Post your Apple "Switch" story...

My signature says a lot. i bought an iPod 3G 20gig in march of last year. liked it so much i bought a powerbook 2 months later. now i have recently bought an ipod shuffle and when i can afford it i'll be buying a new powermac (probably on the next update later this year)... though if i still can't afford it i'll probably drop the bones for a new mac mini after they do a revision on it.

I've been extremely happy with my powerbook and i am currently in the process of writing a shareware app that will compete with NewsFire, Shrook and NetNewsWire... just because none of them combine all the stuff i want so i'll write my own that combines a lot of features from all of them.

Expect to see more on this in the next couple months hopefully.. assuming school doesn't kill me in the process. i'd say i'm a pretty happy switcher.

1. Came to Kuwait for a year in March 2004
2. Became interested in the iPod, so I went to Apple's website (1st time)
3. Saw some pre-release publicity on the iMac G5 and thought "wow!"
4. Became more interested in Apple, especially the iMac G5, and started triyng to get more info, including through this forum
5. Some very nice people on the MacRumors forum sent their already read MacWorld and MacAddict magazines (and a few MacHomes) to me in Kuwait to share with the Apple wanna-be's over here. One of them returned from vacation a few months ago with a 12-inch PowerBook!
6. Over the past 8 months or so, I have been learning as much as I can, in preparation for getting an iMac G5 when I return to the States
7. I didn't want to wait until I return to the States, so I bought an iBook G4/1.2 GhZ/512MB RAM/30GB HD, which should be here in 5-7 more days!!! I also got iLife '05, a BT-500 mouse (silver) and a 40GB mobile external HD from LaCie.

I can't wait for it to arrive. And I have already learned SO MUCH from you people on this forum! (This will be my first Apple, of course)

EDIT: I'm still getting that iMac G5 (20-inch) when I get back!

I was a long time pc user, but had used Apple computers for most of my grade school years (Apple // and older Macs). I really never gave any thought to getting a Macintosh for personal use until I saw OS X for the first time; it blew me away. I started reading everything I could about the OS, and also catching up on everything I missed about Apple over the years. I finally got a chance to use a Powermac G4 at a CompUSA, and I fell in love with it completly. I waited forever to buy my first Mac; first flirting with the idea of getting an iBook, and then a G4 iMac... but that was before I saw the beauty of the Powerbook 12"

On the advice of my new Mac friends, I waited until a second revision came out, and the day they came out with the 1ghz 12" alPB, I placed the order... I've been smiling ever since. So far I have managed to convert 3 of my friends over; all based on the fact that OS X is just soooo good.

I was into the whole PC thing and Linux, (Windows for games) when I was in college, until I met a girl that had a new White G3 iBook. She let me play around with it since I was a computer guy and she didn't know much about it, neither did I, other than she loved how it looked. She was using OS9 at first, but I helped her upgrade to OS X. I think that was the 10.0 days, but we had no problems what so ever which is pur luck since at that time I wouldn't have known what to do. I later found out that OS X was a form of Unix and I just had to have it since Linux wasn't been that friendly at the time (Red Hat 7, and it would not find my printer, an HP USB printer, and other linux distros had problems with other things on my system), and the speed was nice on her laptop. I didn't mind the low Mhz since I knew that it wasn't always the deciding factor. Orded one on ebay, some screwed up with the guy and the amout he had in stock, but I later sued the guy and got most of my money back since he didn't send me the iBook or give my money back. Decided to go right to Apple, got my first Mac which was the iBook below. Had it for spring break of 2002 where I created a brouchure for my English class project using MS Word for the Mac (since the template didn't exist on Win Word). My fellow group member thought I did such a great job, that I didn't have to do anything else other than the brouchure part for the project. Since then I have bought a Quicksilver, graduated, working as an IT Manager, and now getting a PB.

The first computer I had at home was a Dragon 32. I remember sitting trying to make it load Frogger from an old cassette deck and my dad bringing home computing magazines with screeds of BASIC to type in to make a program that flashed your name in a few colours.

