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Made the switch to the darkside

Fernandez21

Fernandez21

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jun 16, 2010
4,840
3,183
Well, I did it. Just ordered my first Mac, an 11" ultimate air! Pretty good deal, $1,660 after tax and expedited shipping plus the $100 iTunes card. Should be here next wed., this is going to be the longest week of life!

One question, I have my iPhone and iPad synced up with my Dell laptop which the MacBook air will replace. How do I go about transferring everything over to the Mac withought having to resync the devices? On windows I just copied the whole folder over, will this also work with a Mac, or do I have to do some sort of conversion? Thanks, I'm really excited!
 
Fernandez21 said:
Well, I did it. Just ordered my first Mac, an 11" ultimate air! Pretty good deal, $1,660 after tax and expedited shipping plus the $100 iTunes card. Should be here next wed., this is going to be the longest week of life!

One question, I have my iPhone and iPad synced up with my Dell laptop which the MacBook air will replace. How do I go about transferring everything over to the Mac withought having to resync the devices? On windows I just copied the whole folder over, will this also work with a Mac, or do I have to do some sort of conversion? Thanks, I'm really excited!
Click to expand...
Yep, just copy over your content and library and map it in iTunes.
 
KPOM said:
True. I thought this was going to be another rant about how bad Lion is and how the OP is switching to Windows 7.
Click to expand...

Is that actually happening (serious question)? I am like the OP, just ordered my first Mac (MBA 13, i5) and it's supposed to arrive tomorrow and I'm coming from Windows 7. I love Win7 and it will be a slight adjustment period but I thought people loved this new Lion OS?
 
rayjay86 said:
Is that actually happening (serious question)? I am like the OP, just ordered my first Mac (MBA 13, i5) and it's supposed to arrive tomorrow and I'm coming from Windows 7. I love Win7 and it will be a slight adjustment period but I thought people loved this new Lion OS?
Click to expand...

It depends on who you ask. Go onto the Lion messageboards here and there are some "Lion is Apple's Vista"-type threads. On the whole, though I think it is a decent upgrade, and most of the reviews have been favorable.

The issue is that it changes the UI from what people were used to in earlier versions of OS X. Not radically, but enough where people can tell the differences (the reverse scrolling mechanism, for example, and the new Launchpad and Mission Control features that replaced similar features in previous versions). Snow Leopard and Windows 7 had actually gotten pretty close in terms of UI convention. Lion diverges a bit, but I think Windows 8 will be just as significant a shift for Microsoft, so we'll see where they wind up. Lion also broke compatibility for older applications written for the PowerPC Macs (anything before 2006).

That said, as someone new to Macs, you'll be fine. You won't have any old Mac applications that no longer run, for instance, and there's a little bit of a learning curve from Windows 7 to either Snow Leopard or Lion, so it will all be new to you, anyway. It takes a few days to get used to OS X (any version) from Windows. Things like using the CMD key instead of the CTRL key, for instance, or learning the trackpad equivalent to the right mouse button, for example.

On the whole, I think you'll like the MacBook Air and Lion experiences.
 
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From someone that just made the switch...I'll say if using Lion on a desktop, I'd hate it!

But with an 11" MBA it works great! I love all the gestures.

My only complaint is I always use the control c,x,v keys on windows to cut,copy,paste and I can't get used to command because it's harder to hit at the same time.
 
rlu929s said:
From someone that just made the switch...I'll say if using Lion on a desktop, I'd hate it!

But with an 11" MBA it works great! I love all the gestures.
Click to expand...
There's a reason all the Lion advertising showed it on the MacBook Air.

rlu929s said:
My only complaint is I always use the control c,x,v keys on windows to cut,copy,paste and I can't get used to command because it's harder to hit at the same time.
Click to expand...

Funny. Now that I'm used to it, I hate using CTRL on my Windows notebook at the office since I find it easier to use the CMD key (it's closer to the c, x, and v keys).
 
rlu929s said:
From someone that just made the switch...I'll say if using Lion on a desktop, I'd hate it!

But with an 11" MBA it works great! I love all the gestures.
Click to expand...

I will have to disagree with you there, somewhat. Using a Magic Trackpad on my iMac, interfacing with Lion is a better user experience than any other OS I have used. I don't use Mission Control too much except to organize my spaces, but I like organizing my applications into spaces, and the 3-finger swipe lets me flick between apps faster than I could with a keyboard or a Start Bar. Lauchpad is actually very usable with a trackpad, but I can understand all the people saying it is useless with a mouse. A trackpad really is necessary to really get all the juice out of Lion, but I think it was worth it.

Even the "Natural" scrolling felt natural to me after a day. As again though, if you have a desktop, you kind of need the Trackpad.

Only gripe is not letting me statically set the order of my spaces without turning off "organize spaces by recent use" and launching apps in a specific order
 
Mousing is more pin-point accurate. All this swiping here and there isn't for everyone. A Macworld writer's take on Lion is that Apple is making the Mac operating system more IOS-like so that new adoptees, just like the OP, won't feel strange in the new land of Mac, given that they might have been exposed to IOS devices leading to interest in the Mac.
 
clyde2801 said:
Welcome. Let me pour you your first glass of kool-aid....:D
Click to expand...

*slurp, slurp* mmmmmm, that's pretty good!

It's funny, I used to not like apple very much, and I still have some problems with the way they lock stuff out, but man do they make some awesome hardware.

From the moment i saw the 11" last year in person, i was hooked on the form factor and told myself my next computer would be like this, didnt purchase it last year because it wouldve been a step down from my current computer, but after the update it's really only missing two features, a dedicated gpu and more storage (I currently have 320gb and it's full).

