PC user gone Mac!

Welcome to Macintosh.

Congrats. Now welcome to the anal retentive world of AppleInsider, ahem..."Current Hardware" cough "General Discussion".

Yes welcome. And now you are propably going to experience one of the many things that toughens mac users: The waiting. If I was to guess I say you get this thing late february. Anyone more optimistic than me?

iKonw,

I did the exact same thing last week. I went to the online store and bought the $1800 iMac. Then came to this message board and posted the exact same thing -- I've dumped my pc for the iMac. Check out <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000195" target="_blank">my message</a>! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who has left my Wintel box behind for the brave new world of X. Good luck!

[quote]Originally posted by Anders:
<strong>Yes welcome. And now you are propably going to experience one of the many things that toughens mac users: The waiting. If I was to guess I say you get this thing late february. Anyone more optimistic than me?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Gee.. and I thought WindOz users were used to waiting - after all - how often does Gates get out there and promise some new technology that will be out in a year or more???

Welcome to the real world of Mac - some delays - and a lot of great tools. I wish I could dump my windows 2000 box at the office!

Ariel

Welcome aboard.

W E L C O M E

While I ditched my PC long ago (and I used it only for gaming at that), I'm still jealous 'cuz I want a new, fast machine!

[quote]Originally posted by iKnow:
<strong>I was a loyal PC user for years and I have made the jump to the mac! I just purchased a new iMac from the Apple online store. I bought the Superdrive model, I am so excited. Being a former Pc user I had to make some tough decisions in going to the Mac. The hardest decision was giving up MY PATHETIC OS!

Aid my excitement!

DUDE I AM GETTIN A MAC! </strong><hr></blockquote>

damn! that's the great news. welcome to the enlightened & occasionally bitter minority.

add seldomly sarcastic to that

welcome!

Welcome, I hope you enjoy your new iMac as much as iKnow i will mine!

Well welcome, and kudos to you for making the right decision.

So, iKnow knows his stuff...
to paraphrase from the game stracraft:
Awaken my new mac user and embrace the glory that is your macintosh. Know that we are mac users, the eternal devotees to all that is macintosh and that you are now one of us....

ok..maybe that's going overboard..but you know, mac folk are cool folk who love their computers.

congratz on your new comp..and enjoy your freedom from the dark side
:0)

A warm welcome!

Besides the opportunity for daily worshiping our favourite fruit company, theres one thing you will be glad to discover: The Mac will do what he was payed for, from the moment you enter your desk in the morning until you fall to sleep on your keyboard, posting the last message on AI nwith your ear on the enter key . It just works without installiing new drivers, systems or bugfixes every 5 minutes.

This is my first(second since I posted this in the wrong place) post to one of these forums. I am also (going to be) a first time Mac user. I've used this great site for research and learning and I really believe Mac to be a better computer. I've used PCs for the past 15+ years and I'm fed up with them...the more you use them the deeper your knowledge has to be to get rid of the annoying Windows crap...file errors, blue screen-o-death, etc.
I've also done a lot of reading (primarily here and XLR8 about OSX because it will be the first MAC OS I learn on...so I imagine I will not be annoyed for lack of spring loaded folders. Does anyone think that OSX is a good OS for people like me? I've had to mess around pretty extensively with PCs and NT in my Gov't job so I have a little bit of knowledge...but it usually leads to more frustration.
I'm tired of hating my computer and I have little tolerance and patience for some of the crap the Wintel machines do on a regular basis.
(Nice use of Mac vernacular, eh?



Any suggestions for my new adventure? I'm also logged into the Apple site right now to buy my new G4 Quicksilver (867). Any ideas if I should buy the apple protection plan to cover my 17" Apple flat monitor and other hardware...or is it just another way for apple to make $$? From what I've seen of OSX on the Apple website and quicktime demos it looks pretty kick ass and is way superior to any graphics I've seen through Wintel.

Cheers!

First timer here as well. I ordered mine last Friday, and I don't expect it until mid February. Till then I get to read up on the Aqua UI and the design aspects of this machine. It will be the first time I have a good complier on a primarily windowed interface, and I look forward to working with this platform. It seems the APIs are nice and clean and worth looking into for development.

Hi all. I am from Philadelphia (Amman), Jordan. I would like to ask the people in this thread that migrated from the Wintel word : What made make the move? What is the most compelling reason, and where from your experience so far in the Mac world, is the Mac superior to the PC/Windows World?

well... I made the move long time ago... It wasn't that hard of a choice back then. If you wanted to do graphics and design, you had to have a mac... Nowadays you can do most of the same stuff on a PC, but there is no doubt in my mind that the mac is the superior tool. OSX came just in time for me. I feel like a kid again, something new to learn every day.

