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How to convince Dad to "go Mac."

M

meawanderer99

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 2, 2009
6
0
My Dad is an old stick in the mud. He's 67 and has a crappy PC :eek: and has been having problems with it recently (big surprise). It's slow as *bleep*, and he has had virus/spyware problems too.

I'm trying to convince him to switch to Mac like me, but he'll have none of it. "Blah blah blah, I don't know how to use those things, blah blah blah..."

He just blows it off and doesn't even consider it.

I try to tell him how much more user friendly Macs are, how the risk of viruses and spyware are very low, and how much easier they are to use. Doesn't work.

The city he lives in has an Apple store and I've told him if he ever has questions, he can just go there and have an appointment with one of the geniuses. I've even told him they also have FREE classes and workshops he can take.

"Blah blah blah, I don't want to learn that new stuff, I'm used to my PC, blah blah blah..."

Any ideas? How can I get the old fart to switch? One worry I have is that someday some virus or spyware on his crappy PC is going to result in identity theft. Thanks.
 
meawanderer99 said:
My Dad is an old stick in the mud. He's 67 and has a crappy PC :eek: and has been having problems with it recently (big surprise). It's slow as *bleep*, and he has had virus/spyware problems too.

I'm trying to convince him to switch to Mac like me, but he'll have none of it. "Blah blah blah, I don't know how to use those things, blah blah blah..."

He just blows it off and doesn't even consider it.

I try to tell him how much more user friendly Macs are, how the risk of viruses and spyware are very low, and how much easier they are to use. Doesn't work.

The city he lives in has an Apple store and I've told him if he ever has questions, he can just go there and have an appointment with one of the geniuses. I've even told him they also have FREE classes and workshops he can take.

"Blah blah blah, I don't want to learn that new stuff, I'm used to my PC, blah blah blah..."

Any ideas? How can I get the old fart to switch? One worry I have is that someday some virus or spyware on his crappy PC is going to result in identity theft. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Well I have that problem to. I just have been using stuff I know Windowa does not have and show him that I know he will like. After about a year and a half he says he might change after Vista sucks
 
meawanderer99 said:
My Dad is an old stick in the mud. He's 67 and has a crappy PC :eek: and has been having problems with it recently (big surprise). It's slow as *bleep*, and he has had virus/spyware problems too.

I'm trying to convince him to switch to Mac like me, but he'll have none of it. "Blah blah blah, I don't know how to use those things, blah blah blah..."

He just blows it off and doesn't even consider it.

I try to tell him how much more user friendly Macs are, how the risk of viruses and spyware are very low, and how much easier they are to use. Doesn't work.

The city he lives in has an Apple store and I've told him if he ever has questions, he can just go there and have an appointment with one of the geniuses. I've even told him they also have FREE classes and workshops he can take.

"Blah blah blah, I don't want to learn that new stuff, I'm used to my PC, blah blah blah..."

Any ideas? How can I get the old fart to switch? One worry I have is that someday some virus or spyware on his crappy PC is going to result in identity theft. Thanks.
Click to expand...

But it for him as a gift, God knows he deserves it....:D
 
I convinced my dad to go mac for his business. Unfortunately he now runs Vista on it :eek:
 
meawanderer99;8477278"Blah blah blah said:
If he constantly asking you to fix his machine that is an argument. Otherwise, respect his wishes as I hope he respects yours. The world could use more tolerance. Best wishes.
Click to expand...
 
I've had the same problem and now he's going to be a switcher soon. Just keep telling him every time something goes wrong with his PC.. "Get a Mac, it's easier!" and he'll eventually get one. It's what I done.
 
Have you considered that its not a high enough priority to spend money on a new computer?
 
Once Windows 7 roles out bring him to a store and show him Windows 7 and Office 2007. It will be so different from what he thinks Windows should look and act like that he may just say to heck with it and buy a Mac.

Other than that I would leave it be.
 
I convinced my ex girlfriends father by telling him his Porn would load WAY faster and without those pesky viruses slowing the Porn down.

Just sayin'
 
Get him a better PC so its faster and teach him the basics of how not to get spyware/virus.

If he doesn't want a Mac don't force him to get one. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't use his PC for anything "extreme".
 
