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marc55

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 14, 2011
872
217
Looking to replace our Dell XPS, which has been pretty good overall except for a few new keyboards.

We're considering a 15" Mac Book Pro with Retina, but we are concerned about the learning curve to switch from a windows based PC to a Mac Book.

All insight will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
 
Minimal learning curve- instead of control panel you have 'system preferences' for all your OS settings and such- no 'start' or 'window bubble' you have the dock.

Really there isn't much to it, it just works. Check out an apple store or authorized dealer (best buy etc.) to take a test drive of the OS and see if it would work for y'all.
 
Not hard at all.

Im a Windows Network Manager by trade. Ive worked with Windows in depth for the past 15 years. Changed to MAC and found it pretty easy. Now I love it for home use and video editing!
 
Looking to replace our Dell XPS, which has been pretty good overall except for a few new keyboards.

We're considering a 15" Mac Book Pro with Retna, but we are concerned about the learning curve to switch from a windows based PC to a Mac Book.

All insight will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I made the switch in 2009 after growing up with 95 and XP.

Overall it's very easy. A lot of keyboard shortcuts that use ctrl+*letter* in Windows are Command+*letter* in OS X. There is a different shortcut to close a frozen app, but right clicking on the dock icon and clicking Force Quit is easier (in my opinion). Clicking the X will not fully close the app; you need to click :Apple: on the menu bar followed by Quit or use Command+Q.

You will not need "cleaner" apps or antivirus like you do on Windows machines. OS X does it's own maintenance very well, and using safe computing practices will prevent the rare viruses and malware that exist.

If you're tied to MS Office, I find that 2011 for Mac works well. iWork has also recently been redesigned and is free to download. You can save as .docx, etc to send to Windows users.
 
If you're tied to MS Office, I find that 2011 for Mac works well. iWork has also recently been redesigned and is free to download. You can save as .docx, etc to send to Windows users.

iWord is free to download?


I visited Kansas a few days ago. Nice place, Arthur Bryant's bbq are delicious.
 
We're considering a 15" Mac Book Pro with Retina, but we are concerned about the learning curve to switch from a windows based PC to a Mac Book.
All depends on the individual. People don't all learn at exactly the same rate. I picked it up immediately. Some struggle. Others fall somewhere in between. People that tend to memorize steps will probably have more difficulty.
 
It's very easy to learn. Just don't get to the point where you "don't know how to use a Windows" anymore...I know plenty of people who are spoiled by only knowing OSX, but fail to realize that the real world/businesses operate on Windows
 
Looking to replace our Dell XPS, which has been pretty good overall except for a few new keyboards.

We're considering a 15" Mac Book Pro with Retina, but we are concerned about the learning curve to switch from a windows based PC to a Mac Book.

All insight will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

There is some good info on the Apple web site here that will help you.
 
I just ordered a 15" Haswell rMBP, 2.3GHz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 750M from Amazon this morning and it will get here tomorrow. I have an iPhone and iPad but have never owned a Mac computer. I'm looking forward to learning the new OS. I still have my Win 7 gaming PC but this will be for everything else.

Can't wait. :D

Jim
 
One week should be more than enough time to get used to OS X.

When I shifted in 2008, it was a very pleasant experience. Even more so today with Mavericks.

I just ordered a 15" Haswell rMBP, 2.3GHz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 750M from Amazon this morning and it will get here tomorrow. I have an iPhone and iPad but have never owned a Mac computer. I'm looking forward to learning the new OS. I still have my Win 7 gaming PC but this will be for everything else.

Can't wait. :D

Jim

That's great news.

Welcome to the Mac.
 
It all depends on how you use it, really. For the basics, there IS minimal learning curve as others have suggested. And the truth is, the daily stuff is much more intuitive than on Windows. When you get to the file system, installing software etc is where the learning curve bends a little more. Not much, but it IS different. There isn't the usual "C" drive like in windows so it's a little bit different navigating around the filesystem. Overall it's a great system and once you get the hang of it, you'll never go back.
 
As a long time windows user and Mac OS hater, I've made the switch 5 days ago and I must admit I was in the wrong. Windows can be a great system, but so is Mac OS. OS X is very intuitive and I found myself discovering features by accident, simply by trying something because it felt, well, intuitive.

