I keep my software up-to-date as my job depends on it, but Leopard has been more trouble than its worth. I’ve lost count the amount of times i’ve sent Apple feedback after my programs have crashed.

I’m back on Tiger for now and will give it a few months/ updates before i make the switch back to Leopard.

It has some great features and should be a great OS once the bugs are ironed out, but i’m really disappointed with Apple for releasing a new OS that IMO isn’t quite ready.

However it’s still a million times better using Mac hardware/software than any PC setup i’ve ever used.

First of all let me say at least MS and Linux let me choose my hardware. Apple is just a hareware. Think about it. MS and other OS manufacturers sell the OS and allow you to choose your hardware… they make money on the OS. Apple has a lot more to loose… a few thousand dollars per install as you have to buy there hardware.

To save there arse, Apple had to use the Berkley Unix to make OSX… this version of UNIX is free; however, Apple make you pay for it! Why did OS9 die; it died because it was a cow to program for… I should know, I use to write programs for the thing… The early MAC OS was earth shattering… it was fantasic; however, it was Apple that killed it with all of there hardware restriction and proprietary crap. Then they bring out an AD that shows the MS guy holding a think C++ book… Hmm I use C++ to create Apple OS X programs so why the dig?

Hardware: at least when my computer with Linux or Vista (XP for that matter) breaks down, I can port it to another vendors hardware without too many problems. Apple… nope I am locked into Apple hardware… hell it is even in there license agreement for OSX… it cannot be ran on any other hardware platform other than one with an Apple on it!

Wake up… Apple is just another vendor with a great marketing department. Is cool paying for a free OS? You can argue that MS charges; however, you do the math… XP release approx 2001 it is now 6 years old. It cost me approx $300 in 2000 and I recieved free updates for the past 6 years. MAC OSX I purchased and have had to upgrade it how many time? Four. And each time I have had to pay how much? The cost of these upgrades have now exceeded what I paid for XP. And to top it these are meant to be minor upgrades hence no OS XI.

On security… OS X has had some many security patches it almost beats XP and yes a lot of these were very serious.

OK. Leapard. Yep installed the upgrade and my Adobe programs don’t work, the firewall is not a firewall and yep it crashed on top of that… I could just see the MS ad on TV! Yes Apple will fix these; however, as a consumer, I am not told this. I just see the slick MS bashing ads on TV (check out http://www.macintouch.com/leopard/compat.html)

I think to balance you view you should not bash MS and compare it against Apple. I think that you should take a closer look at Apple and there practices and stand them on their own merits.

From a programmers standpoint… Anyone who develops software should be able to restrict the use of it to the person that has purchased it. Programmers need food too!

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/05/cs3_switching_p.html

Interesting you should mention the Apple hate side of things too. Windows 3.1 was the first useable GUI I encountered and I was already so invested in it — learning the pitfalls and inconsistencies — that Macs always seemed some who other place to me, and as such I wasn’t quite interested in them. Sounds strange to say it now, but that was how I was as a young teenager anyway.

I remember playing around with Eliza on those Mac Classics and in a lengthy little satire a friend and I wrote instead of doing classwork, we joked with the talkingfake-psychiatrist about “the idiosyncrasies of the Apple Mackintosh”. I only still remember this because some of the rest of it was funny enough that I printed it out! (Yes, we were stuck for things to do on the class computers before we had the internet around…)

The truth was that the Macs were consistent, and my skills had been honed on the extremely fiddly early versions of Windows of the time. I could feel there was something different between them … but because I was invested in one platform, I was one of the Stockholm Syndrome people Daniel recently wrote about.

Fortunately I didn’t actually hate the Mac, so much as looked at it with a suspicious eye. Soon enough when it came to college network and 25-7 internet access, I learned that the advantage lay with the other platform. Though it still took me a few years to make the switch myself.

I really think that the internet has changed the equation. Years back you had to find all new software if you wanted to change your platform. You basically became a newbie computer user all over again. That is no longer the case.

We do so much online now — where all platforms are equal — and Apple supply a great baseload of bundled apps with every system. The leap is nothing like what it used to be, and OS X is clearly something else.

We’re living in interesting times people!

Now back to the egg-nog free British Christmas … I’m sure we’re not out of cheesy festive music yet.

I’ll give you another switcher story (my own, of course):

I started out using the (at the time, awesome, as I thought, though dated) Apple //e, and also using 1 of the school’s 2 Macintoshes at the time. As this was in 1988/89, and I was only 7/8 years old at the time, this was my first experience with a GUI/mouse operated system, and I loved it. The Mac also was the first computer I had seen with a CD-ROM drive (maybe it was in 1990, now that I think about it), and we had the Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopedia, too. It was awesome.

My dad, however, worked for a company that used M$ products. So, when we got home computers, especially the $2000-3000 laptops that work sent him home with, they were Windows computers. And, when I got into Jr. High/high school, my school also had Windows 3.1, and later, Windows 95/98 computers. So, needless to say, that was what I used, and I, like so many others, got adept at working around Windows’ flaws, and considered myself “computer saavy.” I also fell into a deep dislike (and maybe even contempt) for all things Apple. I felt (like so many others did and still do) that were worthless for use in “real” applications, and were only good as toys, for use by children in elementary school and such.

