I´ve been a Windows user all my life, since I started with Windows 3.11 up to now. I´ve seen good products like Windows XP and Windows 7 and I saw terrible products like Windows 98, Windows Millennium & Windows Vista. During a decade and a half I´ve set up my own computers, buying motherboard, processor, RAM, etc. and putting them together in a case. I´ve also been doing this for all type of costumers and I somehow keep on doing this up to date. I provide IT Solutions.
The battle against Apple computers and Windows PC´s has been ongoing since I have IT knowledge. I remember working with my cousin in Chile (he is a designer) only using Apple Macintosh computers, they were always working nicely, powerfully and stable. Around the year 1997 the company was about to close, when Microsoft (yes, you read correctly), saved the company investing 150 Million USD. At that time Microsoft needed Apple to avoid any antitrust issues (monopoly) so saving Apple was good for Microsoft too. The deal also included the chance for Microsoft to develop Microsoft Office for the Mac, and other collaborations.
So what happened from the moment Steve Job´s company was saved by Bill Gates the company started to slowly grow and grow, introducing quality products and using OSX as their OS for computers, and iOS for mobile devices like iPhones, iPads, iPods and so. This products not only have an incredible design but their built quality is really great, although yes, in general they are costly, which I am going to comment about later on this post.
I personally never had the chance to buy an Apple computer, several times I was about to, and the idea of spending 2 or 3 times more what I could pay for a nice configuration set up by myself ended me convincing to go for this path. Also, where I was living (Argentina) we didn’t have friendly prices at all. Today, the time has come, I will buy a MacBook Pro laptop with Retina Display (probably). I will wait for the WWDC (Apple´s developers event) that is going to be held from June 10 to June 14, 2013. The company is supposed to launch refreshed models of their computer lines as published by the prestigious online buyers guide from MacRumors.
Why the change?
For me 3 main points where the trigger to take this decision:
1) I took the decision to move from Windows to Apple because I am on a stage in my life where I want to try a different platform, a more mature, less troubled and better built platform, which for me, is offered by Apple. I started to try Apple products when my wife (at that time girlfriend :)) gave me an iPod Nano 6th generation as a birthday present a couple of years ago. I´ve been using this iPod nano mainly just as a watch, and I love it (although it was not designed to be a watch). Then, when I moved to Switzerland I got an iPhone 4S by the company I started working for. Before that, I had a Samsung Galaxy S (the first one) and Android was not working as good as it is now and the hardware was not so powerful yet. My experience with the iPhone was amazing, I really liked it, although the lack of flexibility I was used to with my Android phone. The third item I purchased was an iPad 3rd generation, which confirmed that Apple products where really great and offered me a range of beautiful products that just worked for me. Now its the turn of my main computer, and after reading, watching videos and driving crazy friends, I came to the decision to do it.
2) Another thing that was preventing me to do the switch was that I was not sure about how I would be able to run Windows within OSX, I would still need Windows to run certain applications and to support the platform too. Last year I´ve configured Parallels on a MacBook Air from my sister in law and immediately felt in love with the Coherence mode, a way you can run Windows apps directly on the OSX interface, without restarting, or working only on a virtual machine, beautiful!
Of course if needed I could also use a fully Windows installation with BootCamp, as I wrote about some days back, the MacBook Pro is the best laptop to run Windows 🙂
3) Finally but not least, I was feeling clueless when people reached me asking for help if they should get a Mac or not without having the experience myself. So I think this will add value to my overall experience personally and professionally speaking. I will be able to help people and talk with the experience.
The Apple vs Windows hate
While reading a lot of reviews about different computer models from Apple, I came across a lot of Apple fan´s and a lot of Windows lovers that just hated Apple. I don’t understand why somebody would hate a product that just works better in sense of stability and productivity and its not just me saying it, its millions of people who once did the change…well, like the phrase: “Once you go Mac, you never go back”, lets see if that is true for me too.
I think a lot of people cant afford buying a Mac, and I am one of them, while I am waiting for the latest version that would probably be announced in June, I am saving the money to be able to buy what I want. I believe the high cost of my new Apple computer will return in more free time. I should not waste any more time re installing Windows because something odd happened or a software played fool with my OS.