A good example is PDFs (I primarily use my laptop for research, so a lot of my work involves going through academic papers) viewed in preview. Just today I was scrolling through a paper that had some graphs in it. Such documents are generally vertically oriented, but then you have to rotate certain pages to view the graphs horizontally. In preview, it was a simple trackpad gesture, while when viewing PDFs in Acrobat Reader on Windows it takes some more effort and it can get annoying... might seem minor but it just represents the point I'm trying to make.

So, I would say that you should be fine and make the switch quite quick. If you are a relatively informed Windows user (as in you quite understand how the file system works and why things happen the way they happen), you won't be struggling.

As far as "pages" and "numbers" go... well I think I'm sticking with MS Office for now. Keynote is supposedly very good, but I have a major presentation on trade policy next week and I think I'll have to use my old windows laptop for that (I haven't got the Office for Mac yet). This might be a matter of time though, I just need the productivity now.

All in all, make the switch, try it out. It's worth it. First three days I had mixed feelings, but I made a strong case of not trying to make my OS X experience as similar to Windows as possible. I can say that after 5 days I am comfortable with the system enough. I imagine it will take another two weeks for me not to miss Windows at all, but I can see it happen.
 
Its less frustrating now. It used to bug me that you couldn't resize any windows from any side until 10.8. Don't take for granted that anything that your used to in Windows can be done in Mac in the same way.
 
Its less frustrating now. It used to bug me that you couldn't resize any windows from any side until 10.8. Don't take for granted that anything that your used to in Windows can be done in Mac in the same way.

Moom has fixed my window resizing problem with OS X. Try it :)
 
Could be anything from "no effort at all" to "impossible" depending on how much of a pillock you are.
 
Easier than going from Windows 7 to Windows 8, imo.

Agreed.

I switched to OSX about 3 years ago after being happy with the simplicity and "cleanness" of using iOS (iPhone). Took a week or so to really get the hang of it, but just like anything else, I'm still learning little tricks here and there. I still use windows at work, so I also agree that you don't want to forget how to use it if you ever see the possibility of working somewhere with it. I use Windows at my office, and also have Win8 on bootcamp just for "fun"..
 
I just ordered a 15" Haswell rMBP, 2.3GHz, 16GB, 512GB SSD, 750M from Amazon this morning and it will get here tomorrow. I have an iPhone and iPad but have never owned a Mac computer. I'm looking forward to learning the new OS. I still have my Win 7 gaming PC but this will be for everything else.

Can't wait. :D

Jim

I'm about to order same configuration on amazon too and I'm worried. It says it has the Iris graphics card. Doesn't mention the dedicated gpu.

Apple MacBook Pro ME294LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION)
http://amzn.com/B0096VD85I
 
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I'm about to order same configuration on amazon too and I'm worried. It says it has the Iris graphics card. Doesn't mention the dedicated gpu.

Apple MacBook Pro ME294LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop with Retina Display (NEWEST VERSION)
http://amzn.com/B0096VD85I

If you scroll down into the body of the description it shows it having the 750 card in it. I hesitated at first but as soon as I looked a little closer it was in my cart and on the way. :D

Jim
 
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I, too, use PDFs a lot. Scrolling through them with a Magic Pad is a revelation.

I used PCs from 1984 :eek: to March of this year. My iMac was daunting at first, but I'll never go back. I agree that 4-6 weeks is about the time frame for conversion.

My 27" display is breathtaking.
 
Easier than going from Windows 7 to Windows 8, imo.

definitely agreed!

I did the switch 3 years ago and kick myself for not doing it sooner. OS X is pretty intuitive, I was lost for about an hour or so...after a few days, I got pretty comfortable. I put Win 7 on bootcamp because I was afraid I would lose functionality. Funny, I cannot remember the last time I booted into bootcamp now.

I think it was more of the shock "Wow, it does what I want it to do", rather than the other way around.
 
I was a PC user for years before switching to Mac. It took no time to get used to, I found OS much more intuitive. I will never go back to a PC for personal use. That said, I am truly "bilingual". I use a PC all day at work. I switch between the two seamlessly and don't even consciously notice the difference.
 
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