The first computer I bought at Uni was a Performa 400 which I got because the experience of all those lines of white text on black with had traumatised me so much that the thought of typing C prompts to get Windows 3.1 to load terrified me! I had a lot of fun with that - I remember a program that I got on a cover disc from MacFormat that let me render a landscape - hugely pointless and compared to now, dreadful but my PC 386 using friends were impressed.

My next two computers were Windows - the only reason I can think of for getting them were that my Performa was now 4 and getting slow/hard drive full - and there didn't seem a good Mac to get at my price range. My Windows 98 PC started to make very odd noises at Christmas 2003 (thankfully enough warning to back everything up) and died - courtesy of a Norton software update which was so bloated it couldn't run or be backed out of. I needed a new computer and I wanted a laptop

A friend introduced me to her TiBook and OS X and I fell in love. I'd been slightly wary of XP's authentication but had resigned myself to it but now I had another option. 2 days with her TiBook and a week to MWSF in case of updates, and I had a Powerbook (at 50% more than I'd been planning on paying!) with which I couldn't be happier - particularly since I've watched some friends who I know are about as technically savvy as me fall victim to spyware (despite their ZoneAlarms and Norton Security) on their new Windows PCs

Since then my sister (eMac), my mother (iBook & Express), my cousin (iBook), two work colleagues (iMacs) have switched too.

kwajaln said:

1. Came to Kuwait for a year in March 2004
2. Became interested in the iPod, so I went to Apple's website (1st time)
3. Saw some pre-release publicity on the iMac G5 and thought "wow!"
4. Became more interested in Apple, especially the iMac G5, and started triyng to get more info, including through this forum
5. Some very nice people on the MacRumors forum sent their already read MacWorld and MacAddict magazines (and a few MacHomes) to me in Kuwait to share with the Apple wanna-be's over here. One of them returned from vacation a few months ago with a 12-inch PowerBook!
6. Over the past 8 months or so, I have been learning as much as I can, in preparation for getting an iMac G5 when I return to the States
7. I didn't want to wait until I return to the States, so I bought an iBook G4/1.2 GhZ/512MB RAM/30GB HD, which should be here in 5-7 more days!!! I also got iLife '05, a BT-500 mouse (silver) and a 40GB mobile external HD from LaCie.

I can't wait for it to arrive. And I have already learned SO MUCH from you people on this forum! (This will be my first Apple, of course)

EDIT: I'm still getting that iMac G5 (20-inch) when I get back!

Click to expand...

Since I'm one of the forum members who sent you magazines, you count as one of my switchers, my 23rd. (I was a reseller in the late 80s- 90s).

As for me, shortly after I started working as a reseller, Apple had a promotion to win Apple computers based on sales of Apple products one xmas season. I sold over 50 Apple //gs systems and about 10 Mac SEs and won an SE for myself. My first computer, so I never switched.

The first computer I was introduced to was a

1989 - Macintosh II
1994 - Power Macintosh
1998 - iMac (Blue)
2000 - 2nd iMac (Blue)
2001 - 1st gen. iPod
2002 - 3rd iMac (with the huge base)
2002 - iBook
2003 - 4th iMac (with the huge base)
2004 - 3rd gen. iPod
2005 - iPod Shuffle
Future:
2006 - Powerbook (for college!)

I will also buy another desktop in a year. The computers in my house are getting old and I will soon buy 3 new ones (one being the powerbook).

I've used lots of PC's and Macs over the years. Growing up the schools I went to were pretty much half-and-half. To be honest I really didn't care until I got a Compaq with Windows ME and started hating Windows and PC's.
I guess I became a switcher the moment I saw the iMac G4 when it was introduced and I ordered it almost immediately. I waited 2 months for that iMac.....a long 2 months! But I loved that machine and immediately got rid of my PC and have been buying Macs ever since....and no PC's.
I'd go through the list, but it is long and it is late........and I do recall that there was a thread like this before that I listed them, but I'm on dial-up now and am too lazy to look for it

The iMac G4 was the switch for me!