While reading online posts about the MacBook Pro I read a beautiful phrase that sums it all about this hate: “You don’t have to hate what you cant afford”.
What do you think? Do you use Windows or Mac? Would you like to share your opinion below?
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That are pretty lame reasons to change a platform (“I want to try out something new”, “I can easily run Windows applications”, “I couldn’t advice people without trying myself”).
Since XP Windows is as rock-stable as OSX is. I’ve seen more Macs hanging or crashing than Windows PCs. If seen more Mac apps crashing OSX and had never one single Windows application crashing Windows 7. And Apple devices are not more expensive than their Windows counterpart. Yes, you’ll get cheap Windows hardware. But if you compare the specs and build quality, a Mac is sometimes even cheaper.
However, I recently also switched to a Macbook Pro, although I still have my desktop PC and my iPhone and iPad.
My reasons: If you need a professional 15″-notebook with an excellent display, highend performance, reasonable weight, size and look today, there’s nothing in the PC world. All manufacturers either produce lowend notebooks with super-bad displays, cheap plastic look, questionable build-quality and heavy weight or produce slim Ultrabooks with very good displays, excellent build quality but very low performance. The only option I found was the Asus Zenbook UX51. But I didn’t liked the dual-color chrome look with circular finish. I had a Sony Vaio Z before. But Sony offers no business notebooks anymore.
I’m not a Apple hater or a Windows fanboy. With a Macbook Pro as an only option for hardware I only had to verify the software and workflow I’m used to. It’s still right, you have much more choices on a PC and get much faster help on Google. However, on Mac you get much more polished software. And I’m now at the age, where I rather pay $10-20 to a developer who really made his mind up than some crappy open-source and freeware solutions that … let’s say, they get the job done, somehow. There’re a lot of nice polished tools and little helper available on OSX which I couldn’t find on Windows at all. A good desktop calendar for Windows? I used Rainlendar but the interface is a joke. I used Lighting addon for Thunderbird but their Google and Exchange integration is sloppy – not to talk about their interface again. An RSS reader? A popular one is FeedDemon. Haha! No. OSX has Reeder … and so on and so forth. The big software applications are always the same on both platforms. No problem with that. And after I found a nice replacement for my Total Commander (ForkLift), I was eased.
Another point is Apple’s implementation of high DPI-displays with Retina. While more Ultrabooks come out with even higher resolutions, and Windows can actually scale the UI ever since 10 years ago, there’re just a view applications that support that, namely all Microsoft apps. The rest just looks ridiculous small and get screwed up if you customize the scale ration. Apple’s implementation is superior because it makes non-Retina apps look like before and make Retina apps just look better. When I heard about the latest HP Ultrabook with 3.200 x 1.800 px on a 14″ screen, I laugh out loud. OK, if you just use Windows 8 and Windows-8-only apps, it works perfect. And with all those touch screens, hybrids and transformers, Apple looks very outdated. But what is a concept worth if there’s no support by the developers? So, I have a nice Windows 8 ultrabook with its great IPS UltraHD-panel, touch interface, >9h battery runtime and 1,2 kg weight. And what can I do with it?
So I bought a Macbook Pro. I’m not going crazy about it, but the switch was flawless and easier than I thought. And it was cheaper than my Vaio Z. But man, 2,2 kg are way too heavy!
Thanks for your comments. So in the end, you start saying that you think my excuses are lame but you gave your own points of view that are equal to mine´s 🙂 Is good to know that your switch worked. I am looking to really have the experience, hopefully soon 🙂
Are my reasons equal? I hope not. I said, today, a Macbook Pro is the only remaining option for professional notebooks. I said, there’re more nice polished apps for OSX than for Windows and Apple has the best solution for Hi-DPI displays. I thought that is something different.
However, your personal reasons are legal. Who am I to judge about your decisions? 😉
I think exactly the same as you, but as you may know, sometimes is not so good to write an incredibly large post 🙂
Or that way … 😉
I also have to admit, the current lack of PC options on the professional notebook market could have have something to do with the release of the new Intel Haswell cpus. And while non-Retina apps are more readably on OSX than non-HiDPI on Windows, they just look awful. And with the rise of Windows 8, Windows apps get prettier as well – if you like the Windows 8 look, of course. I need to relative my comment above.
Great point of view, thanks for sharing!