Welcome, friends, to the somewhat cultish, often eccentric, always more reliable than Windows world of Macintosh.
The first computer I ever set my hands on was a Macintosh SE w/an external hard drive that weighed more than the PB I have now I was 4 years old, and that was 15 years ago. Since then I have owned an SE/HD, a PM 7200/90, an iMac DV 400 (Lime ) and my current TiBook 500. It makes me happy to see people cross over from the dark side ( as I look at my roommate's black Dell, it occurs to me, maybe there's a reason the new Macs are white ) I have a friend who has ordered the new SD iMac. When it arrives, he will remove his HP Pavilion from his desk (one of my friends suggested he wash his hands after doing that and before touching the iMac ) and replace it with the iLamp. Frankly, I'm jealous, it almost (note, almost) makes me wish Macs actually encountered problems, then I would be able to help him out and get to use his new toy
Anyway, I have rambled long enough. Again, "Welcome to Macintosh"

[quote]Originally posted by elmousa68:
<strong>What made make the move? What is the most compelling reason, and where from your experience so far in the Mac world, is the Mac superior to the PC/Windows World?</strong><hr></blockquote>

Although Apple's hardware is really cool, I switched primarily because of OS X. I am a UNIX and Windows programmer, and always felt that both have major glaring weaknesses. UNIX is a very well engineered platform, so it is great for programming and it's a great server platform. However, UNIX's command line dependent interface is hard for non "geeks" to pick up. Windows is easy to use, but is the epitomy of terrible software design and is a poor development platform. So after years of wondering why "power" and "ease of use" were mutually exclusive features in an operating system, I was very impressed when I tried Mac OS X.

I've become more impressed since buying my first Mac (iBook) six months ago. Everyone knows that Macs look cool, but Apple really does things the "right way" on the technical side too. For instance, they embraced great third party technologies like OpenGL, USB, and Java. And they aren't afraid to throw out old technologies in hopes of developing something way better (Mac OS X, Cocoa, FireWire). On the other hand, Microsoft won't promote any other company's technologys even if they are far superior (OpenGL). And they are obsessed with maintaining backwards compatibility with their old APIs. This backwards compability is especially a problem because it has created one of the nastiest set of API's ever developed by a company of Microsoft's size and resources. Ultimately, this is what makes Win32 apps and the Windows Operating System so unstable and insecure. This is also why Windows will continue to suck for the next decade while Apple will continue to move forward.

Hello iKnow,

Congrats dude on your defection from the Dark Side. Why has Apple withstood the tests of time against the multitude of Wintel boxes out there? Simple: because Apple has always been the inovator of great technology and style.
WELCOME across iKnow - the force is now with you!

Welcome to the Mac, iKnow!

I assume that you have already done sufficient research into the pros and cons about the Mac platform, but perhaps this would be a good time to get any of your remaining doubts answered.

I hope you enjoy your Mac experience!

[quote]Originally posted by elmousa68:
<strong>Hi all. I am from Philadelphia (Amman), Jordan. I would like to ask the people in this thread that migrated from the Wintel word : What made make the move? What is the most compelling reason, and where from your experience so far in the Mac world, is the Mac superior to the PC/Windows World?</strong><hr></blockquote>

I can tell you I used a Mac since childhood and switched to a PC in college - Mac seemed to be failing. I actually became a computer tech whatever afterwards, and after three years of fixing problems that usually related to crappy OS design - I bought an iMac bacause I new what Mac OSX was (I used BeOS in the past) and wanted that. I hate &lt; OS9 and wouldn't be here without OSX. If Jobs hadn't come back and pushed NeXT and cool design to the forefront - we probably wouldn't even be here.

As for my experiences, I couldn't be happier. I have had ZERO real problems with OSX at home or on my iBook at work (which makes a better network troubleshooting tool than my win2k wprkstations and servers). But the best example of success is the little web movie I made of my nieces and nehews with iMovie over a weekend for my sisters in another state. All on a little 450 MHz iMac! I didn't even want to throw it through the window, which is my typical response to Windows multimedia apps.

<a href="http://homepage.mac.com/batii" target="_blank">web page</a>

Here is the link - aren't they cute? Now I'm bragging family, time to shutup...

Please bear with. I have one (actually two) more questions.

1. from my experience using Wintel, it seems to me that without the internet is one thing and with it is another. I mean almost all developers on the net promote apps for Wintel while they seldom provide a Mac equivalent. I think that has a bearing on a decision to convert, also

2. If windows sucks; is it because of the hardware, i.e. is Windows unsuitable for the IBM/PC Architecture, and if so in what sense? (Long breath here)

Glad to see so many people switching. There may be hope for the world after all!

[quote]Originally posted by Dan-O:
<strong>Does anyone think that OSX is a good OS for people like me?

