Silvermac

I spend a lot of my time in different internet forums and one topic that pops every so often is switching to Mac. Before I switched to Mac I was a regular poster asking all sorts of questions, trying to figure out if tossing out my hard earned dollar on Apple computer would be a clever thing to do. Generally the message was – once you switch, you never go back, which in essence is true. In this article I discussed ten things that every potential switcher should consider before making the step.

Mac computers are expensive.

Correct. And wrong. If you are looking into buying the cheapest computer than you will find no luck with Macs. You can buy PCs with mouse, keyboard, screen and operating system for as low as A$ 800. The cheapest Mac is Mac Mini, costing A$ 949 and you have to add a monitor (some A$350 for decent 17″ LCD screen), mouse and keyboard. The cheapest notebook is the MacBook, costing A$ 1,749 and the desktop systems starting at $1,549 for the 17″ iMac.

But what are you getting with Mac is totally different story. While they do cost more than the low end PCs, you are buying a premium product, a computer that comes with an operating system that is superior to anything else out there today and the loads of first class software which otherwise would cost a lot to get for other platforms.

You also need to consider that your Mac will run for years. There are quite a few G3 iMacs running nicely today that were sold in 1998-99. If you look back at the PCs from that era, you find yourself dealing with Pentium II 300-400MHz. Most of them have been pulled apart more than three years ago and their replacement from 2002 or 2003 are pretty much due to be replaced again these days oe already have been replaced. After all, isn’t that the reason you are reading this right now ?

Are Mac computers easy to use ?

Yes they are. If you are a switcher from Windows you have to do one thing in your mind, something Apple has bee telling us all along – think different. When you are in front of the Mac computer, don’t compare it to Windows and don’t look for the things you’ve done on Windows, look at it as a different computer system and think how you would like to do things. And guess what – in 99% cases it works exactly the way you want it to. Everything is done so that the operating system stays out of your way. It’s made simple, intuitive and very easy to use.

Take this for an example. You are on this website and you’d like to keep the paragraph I just wrote above. On Windows computer you do the following: Go to desktop, right-click, select New | Text File, then you type the name for the file and click away to un-select it. Now you double-click the file that opens then. You go back to this page, select the paragraph with your mouse, right-click and select ‘copy’. Then you go to the file you created and opened on your desktop, right-click and select ‘paste’. The next thing to do is to either click on File | Save and click OK, or simply closing the file and answering ‘Yes’ to the question Windows will ask you about saving your file. So that’s it. Easy, isn’t it.

Now, let’s look how we do the same on Mac. You are reading paragraph and you want to save it. You select the paragraph, click on it, drag it to the desktop and drop it there. That’s it. Seriously, nothing else to do. Your file will have the first 28 characters of the paragraph (including spaces) as the file name and will sit nicely on your desktop and wait until you need it or move it somewhere.

When you get on the Mac for the first time you may be a bit confused but once you start thinking differently it will take you about an hour to find your way around. Another day and you will feel comfortable. Another week and you’ll know exactly what are you doing. Yet another week and you will be asking yourself “Why on earth haven’t I done this before?”

If you think a week or so getting used to Mac is a long time, think back on when you got your hands on Windows computer for the first time, did it take you a week to learn it, or rather all those years ?

But I heard Mac computers are crashing a lot.

You probably heard it from someone who has no idea about Mac, someone who also “heard that Mac crashes a lot“. Back in the late nineties when Macs were running on OS8 or OS9 this was the case. This was at the time of Windows 95 and 98 and their famous blue screens of death. Today, Apple computers are running on Mac OS X (pronounced OS ten) which is based on BSD, a flavour of UNIX, the most stable and secure computing environment.

Let’s make no mistake here, OS X does crash. No operating system is perfect and never will be. But the OS X system crashes are so rare that most Mac users experience them once in a few years, or maybe even never. I had Mac since January 2005 and haven’t had a slightest issue with it, not one. It’s been as good as any TV, you buy it, unpack, plug in the antenna, tune channels and then use it. No need to tweak it for years, it just works.

One of the greatest features of OS X is its architecture. Every application is installed on the user level rather than the operating system level. Every user than has the preferences for the program in his own user profile (called Home folder). If something would go wrong with a program for one user, the other user wouldn’t feel that at all, as his preferences stay untouched. Unlike Windows, where lots of preferences are written inside the Windows registry and when one error might mean system wide problem, on Mac you can simply delete your preferences and your program will work like a new install.

Another great thing about Mac is the memory management. Each application is running in a protected memory environment so if the application freezes, the rest of the system works just like nothing happened. All you do is ‘kill’ the offending application and start it anew. Remember those frozen Windows and restarting your computer each time it locks up ? Now you know what I’m talking about.

Is OS X secure ?

Yes it is. Very secure indeed. Not 100% but close to it. There is no spyware or trojans on Mac. To install any program that has any touch with your operating system you need to enter the administrative user name and password.

When talking about getting to operating system think this way; on Windows, Internet Explorer is integrated into the operating system, into the Windows itself. Once you visit a website that runs malicious script, your browser (Internet Explorer) is the entry point for the attacker. If there is a hole in the browser, and there are plenty of them in Internet Explorer, the attacker will go straight for the heart of your computer. Once they gain access, they can do anything they like; monitor your activity, take your passwords, take your credit card number, send spam, attack others, distribute viruses, porn, you name it. What you can do – they can do. The difference is – you have no idea this is happening.

On Mac, the browser is like the sticker on your car’s bonnet, you can peel it of, you can scrach it, you can write on to it with a marker, you can even put another sticker on top of it, but your engine underneath the bonnet just couldn’t care less, it runs and runs and runs …

But surely with all the viruses around not even Mac is safe.

