows is that continual looking under the bonnet is needed to keep it running smoothly.
I am considering that this computer is new which offers a stability and speed benefit, but the feeling that it will work every day without fail is hard to ignore. I quickly got over the differences between the systems and have grown to love the dock and the shortcuts that make almost every task twice as quick as they would be without them. There are highs and lows on the software side which I am working on addressing over time, but on the whole the experience in like for like software is much better under Mac OS than Windows-
Microsoft Entourage: I use an MS Exchange email account and found the standard Mail software to be very poor. After much time spent looking for solutions I eventually gave up because its performance was unreliable and basic to say the least. Entourage is better, but still does not offer the same level of experience I am used to with Outlook under Windows. I am also not a big fan of iCal or contacts. This is probably because I am used to everything being in one place and not having to run separate apps for each task.
Firefox / Safari: Internet Explorer has been the most unreliable piece of XXXX I have had to use over the past year and the move to Mac made me finally keep it off my computer. Firefox works as well as ever and I am starting to appreciate the benefits of Safari as well. Some of the extensions are incredibly useful and the combination of the two is remarkably fluid.
Imaging: iPhoto is a great piece of software and works seamlessly with my iPhone to manage my photo collection. It can be a bit slow at times, but I suspect this is down to the fact I have a bottom of the range Mac Mini. I have used a few image manipulation programs so far, but none comes close to Paint.net under Windows which is by far the best paint style software I have ever used. I will continue to search for a solution and hope that Paint.net gets ported to Mac OS one day.
Almost every other application is either comparable or better than its Windows equivalents in my experience and so I am fairly happy that I have moved to another complete solution for my needs. There is something reassuring about the entire Mac experience which I do not feel when using Windows. The entire look also helps to offer a sense that the working of the software is hidden behind a sweet looking veneer that emphasises what you need to do rather than how you need to do it. I fully understand why people love the look and feel of Mac OS, but still don’t understand why some obsess over fonts and menu styles. I guess, however, this obsessiveness is why Mac OS works like it does.
The hardware is nice, but being a Mini it just sits on my desk and I have no further interaction with it. The materials used obviously come together to make the experience work, but the aesthetics are of little consequence here. I do use an Apple keyboard for no other reason than I find it to be the most efficient one available. I tried to use a Mighty Mouse, but it was just awful with the Mac Mini. I tried everything from new drivers through to third party software through to tweaking all of the settings, but still it was unresponsive and just felt unnatural- it was as if what was happening on the screen was not quite what I was doing with my hand. Ironically, I have been using a mini Microsoft mouse with the Mac Mini and it works flawlessly. It is a wireless model and requires one AA battery- the same battery has been in this mouse for 3 years and it still works. I also bought an external hard drive for Time Machine to back up to- with no real experience of using it in anger so far, I do feel reassured that it will save the day should something ever go badly wrong. The thing is that I am not expecting the day to ever need saving.
So, it’s almost all good so far and I have no regrets at all about moving from Windows to Mac. I really cannot see myself moving back either, but will probably need to upgrade the Mac Mini in the future to cope with what I throw at each every day.
Given you use Entourage I’m assuming you use MS Office for Mac as your office apps? If so, how do you find it? I use Neo Office on my MBP and it’s ok (and free)
I don’t want to sound like a prophet of doom but don’t put too much faith in its reliability. My son is a professional musician and uses his MacBook Pro on stage. Last month he was playing at a gig to a couple of thousand people when it just crashed. It had never crashed in rehearsals and it was catastrophic. The band have now purchased another MacBook as a backup. Experience teaches you the hard way.
I’d say I’ve had a handful of crashes on a mac since I started using them in around 2005, rather more than that with microsoft OSs over the years. Thankfully I’ve never had a crash at such a crucial time as Graham’s son!
As for Entourage, I havn’t heard great things about it. I don’t think microsoft puts a lot of effort into their mac software. I’ve mainly used Thunderbird as I don’t like Apples mail much either but I’ve no idea how well it works with exchange.
One thing to remember with Time Machine; if you’re running a version of Windows in a virtual machine or if you have a Windows partition in Bootcamp, the Windows section is not backed up by Time Machine. Judie over at Gear Diary discovered that when she had a hard drive failure a couple of years back.
I have Office for Mac on my work Mac, but I use Apple Mail/iCal/Address Book for all my email/calendar etc as I found Entourage wasn’t as reliable and didn’t play nicely with our Gmail hosted office email.
Have used lots of different email apps on my macs, mainly to avoid having to use the buggy Mail one. I also find Safari to be intolerably buggy….currently testing out PostBox which is okay.
Also have Entourage and Office for Mac which I actually prefer over Apple’s iWork which tries to be too funky for its own good, in my opinion
Just wondering if there are any positives. My windows 7 laptop is cheap , reliable and boots very quickly. Does outlook very well. Whilst I have an iPad, iPod and iPhone still not convinced about a Mac .