But the pc makers have all gone to crap, trying to emulate hp's success of making cheap computers, the only one still making good pc's is Sony, but they are way over priced.

That dang iPhone was my gateway drug to the land apple. OSx is my only concern in making the switch, most people who made the switch didn't like windows, but I actually really like windows 7, and thanks to other people on this board showing me hyper dock which brings my favorite feature of windows 7 over lion. And I actually really like the gesture from playing around with it at the apple store, so hopefully it's a smooth transition.
 
imahawki said:
Yep, just copy over your content and library and map it in iTunes.
Click to expand...

Sweet thanks, just to verify, if I do this this when I go sync my iPhone with my new air it won't give me the message that the iPhone had been sync with another computer and that I would lose all my info and resync with the new computer, Ruhr?
 
Fernandez21 said:
Sweet thanks, just to verify, if I do this this when I go sync my iPhone with my new air it won't give me the message that the iPhone had been sync with another computer and that I would lose all my info and resync with the new computer, Ruhr?
Click to expand...

Not if you copy the library file over. Good luck!
 
Fernandez21 said:
*slurp, slurp* mmmmmm, that's pretty good!

It's funny, I used to not like apple very much, and I still have some problems with the way they lock stuff out, but man do they make some awesome hardware.

From the moment i saw the 11" last year in person, i was hooked on the form factor and told myself my next computer would be like this, didnt purchase it last year because it wouldve been a step down from my current computer, but after the update it's really only missing two features, a dedicated gpu and more storage (I currently have 320gb and it's full).

But the pc makers have all gone to crap, trying to emulate hp's success of making cheap computers, the only one still making good pc's is Sony, but they are way over priced.

That dang iPhone was my gateway drug to the land apple. OSx is my only concern in making the switch, most people who made the switch didn't like windows, but I actually really like windows 7, and thanks to other people on this board showing me hyper dock which brings my favorite feature of windows 7 over lion. And I actually really like the gesture from playing around with it at the apple store, so hopefully it's a smooth transition.
Click to expand...

Best advice I can give after being a new convert (well nearly a year now) is that forget what you already know about computers and go into this with an open mind.

Don't compare it with windows. Imagine its you first ever computer and enjoy.
 
Right, you just move over all of your files in your music folder to the new Mac. If you have your music in "My Music" (or whatever your music folder in Windows is named) and it's where you have your Windows version of iTunes pointed, just copy all of the contents of that folder to the "Music" folder in iTunes. Then go to iTunes and point it to that folder in iTunes Preferences and all your music, ringtones, and media will show up in iTunes. This will include your iPhone backups and iTunes won't go into the "can't sync with another Library" stuff. It should just work.


The only thing that might be missing are the firmware .ipsw files used in a restore. Nothing to worry about there though. If you need to do a restore, iTunes will just re-download these when needed.
 
rlu929s said:
From someone that just made the switch...I'll say if using Lion on a desktop, I'd hate it!

But with an 11" MBA it works great! I love all the gestures.

My only complaint is I always use the control c,x,v keys on windows to cut,copy,paste and I can't get used to command because it's harder to hit at the same time.
Click to expand...

Its harder at first, but once you get used to it its a pain to use control (your thumb has to reach further).

Fernandez21 said:
*slurp, slurp* mmmmmm, that's pretty good!

It's funny, I used to not like apple very much, and I still have some problems with the way they lock stuff out
Click to expand...

You'll see soon enough this is one of the biggest myths with Mac OS. Apple doesn't lock anything out except for some hardware, and thats simply for stability. One of the reasons Mac OS is so stable is because its designed to work with a limited set of hardware that has been thoroughly tested on it.
 
I hope you don't mind me piggybacking onto this thread..

Similarly, I recently bought my first MBP and have stumbled upon some snags in terms of syncing my iPhone and iPad2 to it.. I want to use it as my primary computer now but I am receiving the same messages that it will delete the current data on the two devices..

I opted for a smaller SSD MBP and carry with me a large capacity external HDD for photo, videos and music files.. I dumped all of my songs there and have since made iTunes library read off of it when it is connected.. However, I am having trouble with my apps, iBooks, etc..

How would I go about basically copying my Windows iTunes experience over onto my MBP/external HDD.. I want to be able to remove myself from the desktop completely and this would aide in that process greatly..

Keep in mind, I'm a new to this OS environment and a simple, break-down would be great.. Thank you and I'm happy to have made the switch!

It's been a long time coming!
 
Its here! I finally got it today, and it is awesome. I honestly don't see how they were able to fit all of this in just a small and thin package, while still keeping it this stiff, there is no creaking or flexing, its rock solid.

First impressions are the screen is beautiful, very sharp and easy to read for the most part. I do see some of that text blurring others have stated, but it only seems to be apparent on certain fonts and colors, so it doesn't seem to be that big a deal. This thing is quick too, and the graphics seem more solid? than windows, i'm not sure if thats the correct way to describe it. Its also very quite. The gestures are also great, I kinda wish there were more for say switching windows, minimizing and full screen as well.

Things I kinda already miss from windows - Window previews. I downloaded hyper dock which does a really good job of brining this feature over, but it still doesn't have everything windows had. If I open several tabs in safari, when I hover over the icon to get the preview, it only shows on screen, in windows every tab would have its own screen. Another thing that will take some getting used to is the menus are not attached to the windows, but rather the status (?) bar along the top. Also there is no page up, page down, home, and end keys. Other than that, so far i'm very pleased.

P.S. no sir, I don't ming being hijacked..... the thread I mean.
 
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