Once You Go Mac, You Never Go Back: Is This True?

Hardware wise, there aren't many advantages to being on the Mac, although I've yet to see as good a trackpad as the one Apple produces.

I believe you either like the software or you don't. And you'll get a feel for this fairly quickly. And it's really hard to pinpoint exactly what I like about Mac software. There's no one "thing", they just feels right.

Coda, CSSEdit, OmniGraffle, Coda, Cornerstone SVN are all Mac exclusives and it's hard to find good equivalents on other platforms. And I'm picky about software. Apps like Outlook and the GIMP, OpenOffice and other programs people frequently recommend I think are terrible.

My 2005 iBook's probably nearing its time (although it won't be going willingly - it still works perfectly) and I occasionally think of a windows PC then reality floods back and I shake the thought away.

I bought this mac when I was 16. It's the only OS I've ever seriously used and I don't want to learn a new OS, especially since I think Apple laptops are generally better than other companies' (size/weight, size of power brick, build quality, touchpad, lack of strange buttons on the sides that no one's sure about)

Apple's probably got me for another 5 years.

g3powerbook boy said:

almost 2 months ago i bought my first mac product a g3 imac love it so much i bought 3 g3 powerbook laptops that were listed on craigslist as for parts only and rebuilt one for me and working on the other to sell. only thing wrong with them is the idiot that had them tried to put windows vista on them. i have a windows pc as well but only use that if and when the need arrises like storing photos and video from my digital camera and maybe a weather radar application but thanks to the people here i have located some really nice weather applications made for mac... so i may not be using the windows pc much unless as a back up unit i am a stormchaser so during the severe weather season my computers cant be acting up! i dont think i would ever buy a new/newer windows baised unit as long as apple is still around. Apple is the ultimate computer!

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Wait, Windows 7 on a G3? Just thinking about virtualizing that is painful.

John Doe 57 said:

Interesting

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None the less, they're both perfectly correct, but "never the less" is not. Aren't languages great?

instaxgirl said:

My 2005 iBook's probably nearing its time (although it won't be going willingly - it still works perfectly) and I occasionally think of a windows PC then reality floods back and I shake the thought away.

I bought this mac when I was 16. It's the only OS I've ever seriously used and I don't want to learn a new OS, especially since I think Apple laptops are generally better than other companies' (size/weight, size of power brick, build quality, touchpad, lack of strange buttons on the sides that no one's sure about)

Apple's probably got me for another 5 years.

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You seriously didn't use a computer until you were 16? I was 16 when I got my first Mac, but I'd been doing Windows programming for years before I switched.

In response to the original question, yes, people switch back all the time. I don't know many Mac users who don't use Windows at all, whether dual-booting, on alternate computers, at work, or just on public computers from time to time. Some people buy Macs for the hype and find that they can't do what they had expected or simply aren't willing to invest the time to find out if that's the case. Some buy them for the hardware with no intention of running OS X at all, and we do get occasional threads here asking how to remove Mac OS X and run a Mac on Windows only.

What prompted the thread? Are you looking for justification of your desire to scrap your Mac? If so, (most of us) won't hold it against you, but we'd sure like it if you'd give the computer a bit of a chance first and let us help you get over the switch shock.

Here I am!

BlueRevolution said:

Wait, Windows 7 on a G3? Just thinking about virtualizing that is painful.



None the less, they're both perfectly correct, but "never the less" is not. Aren't languages great?


In response to the original question, yes, people switch back all the time. I don't know many Mac users who don't use Windows at all, whether dual-booting, on alternate computers, at work, or just on public computers from time to time. Some people buy Macs for the hype and find that they can't do what they had expected or simply aren't willing to invest the time to find out if that's the case. Some buy them for the hardware with no intention of running OS X at all, and we do get occasional threads here asking how to remove Mac OS X and run a Mac on Windows only.

What prompted the thread? Are you looking for justification of your desire to scrap your Mac? If so, (most of us) won't hold it against you, but we'd sure like it if you'd give the computer a bit of a chance first and let us help you get over the switch shock.