I "switched" from an Atari 800XL (which i still have) to a PowerMac 4400/200mhz I picked up from my university. Then on to what is is my sig with the iMac bought new.

Boy, to tell my whole story would take too long. Actually, shortly after I bought my 12" Powerbook, I wrote a script for a commercial-type video I wanted to make, called "The Testimony" - which talked about my "conversion" experience as though I joined some new religion (and in many ways, I think I have!)

But the short version is, in July 2003 I presented a paper at a conference in Montreal and I won the student paper competition (not because my paper itself was groundbreaking, but I think because I was the most animated presenter in the group). The prize was $1500 USD... and one of the first things I bought was a 15 gig iPod.

The iPod was a very pleasant experience, and got me thinking about the rest of the computer - I had been a Windows guy for many many years (although my first computer was an Apple ][). I was all into Dell laptops. I have a friend, Scott, who's a very ardent Mac user who had his TiBook with him and was constantly poking fun at my Dell -- it seemed whenever my machine started to act up or crash, he would be right behind me saying "Well, my Mac never does that". Like an atheist reacting to a Jehovah's Witness at his door, I smiled and nodded and thought nothing of it.

But then one day I was asked to edit a video for a presentation to be made that night -- in fact, in just a few hours' time. Me, being an aspiring professional, with a pro video camera (Sony VX2000) and pro editing software on my brand new high-end Dell widescreen with its WUXGA and blazing new Pentium M processor, knew there wasn't possibly any way I'd have time to capture, edit, render and re-output a video in the time I had.

So instead, they went to Scott, and he did it in iMovie. When the time came he hooked up his laptop, clicked a button and the video ran perfectly. And I sat there dumbfounded. When did he find the time? A video like that would take an hour just to render the full-quality DV version. And he must have rendered it, because I know MY top-spec Dell couldn't do full-screen full-quality previews from the timeline like that, so there's no way his 2-year-old TiBook could, right?

Right?

That night was about a month before I got the iPod and it sat and lingered with me and bothered me more and more. I got to thinking... could Scott really be right? Could his Mac REALLY be all that he said it was?

And so later that fall when Apple released the rev. B 12" Powerbook at 1 GHz, I decided to take the plunge and find out for myself.

Short version of the story is I got my Mac, a year later I sold the Dell (for half the price I paid for it... sigh), and I've been running on this baby ever since.

Later I'll post my story of the zero-configuration printer, just one reason I LOVE this machine.

About 2 years ago when I was 12 I decided that I wanted to go into some sort of video production or other multimedia. I had been told by a few people that Macs were the industry standard.

Well, I saved up and bought myself a powerbook. I love it.

so thats my short switch story.

I owned and operated a PC for at least 6 years and after all that time I new ALL the ‘’ins and outs’’ of a PC. Then one year I got real big into video editing through my church. Of course with my PC I first had to find the camera dealer’s website, go through the confusing menus, download the software, install it, restart about 100 times, uninstall certain components, and then restart it again. Wow, now wasn’t that a hassle. Then one day, the main multimedia guy at church suggested a Mac to me. He has had 2, the imac from ’98 and a new G4. So he gave me a little fly-by. Like most skeptics I’ve encountered, when he plugged his camera in the front of his G4 and opened IMovie and the camera was automatically recognized, I thought, ha, he’s funny. I thought he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes with some fancy installed drivers like I had encountered with my PC. Then he told me that instead of his camera, we would use mine. We loaded up the tape, plugged in the firewire cable and BAM, everything worked, flawlessly. I was automatically sold. 2 months later for high school graduation I begged my parents for a G4 powerbook and got it. When that 12’’ beauty arrived at my doorstep I automatically tried to prove all these “switcher” stories wrong. I opened up ITunes, loaded up a play list, then I started opening up totally random things to try and crash it. No matter what I did, no progress on my part. I went back to my PC, which I know has proven somewhat reliable and is definitely up with the times, because I built it myself. Did the same thing with Winamp, then my email program, an internet browser, a spread sheet, and 2 other applications and even with Windows proven “blue screen-less” XP Professional, after all that running, bam, there goes the blue screen of death. Because of my PC expertise, Mac was so much easier. The shortcuts are similar and things like expose’ just make the Mac ENTIRELY dominating of the PC. Now everyone in the student ministry just about it seems to be buying Mac because of similar experiences with the same situations. I have even won over about 5 students, including the Computer Science major Student Minister to be a switcher. Big things are going to be coming from this “new” Mac community. Thanks Mac and Apple for a WONDERFUL and stress free machine. And did I mention ULTRA portable with GREAT battery life compared to my “America’s leading pc” laptop from that company that rhymes with the word bell.

