Bought a mac, disappointed

[treub]

I just got a new Macbook, and I'm considering returning it.
Mac users dont know what they are missing, there are so many things that the Mac cant do that my PC can.
EVerything online is limited, no mac version of this, no mac version of that. For instance, I use yahoo messenger, and on the mac the call fuction is not available.
I take classes online, and the classroom function doesnt work on the mac.
The list goes on and on.
With windows there are all kinds of programs and fucntions you can use, the mac is very limited.
Plus, my cheap little PC with 512 mb of Ram is faster than the mac, which is kind of slow in many functions.
I am bummed

 

[Blue Velvet]

There are lots of Mac applications out there, if you gave it more than a day or two and tried to learn what your Mac is really capable of, you might see things a different way.

 

[GoodWatch]

I just got a new Macbook, and I'm considering returning it.
Mac users dont know what they are missing, there are so many things that the Mac cant do that my PC can.
EVerything online is limited, no mac version of this, no mac version of that. For instance, I use yahoo messenger, and on the mac the call fuction is not available.
I take classes online, and the classroom function doesnt work on the mac.
The list goes on and on.
With windows there are all kinds of programs and fucntions you can use, the mac is very limited.
Plus, my cheap little PC with 512 mb of Ram is faster than the mac, which is kind of slow in many functions.
I am bummed

And why are you this telling here? What do you expect for an answer? But before you take it back I suggest you try Windows with Boot Camp first or either Fusion or another virtualisation program so that you can run Windows inside OS X.

 

[bjett92]

I'm sorry to hear that you are dissapointed, but it is not Apple's fault that some web services are to ignorant of the computer world not to mac a mac suitable version. I don't use YIM so i can't say anything about the call feature, but I do know iChat has this feature for AIM and Bonjour. For your online classes, you could always download and install ies4osx which will allow you to run Internet Explorer, probably the site just doesn't run under Safari. You could also just try changing your User Agent in Safari or FF. I've never had a problem with their being a program on Windows that I couldn't find an alternative for on the Mac. I find the app selection for Mac to be a wide variety of software with many options. And I find it hard to believe that a 512MB ram computer running windows runs faster than a MB.

 

[clevin]

a different OS always has this or that problems, software availability or replaceability are all the possible problems.

If you would like to give your mac more chances, maybe list your need, see if people here can find replacements for you.

A bit learning and adjusting is needed, as I said, its a different OS after all.

install ies4osx which will allow you to run Internet Explorer

ie4osx is basically wine, which do not support activex.

 

[treub]

There is all this downloading and upgrading I have to do just to get to do the normal things I used to do on my PC. I spend all my time looking for upgrades to download.
Its funny that the Mac slogan is " it just works" when that is what I am now saying about my PC. Mac is very limited on an internet that is all about windows.
I was a big fan of Picasa photo editor, way better than iPhoto, guess what, NO MAC VERSION, this goes on and on.
I was building a website using Coffeecup html editor, guess, what NO MAC VERSION
Its wierd how some Mac users are so emotional about this machine, heck I just want somethign that works on everything,,,my new Macbook aint it.
I spent $1200 and believe me, I got no axe to grind, I WANTED this machine to be great. But I have to face reality and my buyers remorse, using this Mac is like a step backwards.

 

[sananda]

doesn't seem like it suits you at all. can you return it?

 

[clevin]

There is all this downloading and upgrading I have to do just to get to do the normal things I used to do on my PC. I spend all my time looking for upgrades to download.
Its funny that the Mac slogan is " it just works" when that is what I am now saying about my PC. Mac is very limited on an internet that is all about windows.
I was a big fan of Picasa photo editor, way better than iPhoto, guess what, NO MAC VERSION, this goes on and on.
I was building a website using Coffeecup html editor, guess, what NO MAC VERSION
Its wierd how some Mac users are so emotional about this machine, heck I just want somethign that works on everything,,,my new Macbook aint it.

Picasa might be a good photo manager or browser, but editor should be GIMP, it has windows/osx/linux versions. try that out

There is currently no picasa for mac,, unfortunately.

There are several webpage editors, I know nvu is free, its pretty old tho.

Its all about, Like I said. replaceability, we understand there is no match for windows apps in quantity. so one-on-one match is impossible, eventually, you will have to do some adjustments to finish the task you need.