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Well here I am! The only time I ever used Windows was to jailbreak my iPod. Then there is Wine, running Windows apps on Mac, not virtualization, but translation. Ok I guess maybe more then that but only for compatibility issues.

benjamin747 said:

Well here I am! The only time I ever used Windows was to jailbreak my iPod. Then there is Wine, running Windows apps on Mac, not virtualization, but translation. Ok I guess maybe more then that but only for compatibility issues.

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WINE/CrossOver is used to run Windows apps. You're treading a mighty fine line there, sonny.

OllyW said:

I didn't get my first PC until I was 30, back in 1994. I had used computers at work since 1983 but they weren't running Mac OS or DOS/Windows.

These days I'm in the same boat as a lot of the other posters in this thread. I use Windows at work and my Macs for the majority of stuff at home.

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I started using computers around 1994 too, but I would've been 7 at the time.

Owned PCs for 17 years and made the transition to Apple last summer and i'm never buying a PC again! I only use Windows at my part time job as an IT assistant at my school.

CylonGlitch said:

While I do love OSX and I think it is fundamentally better then any version of windows, it isn't without it's flaws. Also Windows 7 is good and I can see people using it without problems. Then there are people who switch to the Mac with too high of expectations or unrealistic expectations and are disappointed.

OSX, Windows 7, use whatever makes you happy and you like. Neither are perfect, but so what.

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So just so were clear Mac are rated as the best windows computers also. Just saying.

I use Mac for everything but gaming. I've not once had an app crash or unexpectedly quit on OSX - in fact I can never think of any issues (other than ones I have caused) I have had. On the the hand even the best Windows machine will have problems with unexpected issues and freezes.

Will I ever change back? Maybe, but at this point not likely.

Switched to mac and loving the simplicity of hte OS a lot more.

I made the switch to Mac a few years ago, but I keep one pc around just to run xrecode.

I played with a windows 7 and recentally a windows 8 computer for a very short time after my iBook was stolen, bought a dead g4 iBook and completely rebuilt it and have no plans to ever go back to microsoft garbage. Apple is the best and only computer for me!

true I love my iMac, Tired of taking my PC into be fixed.. Tired of it crashing tired of back up disks formating the harddrive and starting over every 3 months !! Arg


Long live the mac !

I have always had to use both for Work but for my personal machine i would find it extremely hard to go back to Windows, sure i use bootcamp for a few games but for anything else OSX is just better. When you have been using macs for as long as i have OSX becomes second nature and the once familiar Windows style of doing things just seems slow. I would switch to ubuntu before i went back to Windows.

I reluctantly use Windows at work and eagerly use OSX at home. Over the holiday, my neighbor's mom deleted 1800 photos she took in Tibet. I was browsing in the local computer store when he came in with a handful of external hard drives and a single SD card looking for help.

One hard drive had a crater blown out of its power supply. Not good. It was toast. The only alternative for him was to buy a (hopefully) identical drive then switch the controller board and hope the motor wasn't fried. The other drive he had was Mac formatted so it couldn't have been ruined by any windows box. Then there was the SD card. It showed empty. Completely empty. It didn't even have a DCIM folder.

The computer store wanted to charge him $180 for "data recovery" with no guarantee of success. I told him I'd stop over and see what I could do. After 30 seconds on google, I found a review of the top 5 free recovery programs on cnet.com. I picked photorec. We downloaded it on his pc and ran it. It found and restored 1800+ files from the sd card. I suggested he go back to the web site and make a donation. That's how it should be. Pay after success, not before.

But there were a few dark clouds in this otherwise happy story. For the entire time I was at his house, I was SO frustrated with Windows. He had a machine that was arguably newer than all but 1 of my Macs but it felt like it was from 1990. Gawd it was slow. And the OS kept putting up stuff for me to click on. Mandatory stuff I had to click on. "The volume was changed unexpectedly. Cancel. Continue. Close." This came up so many times I finally just held down the power switch to make his laptop reboot. This wasn't during the actual data recovery but during the agonizing attempt to get to the point we could do the data recovery. Windows kept "installing drivers" for every SD card, USB stick and USB hard drive we plugged in and unplugging any of them led to the infinite loop of volume changed unexpectedly mandatory click-harvesters.