~written in May of '04

I'm still not a mac user, but I will be soon so I'll ad my part.

I've been a PC user all of my life with many different computers. My latest PC (and my last) has been really giving me the poops, since we are using this computer as a sort of server for our home network so therefore, we have a dynamic IP, we get a lot of spyware/adware and virus attacks.
During this time, I was posting on a forum where we where showing off our desktops, someone posted with a mac desktop (OSX.2). I was interested in what it was, so I asked, he told me what it was... I responded with "I hate the one buttoned mouse and theres no software for it". He responded with heaps of backup and links, turned my perception on the Mac platform and here I am today... alas about 1.8 years later :/.
To this day, I have never used a mac for anywhere over 1 minute. I've used one of the two eMac's at school... but I couldnt get pass the password screen. And I used a G5 Dual 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 9800XT, 20" ACD in a apple store for about 30 seconds as I had to go
Just waiting for the next Powermac revision, then I'm on my way .

The Zero Config Printer

OK, another story. This is just one reason I love working with this Powerbook. People accuse me of exaggerating the story to make the Mac look good, but I promise you this is an unbiased factual account of exactly what happened.

So I bought a new laser printer last year, a colour one in fact, a Lexmark C510n from Staples for just $600 Canadian. It comes with an Ethernet print server, which I think is an awesome deal.

I bring it home (no small feat in itself; the printer weighs a ton) and set it up: plug the printer AC cable into the wall, plug its USB connection into the Ethernet server, plug in the power for the server box, plug the box into my home LAN. Printer's set up.

Now I go to set up the Mac and a PC, running WinXP Pro, to print to this new machine.

On the Mac:
1. Open the cover and wake my Powerbook from sleep.
2. Open up a document I want to try printing (an email).
3. Go to "File-->Print"
4. From the drop-down list, choose my new Lexmark printer, because the Mac has already discovered the new printer and set itself up to print to it.
5. Click "Print".
6. Go downstairs and see my document waiting for me in the printer.

Total time spent: 30 seconds. Well, 1 minute: another 30 seconds spent staring at the Mac in disbelief, saying "No way. No way it couldn't be that easy." Literally.

On Windows XP Professional:
1. Crack open the software CD pack that came with the printer. I need to install two drivers on two CDs: the printer driver, and the ethernet print server box driver.
2. Pop the first CD into the PC.
3. Repeat step 2 three times, because for some reason the CD refuses to mount.
4. Give up, go to http://www.lexmark.com and download the Windows driver from there.
5. Double-click the installer and install the Lexmark printer driver. I may have had to reboot after the install, I don't remember.
6. Put the second CD into the PC, and install the Ethernet server driver. Again, I don't remember if I needed to reboot after this; probably not.
7. Open up a document, click Print, watch it print successfully.
8. Open up a color document, click Print, click "Print in Black and White", watch it print out... and come out as a huge black splotch on the page.
9. Repeat step 8 in various apps and various conditions. Yep, something's wrong with the driver. Also, when I print precision-layout things like labels, everything seems to be about 1/8" off where it's supposed to be.
10. Realize that everything prints just fine from the Powerbook; must be a bad driver.
11. Go back to Lexmark website and look in the driver downloads. Aha! There were two drivers, a PS and PCL version, and I had installed the PCL one. Read appnote on Lexmark website strongly recommending users to install the PS driver instead. Download PS driver.
12. Install PS driver.
13. Test-print a few documents, determine that the printer is finally working correctly.

