So I switched. After working at Microsoft, and on the Windows Vista team, I switched from XP on my old machine straight to OS X, and escaped the Vista trainwreck all together. Over the last two weeks, I have dumped my old Dell laptop, and moved to a 15″ Macbook Pro. I’ve also moved from my Verizon 2000-era clamshell phone to the new 3G iPhone. (Which I will talk about in another post) This all cost well over $2500, and I have to admit, the high price tags heavily bias my opinions. Rationalization is a strong force… but if you’re happy, who cares why, right?
The transition has not been easy. Despite what everyone tells you about Mac’s being super intuitive with their glossy glass-button interface and all… I’ve been a Windows user my entire life, and some old habits die hard. I could go on forever on this post, but let me break it down if I can.
What I like about the Macbook Pro and OS X (10.5.4)
- It just worked when I turned it on. Installation (pretty much putting in your name and password) was a breeze. It didn’t come loaded with 100 apps I will never use, and lots of shareware loaded on by the manufacturer.
- In general, it’s been reliable, and things have just worked.
- It’s got Unix built in! Back to my days of Bash from college. I always felt like the Cmd prompt on Windows was so hacky. I feel like the Unix terminal is actually really useful.
- The hardware is supreme. Bright screen, nice keyboard, the multi-touch mouse is fantastic.
- I like the fact that I can install and uninstall without worrying about piling up DLL crud that will slowly eat away at performance on my machine. Hmm… sounds like windows.
- I never reboot. WOW! I can’t tell you how many months of my life I’ve spent looking at window boot screens. I have yet to reboot my back, from what I can remember, and this is with all the installs that I’ve been going through as a new user. Hell, I installed a virtual XP OS, and had to reboot IT within OS X a few times to get some simple things installed.
- Spaces works pretty damn well, and I like the transitions and multiple work spaces.
- Sleep-mode works! Call it what you want; Sleep mode, Stand-by, Hibernation… Windows has tried calling it all of these things, and it still never does what you expect it to. The Mac does. You close it, open it… it’s just there, right as you’d expect it to be.
- All my external hardware worked on the first try. No digging into and trying to find drivers, etc. Awesome.
- I installed VMware Fusion, and now have a Windows (XP Performance Edition, which is a hacked, stripped down version of XP) running inside my Mac OS X. Sweet. All the advantages of Windows apps, seemless and running natively on my Mac.
- People ignore this, but the fact that using it is pleasurable goes a long way towards me putting up with the snags.
Snags I’ve hit on the Mac
(100% of these are UI-related, and I’m hoping people get back to me on how to get around some of them)
- Installing apps. So to install an app, it first shows it mounted as a drive, and then you have to drag the executable into ‘Applications’ in order to install it? That was super confusing for a Windows user.
- Minimize/Maximize. Ah yes, the much talked about maximize button which does not work as it does on windows. So far, this was only a minor, minor snag, as I can resize the window the first time, and it remembers that size when I maximize it the next time.
- Overlapping windows. I like that Windows puts all application windows within the App window. Mac lets windows float around the desktop, which is annoying because it’s often not clear which app is in focus. This is especially bad in an app like Photoshop, which has like 8 docked windows which I have to manage and move around separately, across my two screens.
- Switching between windows. I used to use Alt-Tab all the time on Windows. On the Mac, it’s Cmd-Tab, which I’ve gotten used to. What I don’t like is that it’s Cmd-Tab to switch between Apps, but Ctrl-Tab to switch between windows within an app. This sucks. I have to think about what I’m really trying to go back to before hitting the shortcut. Also, in Firefox, if you have multiple tabs open, Ctrl-Tab switches between them. But what about switching to another Firefox window??? I’m still stuck on how to do this, and often end up with a second window (like pop-out window for an email I’m composing) being hidden, with no way to find it other than using the menu Window > Choose 2nd Firefox Window. Horrible.
- Keyboard shortcuts in general. Holy crap! I have literally 6 pages (6 pages!) of shortcuts printed out, sitting on my desk right now. That’s a hell of a learning curve. And they are not intuitive either! There is no consistent reason why one shortcut uses Cmd, another uses Ctrl, another uses Alt/Option. This is horrible. For example a common shortcut I used to use was for [Switch to old window, copy, switch back, paste]. On Windows, this was simple [Hold Ctrl, hit Tab to switch, C to copy, Tab to switch back, the V to paste].