MasterDev said:
I convinced my ex girlfriends father by telling him his Porn would load WAY faster and without those pesky viruses slowing the Porn down.

Just sayin'
Click to expand...

bow.gif
 
My answer? Take him to an Apple Store and give him the total immersion treatment.

Check apple.com/retail, find your closest store, and look at the list of the FREE in store workshops. Every store does them, in my experience with my parents/grandparents, most stores multiple times per day.

Sign him up for the Getting Started Hands-on Workshop. He will be blown away by a few things. 1. It's free. 2. You don't have to be an owner to attend it. 3. They will carefully guide him through all the different basics of the Mac and OS X.

Schedule a personal shopping appointment for him and go with him, but let the specialist do their job, chime in when you feel you need to, but let them do their thing, most of them will do great. Show him around the store, explain that if he has a problem there is support right in the store at the genius bar. Best of all he can get one-to-one to learn how to use his mac in the store as often as he wants! Plus they'll transfer his data from his old pc if he needs it and give him a little intro session that shows him where it went.

I just went through this with some family. Apple did a great job and now I have a lot less of a headache.
 
I know posting this in a mac thread asking how to make a 67 year old switch is a bad idea but this is a great deal if money is an issue.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9999116300050009&type=product&id=pcmprd116400050009

It's amazing what you can get on the pc side for > $600.

Of course, vista isnt exactly windows xp or 2000 or 98 or 95 or 3.1 (not sure what he's using now, im guessing xp) but you can make it look like xp and act close to that.

Also, you could lend him your mac for a couple of days (just make a new account and dont make it admin) and you should be pretty safe as long as he actually uses it. Make it a game or a bet or at least show him some of the cool things a mac can do. A 67 year old doesn't care about security features or crap like that, but he may like ichat features or iphoto or even imovie features. Heck, you can spend hours in photobooth if you have the right filters. Have him video chat with you, get him involved and he will see why the cost difference is more of an investment worth making.

Things like expose are nice but dont bother with spaces (too foreign from pc side), also, snow leopard dock behaves more like the taskbar now anyway so that may help. You can mention how ichat makes it easy for you to help with problems ala screen sharing but again, it all depends on his interest. He's probably a net junkie so letting him know the web browser is fully compatible with most sites (except those hard coded for ie nowadays) may help.

It would help to know what his interests are and how he uses a computer to really make a decent judgement. For some people a windows box is just as good as a mac if they're just using it as a portal to the net throw some good antivirus (not norton) on there, remove the trialware and use firefox (though ie8 has gotten better).

Good luck to you.
 
Let him use one? That's the best way. Just show him the stuff he normally does on your Mac, and he will probably like it more.
 
Just convinced my dad today and it wasnt easy. it took me a few weeks and today he bought his first mac :)

He constantly had issued with his pc and saw how laid back i am on my mac and never have any issues, plus i brainwashed him a little too..
first its the os.
 
just keep plugging away, i've converted my sister months ago, just been working on me mum the last few months, she's got this crappy ancient laptop windows based naturally,just be patient yet persistant, everytime my mum boots her laptop up her face says she wants a Mac but she's never said it yet, although when she used my G5 she complained it was slow :O ( specs in siggy ) so i dont know what she was trying to do but, yeah just keep at it haha anythings possible ;)
 
Keep reminding Dad every time he has to spend half a day or more reinstalling XP and his programs.

My septuagenarian, great depression survivor Dad got so fed up with the twice/thrice a year reinstall on my old xp desktop that he actually went down to a local computer reseller and bought a last gen 12" ibook for $220. He hasn't looked back since.

If you're the one who is having to drop what you're doing and perform emergency IT on his windows system, it may be in your best interest to pony up the money for a used system.
 
Mac N Tosh said:
But it for him as a gift, God knows he deserves it....:D
Click to expand...

I tried this with my Mum. Got sick of getting spyware infested email ("But the Incredimail icons are just so sweet"!!) and having to remotely support her crappy Windows machine that I bought her an iMac, set it up, got it working on her network and told her she couldn't email me from her PC anymore and not to ask me to support it now that I'd given her a Mac.

She doesn't email me anymore, she's found a local guy she pays beer money to clean up her PC once a month and the iMac is gathering dust.

You can lead a horse to water...
 
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