Advice / experience on switching from Win to Mac OS

[Bokka]

Hello everyone!

Since I found my current PC to sell, this time I would like to do something that I have in mind for a long time: move to Mac.

As a model I would orient myself on an iMac 27 2017 (basic model), which I found at about 1700 euros new.

With the sale of my current PC, I should add about 500 euros.

I know that there is also a 21.5-inch model, but I prefer to have a big monitor.

How to use say that except play, retouch photos and videos, I do a little bit of everything, ie download stuff from the internet, I browse, I use the mail and I enjoy programming with Python (although I would like to take a look at Swift). Then who knows, maybe I will have some job opportunities to put this knowledge into the field, but it is something that is not yet defined.

My indecision, however, lies in the fact of making this investment and this step, in the sense that my concern is to try something different (so far proven unfortunately illegally on virtual machine or for a short time at the home of friends who have), but that ultimately offers nothing more than Windows 10.

It seems that the totality of people who have Mac, use it only for business or editing purposes and for this I can also justify the higher price, but that no one has taken it for pure and simple "cazzeggio", despite having an operating system that will be updated a lot over time. If on this point we can compare it to windows, I probably will not make the transition.

Also, one thing that I have noticed is that some Python libraries on Mac (like for example web.py) are still unripe, while on other platforms like Linux or Windows they are in a more advanced state of development, while others, it seems that are more evolved on * nix systems therefore also on Mac OS than on Windows.

I have been using the PC for about 25 years and now I fix Windows, reinstall, assemble and assist friends and acquaintances practically with my eyes closed, let's say it has always been my passion. Only that Windows 10 does not convince me 100% (not to mention Windows 8.x) and with Linux in the long run I have always had problems ....

The curiosity to try Mac, however, remains, even if at the end I thought that we put the case that I will find myself ill or that I will have "nostalgia" of the PC, it remains a pretty resale machine and with the money I'll make it up I'll be able to afford another good Pc.

I've heard a lot of people who've switched to Mac and would never come back, but I think everyone was referring to a multimedia / work talk ...

Is there anyone who has had such an experience, but NOT in a strictly business environment that could give me some advice?

Thanks so much.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

I switched 8 years ago and would avoid going back if at all possible, Mac OS is clean easy to use and intuitive it took me only a few days to be comfortable with it. I prefer most Mac software and enjoy the interconnectedness of Apple products.

If you just want to try out Mac OS then get an older second hand machine and have a play around before making any decisions or investment. Do get one with an ssd (Apple seem to have been optimising for ssd’s for a while now) and able to run OS X High Sierra.

Maybe a MacBook Air or a retina MacBook or 2012 MacBook Pro, you’ll be able to sell it close to the buying price if you don’t have it very long and if you want to go with an iMac at that point then why not, if you haven’t liked it just sell it and you haven’t lost anything.

Hope this advice helps.

 

[sartrekid]

@Samuelsan2001 has given sound advice.

Additionally, you can always set up a second partition on your Mac and run Windows on it. I recommend using the Bootcamp drivers from this site instead of the default Apple ones: https://www.bootcampdrivers.com/

I was on Windows for ten years, then made the switch (cold turkey) to Mac and have been on it (and never looked back) for 11 years now and very satisfied with being in the Apple ecosystem, by-and-large.

There's no reason why using the Mac for leisure time is any less fun that on Windows. In fact, I can't think of a single thing other than heavy-duty gaming.

The problem with your inquiry is that it's impossible for anyone to give you the kind of advice that can really help you simply because you need to like the OS, its GUI, and how the system operates as a whole. It's quite a subjective matter.

 

[kohlson]

OP, as I read your post, my sense is that it's not so much that you're dissatisfied with Windows, but instead a little curious about Macs. My view is that computers are an essential tool to get things done (both work and personal). If the Windows environment works for you, rather than switch completely it might be better to try things out first, as suggested above.