Total time spent: several hours, over a span of several days.

I kid you not, this is no exaggeration, this is EXACTLY what I did with each machine.

hahaha, that would be a good commercial for apple. I can imagine it being done split screen with 2 guys doing exactly what u said.

been using pc's for over 10 years. my first was a 386 that had been upgraded to a 40mhz 486 that ran windows 3.1. ive been building my own pc's since then. i moved to arizona for college and started working regularly so i have zero time to be upgrading, troubleshooting, virus protecting, spyware checking, etc. after half-life 2 i realized that would be the last pc game id want to play for a long time. and when i had to handwrite a 5 page paper for english 102 while i was in the car going back home for thanksgiving i realized i needed a laptop. all these things kinda came together and i realized a mac laptop would solve all these problems and id get a chance to try something new because im sick of windows. ive also become more concerned with style and elegance more than productivity but ive found myself more productive now that i dont spend years trying to troubleshoot and secure windows. i had a friend that bought a first gen powermac g4 and i loved how beautiful it was but i didnt like it because it didnt play any games and it just seemed so foreign to me. i found myself contantly downloading exe's. and the hockey puck mouse didnt help. i love the optic mouse that apple has right now though. well anyway when i got back from cali for thanksgiving i woke up and first thing in the morning i went down to the mac store and picked myself up an ibook. my pc went from the main piece in my room to being stuck in the closet. i stopped using it so much that i gave my 9800 pro video card that was in it away to a friend because i wasnt using it and i owed him one.

College

I went to school and my assigned roommate had a TiBook. He would let me use it and showed me some of the cool features. He was really laid back, and never forced anything one me. He was open to letting me use it. So I would from time to time, just for a change of pace. OS X basically sold itself. Then I was in the market for a new computer, wanted something powerfull and mobile. Checked out the PC market, and the Apple offerings. Nothing could beat the 12'' PB in price and specs. Apple also was running Cram and Jam at the time ($200 off an iPod with a computer purchase), and that sealed the deal. I had wanted an iPod for quite some time.

You can learn alot from people that you are forced to be around. I'm glad I was.

notjustjay said:

...
Total time spent: 30 seconds. Well, 1 minute: another 30 seconds spent staring at the Mac in disbelief, saying "No way. No way it couldn't be that easy." Literally.
...
Total time spent: several hours, over a span of several days.

I kid you not, this is no exaggeration, this is EXACTLY what I did with each machine.

Click to expand...

I know how you feel, this is one of the reasons I got my first mac (G5 iMac) I had borrowed an old G3 laptop from work and wanted to print something, so I plugged it into the computer. Hmmm, its not asking for drivers, hmmm, unplug, plug in again, hmmm still not asking for drivers or disk or anything, hmmm, try one more time then give up. Go to the printer config screen to see if there is a problem there, and the printer is already there. WOW!!!

First computer ZX81
then BBC Micro
then An evolving PC that changed and grew but was never completely replaced.
NOW iMac G5

I hated macs until I saw OSX and being a Java developer couldn't resist the fact it had java built in.

oldpismo said:

I know how you feel, this is one of the reasons I got my first mac (G5 iMac) I had borrowed an old G3 laptop from work and wanted to print something, so I plugged it into the computer. Hmmm, its not asking for drivers, hmmm, unplug, plug in again, hmmm still not asking for drivers or disk or anything, hmmm, try one more time then give up. Go to the printer config screen to see if there is a problem there, and the printer is already there. WOW!!!