Yes there are people that will claim OSX and Windows are basically the same. In my experience saying something like this is based on ignorance or luck. Either they never managed to get a windows box into a really stupid state or they have so little time interacting with the OS they wouldn't know a stupid state if they saw one. OSX is better. Loads better. Would I go back? Sure if I had to for some compelling reason. Keep checking your Mayan calendar for the date I'll be switching back. It just reset so I think you only have to wait another 5,000 years.

A statement like that is far from universal. No OS is for everyone.

I've been a Mac user for 11 years now. I cant beleive that I used windows for so long before I switched in 2002, its been so much less stressful. Yes OSX has its monents but then again they all do. I would never go back to the dark side.

I use Mac at home, still using Win XP at work, (they're slowly changing to Win 7 Enterprise). I still prefer Mac.

When Windows' gestures are as smooth as OSX I may go back.

I find that,when there is a problem in Windows, there are 10 work-arounds. A problem in OSX and it's a black box. Unless of course there is another place OSX gurus hang out.

I know a few people who moved to Linux but stuck with Apple hardware...but I can't think of anyone who went back to Windows entirely even while Windows has improved dramatically since the "Windoze" days we used to giggle about here on the forums.

I personally know someone who switched to Windows in the 90s from using mainly Macs. They still don't want to switch back.

I've grown up around Macs. My dad has always used Macs around the house. My elementary school used Macs. The first computer I ever used when I was like 8 or 9 was on a Mac. We still have an old Mac Pro and "fat" monitors, and an old MacBook Pro lying around the house.

I got my first laptop, a white MacBook in 2006. I used that until 2010. I used a Windows-based laptop from 2010 to 2013 (just barely 2013, because it's still the new year). The first year in 2012 I was satisfied with Windows. For these last two years, I've hated it. I'm so glad to announce I *finally* ordered a MacBook Pro again, and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

There's only one problem with the statement "Once you go Mac, you never go back". I never *went* to Mac, my first computer I've ever used from "day 1" was a Mac. I heard a lot of people telling me I only like Macs because they're a fad (which it does seem true they're a fad lately: I see a lot of MacBook Pros, whereas back in 07 and earlier, you'd rarely see Macs in public). But I have such a LONG history with Macs.

xShane said:

We still have an old Mac Pro and "fat" monitors, and an old MacBook Pro lying around the house.

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It's funny because in my mind, all Intel Macs feel "new"...of course, at some point (around when I was in middle school), all New World ROM Macs felt "new." I guess it's just a matter of perspective .

But to address the question, in 3-4 years, when I'll be purchasing my next laptop (assuming my MBP will last that long), I'll seriously consider abandoning the Apple family of hardware/software/cloud services in favor of Linux. Lion/Mountain Lion irritate me, and if Apple continues to go in that direction, a lot of power users may jump ship..

thetacoman said:

It's funny because in my mind, all Intel Macs feel "new"...of course, at some point (around when I was in middle school), all New World ROM Macs felt "new." I guess it's just a matter of perspective .

But to address the question, in 3-4 years, when I'll be purchasing my next laptop (assuming my MBP will last that long), I'll seriously consider abandoning the Apple family of hardware/software/cloud services in favor of Linux. Lion/Mountain Lion irritate me, and if Apple continues to go in that direction, a lot of power users may jump ship..

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My MacBook Pro is still on route via shipping to my house. This will be my first time owning a Mac since using Leopard (*gasp*). I've heard good things, I've heard bad things (regarding Lion/Mountain Lion). I'm just interested to see how much is new and changed (hopefully for the better). I also qualify for the free Mountain Lion upgrade. I'm assuming I should take advantage of that when my new MacBook comes in?