 

[swiftaw]

There is all this downloading and upgrading I have to do just to get to do the normal things I used to do on my PC. I spend all my time looking for upgrades to download.
Its funny that the Mac slogan is " it just works" when that is what I am now saying about my PC. Mac is very limited on an internet that is all about windows.
I was a big fan of Picasa photo editor, way better than iPhoto, guess what, NO MAC VERSION, this goes on and on.
I was building a website using Coffeecup html editor, guess, what NO MAC VERSION
Its wierd how some Mac users are so emotional about this machine, heck I just want somethign that works on everything,,,my new Macbook aint it.

I find it interesting that you didn't research whether these apps on which you rely on so heavily were available for Mac before you spent all that money.

Anyways, yes, unfortunately many applications are windows only, as some developers only want to support the biggest player on the field. There are two solutions to that problem, find an equivalent application, or if necessary run Windows on your Macbook (which I do only because I still use Microsoft Money).

In general though, even though there are some apps that I wish were available for the Mac, I'm still happier using alternative applications on my Mac that I would be dealing with all the hassles of maintaining a windows system.

 

[heatmiser]

Dude, if it doesn't work, return it. Your computer should work for you, not the other way around. Despite the hype, OS X is just another way of doing the same thing; it's no better/worse than Windows, it's just different. If XP suits you better, switch back. You'll get a better machine for less money, and will be able to run your programs easily.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I was building a website using Coffeecup html editor, guess, what NO MAC VERSION.

Like there aren't the choice of HTML editors out there? Maybe even some better ones?

A lot of people here aren't emotional about their Macs, what they have been bothered to do is to find out why people enjoy using their Macs, what their strengths are, how to do certain things... instead of coming onto these boards with a view that everything about them sucks, without even asking reasonable questions.

What's more, many, if not most of us, use Windows machines as well and have entirely good reasons for choosing a Mac... if this is your first post on MacRumors and it's just here to troll, then you may find better luck elsewhere. If not, then welcome to a great community; one that gives back what you put it into it.

 

[clevin]

Your PC didn't come with email, calendar and address book programs that are anywhere as complete and integrated as your Mac did

it does, outlook has all of those

If you're not at the point with a PC where you're tired of how many steps that are required to do normal day-to-day things (because the various programs on that PC that you use aren't integrated), then you're not likely to see the value in a Mac that so obvious to others.

To be fair, a single bundle of media player in windows vista costs M$ $600m.

 

[swiftaw]

it does, outlook has all of those

Outlook isn't included with Windows, it's part of Office

 

[Cooknn]

But I have to face reality and my buyers remorse, using this Mac is like a step backwards.

Sounds to me like you should have done a little more research before plonking down your $1200. Or did someone buy it for you?

 

[Cromulent]

There is all this downloading and upgrading I have to do just to get to do the normal things I used to do on my PC. I spend all my time looking for upgrades to download.
Its funny that the Mac slogan is " it just works" when that is what I am now saying about my PC. Mac is very limited on an internet that is all about windows.
I was a big fan of Picasa photo editor, way better than iPhoto, guess what, NO MAC VERSION, this goes on and on.
I was building a website using Coffeecup html editor, guess, what NO MAC VERSION
Its wierd how some Mac users are so emotional about this machine, heck I just want somethign that works on everything,,,my new Macbook aint it.
I spent $1200 and believe me, I got no axe to grind, I WANTED this machine to be great. But I have to face reality and my buyers remorse, using this Mac is like a step backwards.

Then find different applications that do the same thing but do run on a Mac.

Anything you can do on a PC you can do on a Mac pretty much. You just might have to use different applications to do it. There are very few things the Mac is incapable of doing and most of that is down to third party developers not bothering with the Mac version. It has nothing to do with validity of the platform itself.

 

[Lixivial]

ie4osx is basically wine, which do not support activex.

The first part of that is, indeed, true -- it is using WINE. However, the second part isn't quite accurate. While the WINE team didn't, to my knowledge, reverse engineer ActiveX support, the default IE6 install of IEs4OSX (unlike IEs4Linux) includes the XP version of mfc42.dll.

This can be easily confirmed by browsing to one of those online virus scanning sites. Such as http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html.