On the Mac, I have to do this awkward sequence of [Ctrl-Tab to switch (or Cmd-Tab if it's another app!), Cmd-C to copy, Another Ctrl-Tab or Cmd-Tab, then Cmd-V] I usually get all confused, paste it in the wrong spot, then have to resort to using the mouse. - Did I mention that Ctrl-Tab in Firefox is super sluggish? I’ve run into a whole host of bugs in Firefox 3.0 on the Mac. Sometimes, the Return button just stops working in the address bar and I can’t enter any URL’s manually. WTF? I have to close down the window and reopen a new one for it to start working again. It’s enough to make me seriously contemplate switching fully over to Safari. Plug-in’s be damned.
- Lack of Delete button. This one’s also famous. They have a ‘Eject’ button at the top right of the keyboard, but no Delete. They have a Delete button, but it’s what Windows user call ‘Backspace.’ This is super frustrating, as to get a proper Delete (like to delete a file, or delete a line of text in front of the cursor) you have to hold down Function, which is in the opposite corner of the keyboard. Talk about awkward! That’s like reaching from Miami to Seattle!
- Navigation buttons. Where are my home and end buttons? I figured out that Ctrl-Down Arrow is Page down, but I used to like using end to copy stuff from my cursor to the end of the line. Mac’s version is Cmd-Down or Up Arrow, which takes you to the end and beginning of the document. How often is that useful?
- Single Menu Bar, even when I have dual screens. You know that handy Menu bar that holds all that is near and dear to you about an application? Well, if you’re running two screens (or more!) you can only have the menu bar show up on the primary screen. This means that if you have a Firefox window running on your external monitor, you have to mouse all the way over to the primary screen to get at any of the menu items. (or brave your way into the confusing world of Mac shortcuts). I’ve solved this by putting my external screen above my laptop, so I’m equidistant to the Menu bar, it just lies below my external monitor, on the top of my laptop screen.
- Close an App versus close a Window. Okay, so I figured out that the little bubble on bottom of the dock means that a application is running. However, when I close out the last window of the application (like all the Firefox windows) why is Firefox still running? Oh, you have to either right click on the app the dock to quit, or switch to the windowless app, notice that the menu bar changes, and use it to quit. Yeah, that’s intuitive.
So why switch? My Dell, after less than two years was overheating and spontaneously turning off, it’s DVD drive had stopped functioning nearly completely, and Windows was SO bogged down and slow, despite me staying on XP and installing more RAM. I overhauled the OS (delete, reinstall everything, start again) within the first year, and if I keep the machine now as a browser machine, I’ll have to do it again. Windows. Dell. Fail.
You’ll notice that my gripes around the Mac are all about the User Interface. These largely are because I’m used to doing things on Windows for the last 20 years. Some I still believe are more efficient on Windows, but contrast that to my gripes around Windows/PC. There it’s slow performance, having to constantly fix things, reboot the machine, fix it again, reinstall something, some driver doesn’t work, some device is failing, etc. These are so much more annoying in my opinion. I can get over most UI snags, and find ways to work around the ones I can’t. However, the time I lose in fixing my Windows machine I never get back. (although it has, over the last decade, taught me a lot about how to fix Windows machines!).
So I’m happy, but officially the jury is still out. I anticipate being much happier with this machine over the course of it’s 2 year lifespan (I replace my electronics around that often) than I was with my Dell, which I was happy with for about 4-6 months. Due to rationalization, I should be happy with my Mac for at least twice that long, since I paid twice as much for it. 
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for the update craig. Being a long time pc user, I can’t bare to switch, I hate the UI on the mac, it’d be like trying to learn a dvorak keyboard, I know it’s better, but it’d be a pain of a learning curve.
I like the hacked xp version, they are fast, quick, etc. That and the host of third party apps i use to become more streamline and efficient (launchy, clipx, etc)
Maybe someday i’ll jump into a mac, right now I feel like i get a lot more bang for buck on the pc systems.
Think Different.
most of your issues are simply you have a brain trained to think in a certain way. I was the same.. Still trips me up yet a new computer user will often run rings around someone who is the average Win users for a year or more.
