That's how I started my "month on Mac" series, which now runs to seven columns. Yes, it's been three months rather than one, but I had my reasons for stretching it out.
First, I spent February in the clutches of a nasty flu. Then I started worrying that I was writing about Apple too much, which makes some of my readers antsy, and decided I should spread out the columns a bit.
And when I'd used up all my other excuses, I finally came to the real reason I'd extended the experiment: I like this little iMac and don't want to give it up. It's a whole lot more fun than my Windows machine, and a great creative tool for whacking out these daily columns.
At one point, I even took a G4 PowerBook up to Microsoft for a few days. Everyone ogled the cool Titanium exterior and gave me only a little guff over the operating system. As I said to one (but only one) MS product manager, "See, I'm running Office--and here's Windows 2000 running on the Mac--you have a problem with that?"
As promised, I pretty much divorced myself from the PC for the past three months. Over the course of these three months, most of my computing has migrated away from it. My entire world--documents, spreadsheets, photographs, e-mail--is now on the iMac--and I'm pretty happy with things the way they are. More specifically:
- On the Mac, the computer just doesn't get in the way of my work as much a PC does. Doubtless this is due, in part, to OS X's spare user interface. The ergonomics of the iMac--jokes about looking like a table lamp aside--are excellent.
- Compatibility between Office XP and MacOffice is very good to excellent, and will improve even more when the Office for Mac service pack comes out later this spring.
- OS X is only so-so for sharing files with PCs over a network. Setting up the necessary connections could be much easier--but in the grand scheme of things, it isn't that difficult either. If you want to spend US$149, a copy of Thursby's "Dave" network utility makes the Mac an excellent Windows network machine.
- Macs and PCs share my wireless home network, and the Macs have been less trouble than the PCs. This is a reflection of Apple being able to control the entire system, hardware and software, and making sure it all works together.
- I love my iPod.
- Mac is a vastly superior platform for digital movies and photography than stock Windows XP. Yes, you can buy additional software for the PC, but if creating anything--movies, photographs, books, Web sites--is driving your decision, Mac is better.
- That said, it's too bad there's no easy-to-use low-end Web-building program for the Mac. That's a problem.
- Good thing that FrontPage 2002 and the rest of Office XP, and every other Windows app I tried, runs very nicely on Virtual PC. I used the version with Windows 2000 and had excellent results. Sure, Virtual PC is slow, but it works.
- I did not get my Pocket PC to work with the Mac--largely because a little company called PocketMac, which supposedly has a solution for this, wouldn't send me their beta code. Palms and OS X ought to work fine together, but check the specifics first.
- Instant messaging, including video conferencing, works better on Windows XP than on Mac OS X. Media players work better on Windows. For example, there's no version of the latest RealPlayer for OS X, and nothing I've seen makes me sure there ever will be. Windows Media Player, meanwhile, doesn't work the same on Mac OS X as on Windows.
- Good thing Apple made things so OS 9.2 opens whenever an application--like one of the older, Mac-compatible versions of RealPlayer--needs it. This is more a problem in concept (why am I having to run two operating systems on one computer?) than in practice, where it works fine.
As you can see, I don't think the iMac is perfect. But with the improvements I know are coming for Office and suspect are coming for OS X, I can live with its limitations.
Wanting to keep my Mac doesn't mean divorcing from Windows entirely. I still like Windows XP a whole lot. I still use a Windows machine during the radio show as a second computer. I do this partially because the PC is handy and partially because it has a larger screen than the iMac, the better to have four or five instant-messaging windows open simultaneously.
But if I just want to sit down and write--and use a computer that doesn't get in the way--Microsoft Office for Mac and OS X are a powerful combination. A Mac is a perfectly credible desktop or portable system for me, even if sometimes I run Windows on it. Mac, enhanced by OS X, has a level of simplicity and transparency in operation that allows it to get out of the way and just let me work. That's something Windows never does.
What do you think? Would you ever give up your PC for a Mac? Would you ever give up your Mac for a PC? TalkBack to me below!
I have been working with computers since the days of the commodore 16 in the early 80's. I went to PC with my first being an XT the 286,and built my first computer as a 386 sx 25.
I had an opportunity to buy an Apple 11c when they first came onto the market, and at the very last minute, with pen in hand about to sign the dotted line, I decided against Apple.
I have stuck with PC's and am happy with everything about them except the unreliable OS's, windows being the worst offender for this.
If there was as much availability for Mac games and programs as there is for PC products, then and only then may I change my mind, but I doubt it, Mac's are way too expensive compared to PC's.
I can buy a brand new PC ready for anything I throw at it for less than AU$1000.00, Mac cannot compete with those prices or availability.