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Alternative App Requests

R

RacerX

macrumors 65832
Original poster
Aug 2, 2004
1,504
4
One of the oddest things I see posted is requests for some Mac app to replace some Windows app without explaining what the Windows app is.

Why is this so odd (seeing as it seems to be a common practice)?

For the very same reason that the requester (someone from the Windows world) doesn't know what apps are available for the Mac, a long time Mac user isn't going to know what Windows apps do and won't have any idea what might be a good alternative by the app name alone. So it seems (to me) to be counter intuitive to assume that everyone must know all Windows apps by name (even in the Mac world). And considering that the odds are that the people who do know what the app is by name are people who are either new to Macs too or are not Mac only users, there is less of a chance that these people know of an alternative/replacement... verses a Mac-only user who has to have Mac solutions for all their needs.

Given that, might I suggest that people requesting Mac alternatives for Windows apps take a little bit of time to give a description of the app and the feature set that an alternative would need.

:rolleyes:

Basically, try to meet us poor old Mac users (who don't use Windows) half way so we can help you get the most out of your new Mac. :D
 
1. I agree with you that ppl who asks this type of question should describe a little bit about the functions of the appls they are looking for.

2. I do want to point out that there are more than 30% of mac users now are switched from windows, and I think there are pretty good chance that they know the apps by name, since mostly, the windows apps that have been asked are really pretty famous under windows.
 
I'm not shy, I'll be the first to correct one of my earlier posts!!

I'm looking for a Publisher replacement. Publisher is an easy way to create greeting cards, banners, newsletters, etc. It also has the best clip art around.
I am looking for a Mac replacement of it and I've tried Pages and a few others...forget their names...

Price is no object, if anyone has any ideas...please help!
 
coledog said:
I'm looking for a Publisher replacement. Publisher is an easy way to create greeting cards, banners, newsletters, etc. It also has the best clip art around.
I am looking for a Mac replacement of it and I've tried Pages and a few others...forget their names...
Click to expand...
Well, for most of what you listed I use Stone Design's Create... but I'm not a big user of clip art. Create is how I do most of my design/layout tasks and it is a quick way for me to make web pages.

For a similar combination of features... with clip art, I would suggest Swift Publisher. I don't use it myself, but I've heard that it has a nice selection of clip art.

clevin said:
2. I do want to point out that there are more than 30% of mac users now are switched from windows, and I think there are pretty good chance that they know the apps by name, since mostly, the windows apps that have been asked are really pretty famous under windows.
Click to expand...
Well, I'd point out that of the 30% of Mac users that are switchers a majority of them tend to use marquee apps (from Adobe, Microsoft and Apple) rather than apps from the thousands of other Mac developers.

Why?

For the same reason that many Mac users from the classic days were slow to use any of the new breed of apps when Mac OS X first came out... brand familiarity. They were most likely to use a product whose name or maker's name they recognized than to see what might be the best fit for their needs.

And it is those same people who would actually benefit from answers from Mac users who have been around the block a long time (specially from those of us who have both Mac and NeXT experience).

But think about it... what apps might solve coledog's needs?

As a long time Mac user I know that the following all have many of the abilities he is looking for:But when it comes down to apps with a nice clip art selection... that leaves us with AppleWorks and Swift Publisher, and AppleWorks is being phased out.

I highly doubt that a recent convert to the Mac would be able to come up with such a list off the top of their head... heck, most long time Mac users would most likely have a hard time coming up with such a list (as I consult in this area, I have to know about these apps).

But without knowing exactly what MS Publisher does... or how the person was utilizing it, it would be hard for me to advise them.
 
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