After writing the article, I must say that Safari really is an unreliable piece of xxxxx. I don’t like Entourage, but it is a shame that there are no alternatives that work as well.
Bean is by far the best word processor I have found and NeoOffice is a decent free office app.
Still not going back to Windows:)
I went to the Mac in 2005 and haven’t looked back. My main desktop has been a Mac Mini – starting with the 1st PPC Mini and now I use a 2009 C2D 2GHz Mini. All my old minis were given away and are still working reliably including my original PPC Mini which I gave to my cousin. I also use a 3.5 year old Macbook (well, my wife does) and a new 13″ Macbook Pro (bought 2 months ago). My entire experience with Mac OS X and Mac hardware has been completely positive.
I don’t use Boot Camp any longer (I do have an HP Mini 210 netbook) but it worked marvelously when I did. To back up a Windows partition, use WinClone (Google it – it’s free, open source and works 100% reliably for backing up a Windows Boot Camp partition).
I use Apple Mail but I have Mobile Me and it works fine. Never used my Macs with Exchange so can’t speak to that. I used to use Entourage, but found it to be a hog on this machine and more than I really needed. However, take heart – Office for Mac 2011 will include Outlook and from what I’ve read it’ll be fully compatible with and feature complete with the Windows version.
I don’t know what you guys are doing with Safari, but I’ve not had any problems with it. It’s the only browser I use on my Macs and I’ve tried them all, including Chrome. I will admit that Chrome is MUCH faster, but in terms of stability and reliability, I find Safari to be just fine. But I don’t use a lot of extensions or plug-ins either, so that may make a difference.
Don
I’ve had my Macbook Pro about 10 months now. Though I don’t work it too hard (it’s a bit like a glorified and expensive netbook for me – but that was the plan) I have to say it’s never crashed yet (touchwood).
I pretty much have migrated to Gmail for mail now from my POP3 account so don’t use the Mail app very often, although I found it a breath of fresh air compared to Outlook 2002/3 which I used at home/work respectively at the time I made the move.
I use and love Firefox and have done for many moons over IE which I still hate with a passion, and have very rarely used Safari, and only occasionally fiddled with Chrome.
I have a Mobile Me subscription as I just love the way it keeps ical and contacts in sync with my iPhone with absolutely no pain.
And finally, the multi-gesture trackpad is almost the killer feature for me – whenever I use a Windows laptop the first thing that hits me is how clunky trackpad navigation is compared to the MBP. I though I’d use a mouse with the Mac but have never bothered once.
“After writing the article, I must say that Safari really is an unreliable piece of xxxxx”
It is, isn’t it? Ironic that the only app I have to constantly do a force close on my MBP is one of the built in Apple ones. Every time it gets updated I give it a try but it will, without fail, lock up within 5 minutes.
Just because it’s an Apple program doesn’t mean that it’s stable. My son had another horror story with his Mac. Last year he had to create a video presentation and spent weeks filming people and then importing it to edit into iMovie. It was literally dozens of hours of work. The day before the presentation iMovie crashed and he lost everything. We went onto an Apple support forum and there were loads of people who had experienced the same thing. We were told that there was no way to retrieve the work once this had happened. We were advised to save often and backup frequently. Bummer! He literally had to stay up all night to try and recreate the presentation. He does seem to be unlucky with Apple products.
The first time I showed my bro-in-law the MacBook it totally locked up and we had to pull the battery out and reboot. He commented, rather wryly, ‘Just like Windows then.’ Bizarrely the only stable Windows PC I have ever had is my cheap-as-chips netbook. I use it almost exclusively now and rarely boot up my desktop. I think it’s only crashed once this year.
My last PC was a Hewlett Packard laptop bought in 2004. Within 48 hours Internet Explorer had already been hijacked by a piece of spyware that stubbornly refused all attempts at removal, requiring me to scour the internet for possible solutions and to dig deep into the registry. (My previous PCs had all suffered similar problems, along with a myriad of other issues.)
A couple of months later we were the victims of a break-in and the HP was stolen. In the aftermath, I ended up buying an Apple iBook, and I haven’t looked back. All of the issues I’d had with PCs disappeared overnight – viruses and malware became a thing of the past: flaky connectivity and complicated software/hardware installations disappeared; and the cluttered, ugly windows UI was replaced by the clean lines of Mac OS.
Six years later and that original iBook is still being put to good use. I passed it on to my mother when I bought a MacBook a couple of years later. I also have a five year old iMac which rocks our ever growing media collection. (My son has a MacBook Pro – envy much?).
I use most of the built-in software (Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, Text Edit, Preview, iPhoto etc) and have never had a significant problem with any of them. And MobileMe does a decent job of keeping everything in sync.
Statto said: “And finally, the multi-gesture trackpad is almost the killer feature for me – whenever I use a Windows laptop the first thing that hits me is how clunky trackpad navigation is compared to the MBP.”
