My introduction to Apple gear was a used Quadra. What a joke. I enjoyed playing with it but it wasn't very useful. Meanwhile, I was having so much trouble with all the windows boxes that I started using Linux for file servers and loved the stability. They only rebooted for power failures and kernel updates. I was duly impressed. When OS X came out and I found out it had Unix underneath, I got a Mac Mini. It wasn't my main machine, but I used it remotely from my Windows and Linux boxes via VNC. As time went on, I found that the tinkering I had to do with Linux wasn't needed on OS X. I also found that I never ever had to fix something that suddenly stopped working. The die was cast and as soon as I could afford it, I replaced all the windows boxes in the house with Macs. I had all the customization I could ever want if I wanted to bother with Terminal but I found I really could live with the OS as delivered from Apple.
Moving to Apple gear was the beginning of my transition from computer tinkerer to computer user. Sure I can still tinker if I choose to, but I find it is not a priority for me right now. So I have a handful of Linux boxes still around, half a dozen Macs and no windows boxes for which I am responsible.
I still have 2 windows boxes to put up with. My work issued win 7 craptop and my daughter's school mandated windows 7 craplet. Both are less reliable than any of our Macs and that pretty win 7 interface is like putting lipstick on a pig. Are all 3 OSs reliable? Yes, to a certain extent. But if I had to rank them, I'd place OS X at the top, Linux in the middle and Win 7 at the bottom. Despite the fact that today's bottom is not as low as it once was (Vista
), Apple gear still outshines anything running software out of Redmond, Wa.
Here is one specific example. On my win 7 work pc desktop is a clock widget. It stops telling time. Can you believe it? A clock gadget written and distributed by Microsoft can not tell the freaking time?!? The conventional wisdom on the 'net is to close and restart the clock because IE 8 interferes with gadgets. Let's see. A web browser written by the company that wrote the OS causes something else in the OS to stop working. K can't help but be reminded of the design of mechanical clocks. We have a several decades old grandfather clock with a westminster movement that predates automatic pendulum regulation. Moving the clock always leads to several days of tinkering with the movement. This is like Windows. Meanwhile a modified westminster movement is now available that automatically sets the pendulum. This is like OS X. From the behavior of the clock gadget, and other quirks I have witnessed, I have come to the conclusion that underneath all that fancy Win 7 aero appearance, other horrors lurk that can trace their roots all the way back to windows 3.11 for workgroups. I've had way more than enough.
In the end, the question of whether you made the right decision buying a Mac boils down to whether or not it can run the software you need it to run. There is still a lot more variety in Windows software but I have found OS X paid and freeware more than meets my needs. If you find you need a windows box for some reason, it will work "well enough", but if you are tired of "good enough" and want to experience software written by a company that understands "end to end" user experience, OS X is a pleasant upgrade and like me, you'll probably never look back.