Click to expand...

Yup, I had a similar experience when I brought my Powerbook to the PC/Linux lab at school where I would spend the next two years (and still going) writing my thesis. There's a fast laser printer there, but since they never gave me admin privileges on the WinNT machines, and for some reason the machines in the lab don't see this printer, I couldn't use it. So I brought in my Mac and after a few minutes of sleuthing (pinging, etc) to find the printer's IP address I typed it into my Printer Setup Utility.. I didn't think it would work, but it did!

It's funny, I hated the printer driver system in pre-OSX (Chooser, etc.) but I love the way they've done it now. The only misgiving I have is that it's so out-of-the-way (coming from Windows, I would have expected the printer setup to be part of System Preferences aka Control Panel)...

I hated macs until I saw OSX and being a Java developer couldn't resist the fact it had java built in.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was never a big fan of OS 7 or 8. Cute, but not something I wanted to work with from day-to-day, and certainly no replacement for Windows.

But don't you find that even though OSX has Java support built-in, it's really slow? Java felt exponentially faster on my 1.4 GHz Pentium M than on my 1 GHz Powerbook.

I have the Mac at home, and it has Java built in, but with a 3 yr old I just haven't had the time to program it yet.

Still one day!!!

I used to use the old Macs (1992-1994) anyway that does not count. My realy first Mac was a PowerMac G4, i was in college and needed somethign to write up school stuff and everything else so i got the G4 PM. I did not like it very much and ended up giving it to my friend. A few months passed and i read a lot about the OSX and the PowerBook. At that time i needed a laptop so i got my self a 15" PB and things started from there.

My first was actually a clone, a 200 MHz Umax c500 that I used to learn QuarkXpress and Photoshop. NOT the best machine by any means, but it served me well and in '96 was the cheapest thing at the time. Also, I knew everything I needed to know to fix it myself in about a week. I never took it in for any repairs at all. I had other friends who bought PCs at the same time. They lived to regret those purchases, believe me! All they did was complain about their computers and take them in for repairs. One person just gave up and shoved his in the closet. Anyway, I ended up buying a PowerMac G4 and giving the clone to my cousin in design school. He got about a year+ out of it and gave it to someone else. As far as I know it still works. I also recently bought a 14" iBook G4. I love it! Three of my other friends have since switched.

NOTJUSTJAY...that was a great write-up that totally hits the nail on the head! Best one so far, in my opinion!
RDOWNS...I definitely didn't forget you, or anyone else specifically, but didn't want to name names here.

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. I upgraded to a ZX Spectrum two years later.

At high school we had Apple IIs and one Macintosh. I can still remember the wow factor of the original Macintosh.

When I started varsity my uncle (who owned a computer company) built me a 386 which ran Windows 3.1. I used that for a long time and it was a reliable machine.

When I became a TA I had a lot of stuff to write and they gave us a Wintel with Windows 95 installed to do that on. We also had an LCIII in the office which we used for email, but wasn't powerful enough for the desktop publishing stuff I was doing at the time.

Windows 95 was a pure nightmare. I can't believe people actually paid money for that trash. So I complained and they gave me the secretary's old Powermac. Well, after about 3 or 4 weeks I realized that it hadn't crashed and was a lot easier to work on than Windows. A little later a colleague got one of the first imacs. I thought it was great, so when I moved to Canada I bought one. I upgraded to OS X early just out of interest and I would never dream of going back to the dark side.

I still have that imac. It now runs Panther, has a load more RAM and a bigger hard drive. I'll probably get a new mac next year, but this one is still great for all the work I do and does not suffer from major performance hits. A testament to OS X I should think.

I know of several people who bought Windows PCs at the time I bought my mac. All of them are either junked or lack sufficient performance to do everyday multimedia tasks.

I guess I'm a reason for Apple's low market share. I really have had no need to upgrade to a new machine for over 5 years now.