I completely agree. My wife has a work-issued ThinkPad with a trackpad surrounded by half a dozen buttons and as well as a little “nubbin” embedded in the middle of the keyboard. None of them, either separately or combined, comes anywhere close to the elegance of my MacBook’s trackpad. It makes her tear her hair out. Other constant irritations include a host of connectivity issues, bizarre rituals when attaching peripherals, and the tendency for the laptop to refuse to wake up from sleep.
(Aside: “Outlook” is the work of the devil.)
I do think that windows pc prior to 7 were not reliable but v 7 is reliable. So far nothing has gone wrong.
However I am keen money permitting to look at options. But that might be some years off.
Reassuring words lazyboy, but Outlook is way better than iCal, Mail etc. in my experience. Let’s give Microsoft credit for doing something right.
I agree. What don’t you like about Outlook? I have been using it pretty well everyday for 10 years and have had hardly any problems. Syncs flawlessly with my Palm: Calendar, Contacts, Notes and Tasks. I think it’s a brilliant bit of software.
Lol. My problems with Outlook are purely personal, it has nothing to do with it’s reliability or otherwise. I much prefer the one at a time apps like iCal, Mail and Address book, even though they are somewhat less functional than Outlook or something like Entourage. When I open an app like Outlook, I find the whole look and feel off-putting. Too much info, too many boxes, too many icons, too many damn scrollbars – all bombarding my poor brain at once. It’s like sensory overload. I honestly have no idea how anyone uses it.
I think it speaks to one of the reasons that I prefer Mac OS over Windows. There is a certain aesthetic that is apparent in most Mac OS software that just isn’t there in Windows – to me it’s cleaner, less cluttered and, therefore, less distracting. And this aesthetic is reflected in the third party software that is developed for the platform, too.
Completely agree about the boxes, icons etc. and Mr Gruber also comments on this style of software a lot. The problem is that for people who use Outlook how it should be used, these icons and boxes are necessary.
The Mac PIM apps have a stylish aesthetic, but they are not capable of doing what a lot of need. Too much emphasis on simplicity and not enough on productivity in my view. A method that works really well in everything else Mac OS.
My other problem with Outlook is the way it is mass-deployed in organizations and has been transformed into a “group-organizer” rather than a “personal” organizer. Open access to people’s calendars and auto-insertion of appointments in people’s calendars has resulted in a loss of personal freedom and a tendency for people’s time to be over-allocated; so, rather than providing people with a way to effectively manage their time, energy and resources, it has actually resulted in a loss of control. And, far from feeling empowered by the software, many people feel trapped. When I see people complaining about being at the beck and call of their BlackBerries I am reminded of the same thing. Quite literally, we have handed over a significant amount of our precious time, energy and peace of mind to the blind workings of technology.
With Outlook just create in advance lots of appointments for
yourself to do work activities and show as out of office.
BB – turn off at power button. And buy personal mobile
That is what I do and is the only solution.
I see now why you view Outlook as the spawn of Satan. I’ve never used it in the corporate environment so have not experienced any loss of control. What I found interesting was when you said ‘I honestly have no idea how anyone uses it.’ For me it was completely intuitive from the moment I installed it.
By contrast I just cannot get the hang of MacOS. I know that many people love it but I nearly always end up feeling really frustrated. I can’t seem to get my head around the way it works. Like you with Outlook, I find myself thinking ‘I honestly have no idea how anyone uses it.’
Weird eh? I don’t think that it is because I cannot get used to a different way of doing things: I also use Linux which is about as different as you can get. Our brains must be wired up very differently. You’re probably the normal one. My wife thinks that my way of thinking through things is bizarre.
For once lazyboy you and I are in complete agreement! My hubby has to use Exchange for work and constantly finds his lunch hour filled up or meetings put back to back which are actually half a mile from each other (on a university campus) or clashes with the end of day time he’s supposed to pick our youngest up from nursery. He does block book from time to time as Gavin suggests but that’s not always practical.
As someone who uses Outlook (2003) in a corporate environment, I actually find it OK. However, I agree with Philippa and lazyboy to an extent in that it can be misused – or at least people who use it often don’t understand how best to use it.
It’s overkill for me at home though. The relative simplicity of iCal/Address Book, and to a lesser extent Mail (as I tend to us Gmail) is nice. With an iPhone as I said before, the integration is a no-brainer.
Although iCal/Address Book/Mail are separate apps, the integration between them is superb in my opinion and suits me perfectly. Never need to look up a name – just start typing for example.
Still, as always with these things it’s horses for courses. It’s taken me a while with some things to get used the the Mac way of doing things – I’d still sooner fire up Photoshop Elements on my PC than either the “same” app on my MBP or even iPhoto which I can’t get my head around, but by and large I have to say I find the Mac great for most everything else. But, and it’s an important “but”, Windows 7 has I think closed the gap – like Gavin I’m very impressed with it.