Then, as so often happens, I got myself a steady girlfriend. Not the first, but the first serious one. Her old PC had just gone kaput, so her mom was in the market for a new one. My girlfriend and I were not with her mom and sister when they went shopping for the new computer, so they came home with a “blueberry” iMac, chosen, as I understand it, because the younger sister thought it was “pretty.” “Pretty?!?!” I said, amused (and maybe a little dismayed). “That’s not why you buy a computer! And it’s a freaking Mac! Macs SUCK!” This particular Mac had good specs, however, and I offered to help them set it up, thought I knew VERY little about Macs.This iMac had Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6 on it, it was very easy to set up, and I ended up using it quite a bit over the next couple of years (thought I still thought it was just a toy, not a “real” computer).

Forward to college. The college I went to had a Mac lab, with blue and orange iMac G3s (this was in 2000, so they were still pretty new). In my Calculus class we used the Mathematica program, and it ran on the Macs, so I used them for that. My earlier learned adeptness at using Mac OS 8 was useful there, and I was able to use them fairly easily. Also, I used them outside of class, because, like John Muir up there, nobody ever used them, and without Novell Netware, they were a LOT faster then the lab PCs at the time. Still didn’t like or want to own a Mac, though.

Then, in early 2004, the same girlfriend (although an ex-girlfriend by now) got a 20 GB iPod. I thought (being somewhat of a music buff) that it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, ever. Being able to carry some 5000 songs around in my pocket? That would certainly put an end to my having to drag my heavy-ass Case Logic CD case around everywhere. So, a couple of weeks later, I got paid, and went and bought one. I LOVED it. I was NEVER without my iPod (until I killed it about a year and a half later).

Shortly after my newfound love of the iPod, the same female’s mother went and bought her an iBook G4 (dual USB late 2004 model). As you can see, this family went Mac, and didn’t go back (like so many others). This was my first experience with Mac OS X. She then upgraded to Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4, if you don’t know), and I started playing with THAT on her iBook. I, somehow, inexplicably, fell in love with that iBook and Mac OS X. Me, the guy who would NEVER buy a Mac.

I was STILL (after all this) a little undecided, however. What finally turned me over was my band. I am an amateur guitarist (meaning I don’t get paid for playing, for the most part), and as such, in a contemporary rock/metal band. When I first saw iLife ‘04, and Garageband, I was completely sold. I bought an iBook G4, and haven’t looked back. I love my iBook (which I am typing this on now), and will continue to love it for a few more months until the AppleCare warranty runs out, then I am looking to get a new MacBook Pro (for which I am already saving up, not being a wealthy individual). I can’t wait to make the Intel switch, and I’m sure I’ll love it, just as I love my little iBook 14in.

So now I have come full circle, back to my elementary school days, back to Apple, hehe. I have got one of my younger sisters convinced to switch when she goes to grad school next year, and I have got my mother completely sold (she lives with me, and I talk about how much I love my Mac constantly; she could probably sell the damn things just on my constant info alone), and I am working on the rest of my family.

Sorry so long winded and rambling, but I hope it helps, buddy! Good luck, and hopefully you will join the “Switchers” before long!

Cheers,
SiSo

P.S. I would like to visit the U.K. one day, that would be amazingly fun! By the way, I am from the States if you didn’t already know. . .

I had a similar experience to you, only back in 1996 / 1997. We had a desktop publishing class at high school and as a by then veteran home user of Windows 3.1 and recently Windows 95 I found the black and white little Macs very annoying and limited. I presumed that this was all Apple had at the time and that was why they were in real trouble.

Those Macs were Mac Classics and were new … in 1990 or so before I even started at high school! Their processors where the original 8 MHz 68000 as used in the very first Mac in 1984!! I was judging hardware that was essentially a decade out of date. No wonder I felt happier with my home computer.

Later in 1997 / 1998 I went to college and they had Windows 95 PC’s and colour Macs (probably newish PowerPC desktops) in the labs. This was in the UK (traditionally a less Mac friendly place than the US) and everyone gravitated to the familiar PC’s, so I decided the give the Macs a try again. I was glad that I did. Netscape and IE were better presented and crashed less than on the PC’s, and without Novel Netware installed the Macs were all obviously faster. I wrote essays in Word and basically got things done much more easily on the Macs … and rarely had to wait for a free machine.

It still seemed strange that so few even tried them out.

Despite my good experience, I went with a PC laptop at around that time (price!) and bought a Windows 2000 desktop a couple of years later. The iMac and iBook caught my attention, but I was unsure about switching to them because by now I had a lot of Windows software I owned and was used to and it seemed a big leap. I remained a happy PC user more or less until I got broadband in 2002…

That brought the malware. I tried to fight it by upgrading my hardware. Daft idea … malware always wins. It was also getting me nowhere when it came to noise, which was a big problem with the hot Pentium 4’s and Athlons at the time.

Then Steve Jobs unveiled the aluminium PowerBooks at Macworld in 2003. I soon heard about them with some well placed (and still all too rare) TV advertising here in Britain. I was ready to take the leap and I bought a 12″ PowerBook G4.

Best tech decision ever. It’s five years later now almost and I’m pleased I switched and have brought over around a dozen other users with me. Today I have the quietest desktop on the planet: a Mac mini and still use the trusty PowerBook as my portable … both in Leopard.

So that’s my switching story; Google “Mac switcher” if you want a lot more. Strangely enough, we never hear ones about people going in the opposite direction. I wonder why that could be…