I learnt things like.
Windows dont go full screen because why waste the space on say a word processor just to fill the whole screen up and have some waste land down either side of the page to make it full screen. Sometimes I like this sometimes I dont but at least I now understand.
Another was the fact that the red X didnt close the program but it is never supposed to it is suppose to cloase the open file in a program as it is not presuming when u finish using a document inside a program that u hvae finished using the app.. Just get use to Command Q to quite. There are alot of little addons to help you do various windows type things .
The more you dig the more you find in OS X it looks pretty plain but there is plenty of stuff tucked away.
I was a power Windows user but after 2 years in OS X I am 95% happy where as I am more 50 50 if I go back to Win
Have fun and re train that brain!
1. Yeah. Installing apps on the Mac is super simple, yet super confusing.
2. For switching windows, use Command Tilde (that’s the key above the tab).
3. As for closing apps, you might get a bit confused at first, but trust me, its dead simple once you get used to it (usually two weeks). Also, if you command tab, you get the tab bar with all the apps, if you just hit Q while holding command, it quits the app. Useful for mass quitting unwanted apps.
Hi Craig,
Interesting article. I’ve been a Mac user pretty much since the early days so obviously I’m not as PC Windows knowledgeable as you are. But I gotta tell you: the Mac is all about drag & drop. Drag something from one place and drop it at another. With that in mind the overlapping windows thing make a pretty powerful system. Select a graphic in Photoshop and drop it in another Photoshop document. And drop it on your Mail icon to send it to a friend or a client. You can’t do that in a one window system like Windows. When you get used to it you probably wouldn’t want it otherwise.
As for the switching between windows snag: buy yourself an extremely affordable copy of Witch form Mac developers Many Tricks: a great (and very powerfiul) tool to switch windows and apps in all spaces.
Interesting read. As someone new(-ish) to computers but having only ever used a Mac, I can’t really comment on any of the transition issues as such, but one thing I do find a little odd: was your Mac set up by *default* to use ctrl-tab to switch between windows within an app? I thought the Mac default for this was command-tilde (i.e. the “~” key). That’s how I’ve found it set up for most of the apps I use; and of course, it’s a lot handier than ctrl-tab.
Hello Craig
Welcome to the Mac! I found this blog by David Alison detailing his switch to the Mac. I found his writings to be entertaining and helpful to me. Seems that he encountered some of the issues you have and found ways to make it work for him
Chris
http://www.davidalison.com/2008/02/hardcore-windows-guy-switches-to-mac.html
Welcome to the Mac world. Windows is what you are familiar with, and your analogies to the Mac world are interesting, but some of the Windows items you state as near and dear, are completely counter-intuitive…..but native to Windows.
Applications and data are not the same thing. When I quit the last document, I do not want to have to re-open the application to open a new document. Windows quits the app. I didn’t tell it to do that – I told it to close the document. Yeah, that’s intuitive.
Firefox, and many other ported Windows application developers do not have the mindset to produce a consistent look and feel, or functional operation. They do it there way, in both interface and implementation. The fact that Firefox, at version 3, still chooses to ignore the system wide secure Keychain for storing passwords and certificates is appalling. Any time you have to store more than “one version of the truth”, errors abound. Try Camino (Mozilla.org) – the Firefox rendering engine in an OS X native approach.
Minimize / Maximize. Talk about counterintuitive, and that is Windows. When I max a window in MSWin, it takes the whole screen, even if the document width only amount to half the screen. What a gross waste of screen real estate. Now I have to manually resize the window so that I can get to the remaining real estate to put up another reference document. Or is it that Windows users can only deal with one thing at a time? These extra steps, as well as the need to switch windows to see and remember other information that one is referring to, is a gross productivity waste. Talk about counter-intuitive and just plain abysmal design. I don’t know how many times I have given a user a large screen display, with the innate knowledge that this is the #1 productivity improvement, only to go back and watch them decrease the resolution, and open Word in full screen, with half the monitor white. Arghhh!
Installing apps by a simple drag and drop, to whatever folder you want, and the ability to drag and drop it someplace else to clean up . organize directories without corrupting the damn Windows registry is bad? Wow, to think that one should enjoy going through 12 Wizard dialogs, entering cryptic information into text fields. Talk about counter-intuitive.