Any suggestions for my new adventure? I'm also logged into the Apple site right now to buy my new G4 Quicksilver (867). Any ideas if I should buy the apple protection plan to cover my 17" Apple flat monitor and other hardware...or is it just another way for apple to make $$? From what I've seen of OSX on the Apple website and quicktime demos it looks pretty kick ass and is way superior to any graphics I've seen through Wintel.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

OS Ten (X) is great for begining Mac users. It's super simple, crash proof (very important), and just awesome. It really is kick ass. My dad last year started using a Mac (OS X) and he found it very simple and a almost seemless transition. Of course, he had a lot of trouble with windows, so anything would have been better. I'd buy the extended warranty. It's one thing if you're like a lot of us and can do a lot of troubleshooting by ourselves, it's another if you've never used a mac and find using it an adventure, let alone fixing it, because they do break. $250 is a lot of $$, but it's worth it.


[quote]2. If windows sucks; is it because of the hardware, i.e. is Windows unsuitable for the IBM/PC Architecture, and if so in what sense? (Long breath here)
<hr></blockquote>

It's not the hardware that makes windows suck. It's windows. The hardware is planty good (except the P4) but Microsoft doesn't care about making windows good. Windows would be unsuitable for any architecture.

I forgot to say that I have also converted a PC dude. My uncle is lusting over an iMac and will be getting one very soon. I can just see the growing market share!

[ 02-02-2002: Message edited by: iDude ]</p>

[quote]<strong>1. I mean almost all developers on the net promote apps for Wintel while they seldom provide a Mac equivalent. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Yes, to be fair, there are currently many more applications for Windows. But I think many developers will start migrating to OS X. Developers don't like coding on a convoluted platform like Windows. For instance, after showing OS X and Cocoa to my programmer friends, they all want to get a Mac too. Plus, don't forget that Mac OS X is built on top of a UNIX kernel. Many UNIX developers (like myself) are making the switch and many UNIX apps are being ported to Mac OS X. And if your favorite UNIX app is not ported, it's not hard to port it yourself. Much of the time, all you have to do is grab the source and compile it.

[quote]<strong>2. If windows sucks; is it because of the hardware, i.e. is Windows unsuitable for the IBM/PC Architecture, and if so in what sense? (Long breath here)</strong><hr></blockquote>

Sure, the x86's evolution may have contributed to the "suckiness" of the Windows operating system. But IMHO Windows sucks mainly because Microsoft just isn't very good at software design. Frankly, the design of their APIs is totally unprofessional. Obviously, as they have become more dominant, Microsoft has been able to hire some better designers. But their need to maintain backwards compatibility has kept Microsoft from doing the redesigning and "refactoring" of Windows that is really needed.

BTW, did you read <a href="http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/17874-1.html" target="_blank">this related article</a>? Microsoft just announced a one month moratorium on new coding across all of their software products. For the next month, they will not implement new features on any of their products. They will only clean up code and fix bugs. I welcome their efforts, but I don't think it will help much for the reasons stated above.

I too converted from the dark side in 1998 when the new iMac came out, which is when I really started to learn about the machines and deduce that OS 8.5 was around 5 million times easier to use than Windows 98. Right now im using OS X and a 500MHz iMac, and it's better than it's ever been before. Since I installed OS X in October, my machine hasn't crashed once (bar the times I've squirmingly booted into 9). I am also finding that no matter how complicated OS X is, it is nowhere near as bad as Windows still is (I play with an Xp machine at school sometimes).

Congratulations on converting to Mac!

Now is a great time to make the switch, with OS X here Apple finally has an OS that is clearly superior in every way to Windows. I've been a Mac user for years, and OS X reminds me of the first time I used a Mac. Exploring a new OS can be lots of fun on a Mac! Also, I think new users can appreciate OS X more than old Mac users, because the old Mac croakers all seem to be set in their ways, and hate the change that OS X brings. But use OS X with an open mind, and you'll be impressed.

There are also, finally, many apps available for OS X. Over the summer I think we'll be seeing a nice flow of new applications, and old apps being ported over to carbon. Yes there is more software for Windows, but most of it is crapware. Much of the quality software is available for both Mac and Windows, and much of the Mac-only software is very high quality and of course, windows users are left out! I work in the life sciences, and in this field I come across many apps that are Mac only (and awesome, too!), and in the cases where apps are available for both Mac and Windows, the Mac version is far superior 90% of the time. Something about the Mac attracts a certain quality that is missing for Windows.

For you converts, there will definitely be an adjustment period, but hopefully everything goes smoothly for you. That new iMac is a great choice, not much to go wrong there, and you get to use an Apple LCD display, which are the highest quality LCDs around.

Good luck!