You also mention that Macs are more expensive, and indeed they are for the most part. In my experience they are worth it because they seem to last longer. As I type this I am refreshing a MacBook Air 2011 and a MacBook Pro 2008 - they are sitting on the desk right beside me. While 10 years is a a good long time for a functional laptop to be in service, it's of little matter if the environment (the OS/tools/apps) don't work for you.

 

[iEMH]

I just gave away a 2009 imac, that still today can do all the things you mentioned. You don’t get that reliability with windows
I have used Windows since the early 90’s. Still use it for work. I use mac personally, and even sometimes for work, on things windows can’t.
If I could switch it all to Mac, I would in a heartbeat.

 

[AmazingRobie]

Ill add to whats already been said with this...if youre going to switch to a mac and you currently fix PC problems by reinstalling everything, make things easy on yourself and try a program called Carbon Copy Cloner and make a backup of your system once you have it like you want it. Reinstalling everything is a HUGE timewaster unless its absolutely necessary. Also, if you find yourself watching any shows that stream online, theres another program called Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate that can do just about anything, from downloading content like YouTube, NBC, yada yada yada for offline viewing, convert between any video format you can throw at it.

 

[theluggage]

I've heard a lot of people who've switched to Mac and would never come back, but I think everyone was referring to a multimedia / work talk ...

NB: had to look up "cazzeggio" on Wiktionary - good word, but MacRumors is a family site so lets just say "messing around".

Short answer: Macs are perfectly good for messing around as far as software is concerned. The two aspects of Mac that are not so good for messing around are:

• Messing around with hardware - Macs are now mostly hermetically sealed, no-user-servicable-parts-inside units. If you want to mess with hardware, you need an ATX-based PC (of course, you can turn an ATX PC into a "Hackintosh" but you're quite constrained about what hardware is supported by MacOS and its tricky to get started without a Mac as well)
• Games - yes, there's a fair selection of games, or you can use bootcamp to run Windows games, but Macs just aren't designed as gaming machines.

...but apart from that, the Mac is great for messing around with programming. XCode is free and provides Swift and C/C++. Python is already there - but you might want to upgrade from the Apple-supplied version. Node.JS is well supported. Java support has been a bit patchy in the past, but it is there. There are versions of Eclipse, Netbeans, Visual Studio Code, Atom, Android development toolkit etc. if you want an IDE... and so far its all free. What there isn't is a version of real Visual Studio (Visual Studio for Mac is actually a port of Xamarin Studio and only does C#).

You can install a Unix package manager like "brew" or "macports" - which lets you easily build and install a huge catalogue of open source *nix software, including a lot of the usual packages you'll find in the repositories of Linux distributions. First thing I usually do is use this to install a more up-to-date Apache, and PHP with all the add-ons I need. There's usually a newer version of Python than the pre-installed one - you might have better luck with the libraries that way. There's X-window client libraries (and an X-server called XQuartz) so you can use some *nix GUI applications - although they look a bit shabby alongside MacOS GUI apps.

I think the real selling point of the Mac for your sort of messing around is that its a Unix system with a bash shell and all the usual Unix command-line tools - and there is much fun to be had there.

Docker is well-supported if you want to mess with containers, and there are several options for running Windows or Linux in virtual machines.

The one thing I would caution is that writing "proper" native Mac applications is very, very different from writing native Windows applications - and applications written in crossplatform GUI systems (like Java) never quite have the right "feel": you really need to use Objective C or (these days) Swift. Personally, while I did a fair bit of C/C++ development for Windows in the past, I've never gotten into native Mac programming - its mainly been web development in PHP, Javascript, Typescript etc. Learning Swift is on the to-do list!

 

[vkd]

I always see experts opining that you cannot game on a Mac. Its really funny because more often than not I have at least 3 games open at any one time on my 2011 iMac, a couple from the App store and one in an Android emulator right now for instance. That being said, I have been able to play all the games I've wanted to on this same iMac. I am not a hard-core up-to-the-minute-latest-thing gamer but I game, at all sorts of levels on an iMac. To say iMacs are not for gaming is a falicy. Full stop. Ponto final. Encerrado. You CAN game on a Mac. Believe it.