So having each window with it’s own menu bar, not only wasting screen real estate, but not providing a clear idea of what app is in focus (the Mac menu bar always shows the current focus app in plain text, not just some color highlight around a window) is better? Window’s approach severely constrains flexibility in placing windows, and I only have the application window to work in, not the entire N number of displays hooked up. (BTW: Mac has had multi-monitor support since 1988 in the Mac II and IIx – even the SE, unlike Windows flakey support since XP)
If you are not thrilled with the diversity of keyboard shortcut (few people are), there are multiple applications out there to remap functions, including SYSTEM PREFERENCES > KEYBOARD AND MOUSE > KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS.
The consistently inconsistent MS Windows UI is a source of major training issues in corporate environments (I’ve run ones with over 250,000 desktops, so I speak from a position of experience). The massive diversity of Windows applications cause significant support issues, and the typical Mac user runs over 3 times as many applications as a Windows user, primarily due to minimal learning curve, once the basics are established. Apple has consistently encourage conformance with published human interface guidelines, providing a toolbox of UI elements to programmers since day 1. Many Windows ported applications chose to roll their own, increasing diversity in even common interface elements, like a save or open dialog (Office programs are a prime example, even in one suite from one developer!)
One of the biggest hurdles, which you do not touch on, is the barrier to exit built into Microsoft programs. The data formats are all proprietary, with translation being either non-existent (Visio, Exchange Calendar, etc.) to incomplete (Office suite) to standard ignorant (Internet Explorer, ActiveX, etc.) MS has build major hurdles to overcome in platform transitions, holding your data hostage.
Enjoy your newfound world, and the radically increased productivity you will realize. With less than 25% of the support time requirement (again, from large scale empirical data), and quicker adoption of new programs (less learning curve for each), along with the stability, ease of installation, and “it just works”, it should be a fun transition.
Hey!
This was super helpful. I am considering a switch to a Mac and have been dragging my feet, mainly because a) it seems that the Macs cost 150% the price of a PC for similar specs and b) like you, my 20 years of using a Windows interface leaves me completely befuddled as I stare blankly at a Mac screen, wondering why the various programs I was using disappeared and where they went. Plus, I will likely need to buy a new laptop in a year to last me through grad school, so I’m beginning to think maybe economy is the way to go to last me through the next 12 months until then.
Your post makes some strong arguments…. Keep me posted on whether people help you with your UI gripes!
Miss you!
Brittany
“Also, in Firefox, if you have multiple tabs open, Ctrl-Tab switches between them. But what about switching to another Firefox window???”
Solution: Cmd-~
It also works with other applications.
Nice post – I think most of your points are right on. A few tips that might help with some of the frustrations:
- Home and End on the Macbook Pro are Fn-left arrow and Fn-right arrow. An extra keystroke, but I think they’ll behave the way you’d expect.
- In terms of window management, the F10 and (less so) F11 are incredibly helpful. By default, your F keys are mapped to their special functions and you have to use Fn to use them as plain ‘ole function keys, but you can turn that option off under the “Keyboard and Mouse” section of the System Preferences page.
- For closing apps versus windows, you’ll probably get yourself in the habit of using apple-q to quit, and then forget about the issue. But, I agree it’s confusing.
- The command/apple and control buttons, I agree, are totally messy and inconsistent. One place where they work really well though is if you’re using the Terminal. Command-C is copy and Control-C is the typical Unix kill command. It’s so nice (I think) having both of those shortcuts work the way I want in that scenario.
Some cool features you might not know about:
- Apple-shift-4 gives you an awesome built-in screenshot utility which lets you pick what part of the screen to grab. Throw in the spacebar and it will do the whole window.
- You probably already know this, but two fingers on the touchpad does the scroll. What you may never have noticed is that holding control and doing the two fingers up will zoom the whole screen (handy).
Hi Craig — Thanks for the post. I came across it as I contemplate switching to a MAC. Would you mind letting me know how it is going, a year later? Are you happy you made the change?
I work as a university professor, so I do a lot of editing of student papers, writing, and power point. A pc has been fine for this, but like you, I like how reliable MACs are. Any thoughts?
PS — Your website pics are amazing!!