Dead wrong. The fact is that there are tens of thousands viruses for Windows. The number of viruses for Mac OS X is precisely – zero. Yes, you read it right, zero, zilch, not a single one. Some people would say the reason for this is because Macs make only 3-4% of computer market. But out of say 140.000 viruses out there we’d have some 5000 viruses on Mac if that was true. But we have none.

The thing is – all the viruses out there are either Windows scripts or executables. And they don’t work on Mac even if you get them.. The only way your Mac can be involved into the ‘virus business’ is if you receive infected file or email and then you forward it onto someone running Windows. Your Mac will not have a clue it was a virus, it will promptly send it to your friend who will then freak out that your Mac is … you know.

So should you run an antivirus software on your Mac? I surely don’t, but you can get a bit more info in an article I wrote earlier this year, and make a decision for yourself.

Can I play games on a Mac?

Yes you can, but let’s be honest – not as many and not as well as on Windows. If you use your computer primarily for playing games than Mac is not for you. But if you are looking into playing a game or two here and there, than you might be OK on the Mac. Most of the games available for Windows are also available for Mac but you might experience, sometimes lengthy, delays in releases. The only two workarounds are to either get a gaming console such as Sony Play Station or X-Box, or just keeping your old PC computer and run games on it. Again, old PC won’t run the latest games, so you are back to where we started.

Can I run my Windows applications on OS X?

No, you can’t. You will have to obtain the Mac version of the software to be able to run it on a Mac. Some software vendors will let you return your Windows version and will supply you with a Mac version, usually for a small fee, others will simply ask you to purchase the Mac version.

But it’s not all that bad. There are plenty of applications for Mac out there and I’m yet to find a Windows program that doesn’t have its equivalent for Mac, a program maybe written by someone else that does the same thing. Not always, but in many cases, the Mac version of the application is far better than the Windows one.

If you have a Mac with PPC processor, you can always use Virtual PC, a program that emulates PC on your Mac where you can install Windows and install and run your Windows applications. OK, the performance is really poor, the emulated PC will run slow but it will at least let you run a program if you really need to.

Things are much better if you have a Mac with an Intel processor. You can use Parallels to Install Windows on your Mac (see below) and run it in a virtual machine. That way you are running Windows and OS X at the same time and you can alternate between two operating systems. Or you can use Apple’s own BootCamp, this allows you to install Windows (WinXP sp2 only at the moment) directly on your hard drive and when you can choose which operating system to use when starting up your computer. In this case Windows runs just like on any other computer.

What about Microsoft Office ?

Microsoft has a Mac version of office suite, called Office 2004, that runs natively on Mac. Applications do look different to some degree and have some of the different functions but the files are 100% compatible with Windows version so there are no issues here at all. The new version of Microsoft Office for Mac is due some time in 2007.

If I buy a Mac, can I install Windows on it ?

Surprise, surprise – yes, you can. If you have a Mac with Intel processor you are able to install Windows XP. You will need the application called Boot Camp that Apple released soon after introduction of Intel Macs, that is free and that will enable you to install Windows. You will be able to dual boot OS X with Windos XP and it’s as easy as holding the option key down while booting and selecting OS that you want to use. I have also tested it with Windows Vista (beta) and it works like a charm.

If you find rebooting too inconvenient, there is always the other option Parallels Desktop, the virtual machine for Mac OS X that will let you run any operating system from within the Mac OS X, including any version of Windows. And Windows XP in parallels runs very fast.

If however, you are running Mac with a PPC (PowerPC) processor then you are out of luck, these machines will never be able to run Windows as the instruction set on PPC is completely different to those of Intel processors. So your only option is VPC, which by the way is very slow comparing to Parallels on Intel Macs.

What about Mac OS X on a generic PC ?

Oh dear. This has been discussed in all lengths but let me be honest and say – I don’t know.

The argument usually is along these lines; Apple is hardware company and they make loads of money from selling computers and not OS X. With enabling Windows to run on Macs they will sell even more computers, which is probably true. Microsoft is also happy about it since they will be selling more Windows copies.

If Apple starts selling OS X for any PC they will run into two problems. One is huge number of devices they would need to support, which inevitably will lead to problems and instability. The other is that someone wanting OS X could buy a cheap pentuim PC and install OS X on it, so Apple hardware sales will suffer here. So Apple will never have OS X for generic PCs.

While this all sounds too logical and to easy to swallow, let’s think back a year or two.

Mac on Intel? No way! Then last year the hell froze over. In a bombshell announcement Steve Jobs unveiled the transition to Intel.

Once the first Intel macs were released everyone asked question “Windows on Mac?”. Then we had that US$ 14.000 competition on who cracks it first to install Windows on Mac. Guess who won – Apple ! Yes, some guys managed to get it first and collect the prize money but Apple released the program called Boot Camp that lets you install Windows on Intel Macs. Is the hell changing the name to ‘Antarctica’ ?

So what comes next ? Nobody knows. After the two events I mentioned above, anything can happen. So why not the OS X on all PCs ? Maybe not on all but maybe on some. Apple could license OS X to Dell and HP, this way Apple would have control of hardware and would increase the market share to 10% or more overnight. What happens with Apple sales ? Well, how about Apple licenses it to Dell and HP, but they can sell it only on motherboards supplied by Apple. Time will tell.

And before I go – one more thing. In the last financial year over one million people world wide switched to Mac. How many went back to Windows ? Errrr … let me know if you hear about one.

[tags] Mac, switching [/tags]