 

[CKtoph]

I'm assuming it was a gift and you didn't really have a choice on getting a mac or a PC? It honestly doesn't sound like you really wanted one to begin with.

One thing that helps a lot of people with the transition from PC to Mac is using Parallels or VMware. If you're not familiar with this, both of these programs allow you to run almost any PC application on your MacOSX without having to use boot camp.

You also mentioned that there is "all this downloading and upgrading" that you didn't have to do with your PC? I have been and continue to be a PC user alongside my Mac, and I've had to download and upgrade plenty of things on my PC to get it started with the things that I needed.

Overall, it simply sounds like you were used to the way you had it on PC, and got frustrated with the learning curve involved with using a Mac. You were simply used to and comfortable with the programs you had been using and apparently just got fed up with the fact that you probably have to learn not only a new OS, but new applications to support the work you had been doing before (but like I said you can always run Windows XP/Vista on a Mac, but can you run Leopard on a PC?).

I only recently made the jump, and I'm still learning as I go. It just requires a little patience.

 

[clevin]

Outlook isn't included with Windows, it's part of Office

oh my bad, I think I was meant to say outlook express, now called "windows mail"

the default IE6 install of IEs4OSX (unlike IEs4Linux) includes the XP version of mfc42.dll.

This can be easily confirmed by browsing to one of those online virus scanning sites. Such as http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html.

huh, I don't know what to say about this. Some people will be happy Im sure. lol.

 

[pilotError]

Go buy parallels or VMWare and run Windows under OS X.

For some things you still need windows in your case. If you have a copy of windows, you can run the few applications you need until you get used to the Mac set of software.

It took about 6 months for me to fully adjust. I did buy parallels just in case, but I never bothered using it. If you really want to switch and you need some things under windows, that's the way to go.

Also, I would start searching here on MacRumors to see what others have done. You'll start to realize that most of your issues are because your new to the platform.

Like windows, there's a handful of things all users should install. There's a video codec package out there that installs compatibility with most of the media formats on the internet, Adobe Flash, and a few other little things. That usually solves about 95% of your web issues.

If your just not happy then sell it.

 

[treub]

I did enjoy the Apple store's professionalism, as opposed the slick Circuit City, Best Buy salesmen you get in the PC world.
And I am impressed with the sleek and sturdy design of the Macbook.
It does have some nice functions, just limited.

To the moderator who accused me of being a troll, relax, I am merely stating my experience with my new Mac. Why are you wary and offended about an honest critique of a machine?

Anyway, I'm not interested in trying to find "alternative" ways to make things work. Now if you'll excuse me I am off to the Apple store.

 

[heatmiser]

Anyway, I'm not interested in trying to find "alternative" ways to make things work. Now if you'll excuse me I am off to the Apple store.

I think you made the right decision. A computer is a tool. If it doesn't work for you, find one that does.

 

[Consultant]

Does Coffeecup html editor comes with windows? NO -> use BBEdit, there are many other html editors.
Does Yahoo Instant Messenger comes with windows? NO -> use Adium
Does Picasa comes with windows? NO -> iPhoto has better capabilities you just have to learn to use it (and if grandmas can use it, you should)

Use macupdate.com or versiontracker.com
for example, search for: html editor

Laziness to take 60 minutes to learn a new OS (that will actually save you many hours dealing with the inefficient and poorly designed windows)
does not mean the product is defective.

 

[bartelby]

To the moderator who accused me of being a troll, relax, I am merely stating my experience with my new Mac. Why are you wary and offended about an honest critique of a machine?

How long have you been a Windows user?

How long have you been a Mac user?


Did Windows do EVERYTHING you wanted on day one without some looking around?

 

[Blue Velvet]

To the moderator who accused me of being a troll, relax, I am merely stating my experience with my new Mac. Why are you wary and offended about an honest critique of a machine?

Because it's not an honest critique, it's not even an attempt to understand the platform or to even meet it or this community halfway.

Most reasonable people would want to find out how to get the best out of their machine instead of condemning it for not being like some generic Windows box.

And I'm not offended, I'm justifiably wary of people trolling on this board with absolutely nothing to bring to the table, except an inflexible stance with a machine that they don't understand, hoping for what kind of response, exactly?