So... Just made the switch to Mac

[BadApple11]

And to be honest... a little bit disappointed. I was going through an internal struggle of whether to buy a MacBook Air or a Surface Pro, and although I feel like I made the right choice I still feel somewhat cheated. Somehow Apple has been able to completely suck the joy out of purchasing a new computer. With Windows, customization is the name of the game, but the Mac OS offers almost zero customization without disabling SIP (For instance, I spent an hour changing 12 app icons last night). I had always thought Apple was on the forefront of design and creativity, and now I've come to realize I'm just as stifled as a 16-year old in Vegas. While I appreciate the nuances of Sierra, I wish there was a better way to fight the monotony... My heart hurts knowing that I'm just another back-lit apple in the lecture hall without any real way to express myself without the use of external skins or caffeine driven system file modifications.

Your thoughts??? Perhaps I've overlooked some easy customization as I'm new to Apple. I love this computer, and would love to be a Fan Boy, but really?... WTF?

 

[keysofanxiety]

If customising icons and changing mouse pointers is a high priority for you, macOS probably wasn't the right choice. You're meant to just... work on it.

Best return it and buy a Surface Pro or a Surface Book. Or install Win 10 on your Mac.

 

[Steve121178]

What do you want to customise?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Icons aren't anywhere near the top of my priorities with my computers. However, I will say that it seems like the ones I use most of the time on my Macs are blue, which is annoying.

 

[fisherking]

download https://freemacsoft.net/liteicon/ (with SIP disabled, just until u change icons). check out apps like bartender, cdock. then get on with it (or just go with the surface pro).

either OS will get u to the same places (your work, the web, email). some of us just prefer the mac world..

 

[elf69]

Im quite newish to mac myself.
Even with windows i never modified my icons just used what it came with.

Mac is great as dont need a power house just to run windows.
seen windows 10 kill many machines.
A friends ultrabook took 5 mins to boot with ten, rolled back to 8.1 now 31 seconds!

mac osx is awesome and I am never going back.
However I do have a 7 starter netbook for the few things I cant do with mac

 

[stooovie]

The biggest mistake of Mac newcomers is trying to make OSX look and feel like Windows. It never will, and it's THE reason you rob yourself of niceties of OSX. Like a friend of mine, a recent convert, just plugged an old wheel mouse to her new Macbook out of sheer habit, completely bypassing the innumerable joys of the trackpad. I've talked her out of it and she's happy and in awe how nice it is.

TLDR: don't bend your Mac into PC.

 

[KALLT]

TLDR: don't bend your Mac into PC.

Agreed. The Windows mindset is the most challenging aspect to overcome. I hope the OP did not pay the full price for the MacBook Air, with new MacBooks imminent.

 

[BadApple11]

Agreed. The Windows mindset is the most challenging aspect to overcome. I hope the OP did not pay the full price for the MacBook Air, with new MacBooks imminent.

Fair enough everyone. I do really enjoy the Mac but I guess is just need to buy into it a little bit more. And no Kallt, I did my homework.

 

[Scorned]

Embrace the suck.

I was a diehard Windows IT guy, until I got a job at an all Mac Company.

Had to force myself to tolerate it.

One month after, I emptied my home of all of my pc windows stuff and went Mac. I use boot camp when gaming and it is flawless.

Missing Windows is like breaking up with a wild girlfriend. You miss her, but she was all wrong for you.

Good luck

 

[leman]

OS X never offered any noteworthy customisation options (and I must add, I'm truly thankful for that!). Its not really a secret though, you should have researched it better If you want customisation, Linux is probably your best choice.

P.S. Funny fact — actually, some 'customisation' was introduced in 10.10. Because many parts of the UI are translucent and take on the tone of the background, changing the desktop wallpaper allows you to subtly modify the overall UI apperiance. Also, they have introduced a quite nice theme API — this is how light/dark modes are implemented.

 

[nkarafo]

Hello. I was a 20+ years pc dos / windows owner and I am glad that I switched to mac. In the beginning, I was not so happy regarding the customisations, etc as you wrote BUT you can actually customise many things. You have terminal which is like registry in windows and you can change many settings / parameters, etc. For example you can allow all the third party apps, you can change keyboard delay as you type and many more. You can search in google many stuff and I have find almost everything that I wanted. You can also install xtrafinder which is better than finder original but we are waiting for an update for sierra compatiblity.
I believe that after a while you will start to like mac because you will realise that it isn't like windows where after a while, it starts to be with lag, slow to start, etc.
I have an imac from December 2015 and I have installed more than 30 apps. Now it is like new, like I first bought it. Maybe some 5 seconds later than when it first boot but overall I am satisfied. I like also the good memory usage and I don't have problems with the apps, memory drain, etc.
Mac os is a frustrating operating system - e.g. I cannot find a way to put icons of copy, cut, paste in finder / xtrafinder which I was using a lot in windows, when I switch from one input language to another it forgets the caps (?!?) for an unknown reason but overall is very good for work. If you don't play games, it's a good system.

 

[mildocjr]

You could have saved yourself a lot of money and a lot of time. The OS type you are looking for can be found here and here.

Mac OS is for production work. The way Apple sees customization is that it is distracting, pro users will never use it, and having OS based customization options detracts from the creative flow of artists/designers.

To be completely honest, the best time to switch was 10 years ago.

 

[nkarafo]

Mac Switch
Nintendo Switch
Coincidental.

 

[halfbad]

I think the thing to understand is Mac has a visual language to it both in hardware and software and although you can customize with some effort. The down side is you lose the coherence of it, and also remember when there are time when apple updates the Icons reflect those updates for a reason.

Like two different versions of Keynote, or Adobe icons etc...

I think the mindset shift you have to understand is that you do stuff WITH your Mac, and that is the greatest result. Doing stuff TO your computer, customizing etc.. is a not what it is best for.

I like to think of it like cars, maybe your used to buying cars you can modify to express yourself, and tweak for fun. And you spend time doing that.

Where are Mac you putting a degree of purchase trust in knowing they built a fine car with reasons behind it and it's nice to enjoy the ride, and do more driving.

Live with it for awhile and see how you like it. It's much of a mindset difference, which is partly why you buy Mac. Just like PC.

 

[Appleuser4life60077]

I will never go back to windows or android since switching to Mac and an iPhone and iPad. Apple's os is just so much more user friendly and it just works across all three devices. thinking about getting an Apple Watch to go along with my other 3 apple products.

 

[Savor]

i just switched to it four days ago after studying phone reviews for months and months all for naught. I kinda love mines. The best decision for me. It was either "13 MBA 2015 or PS4 slim with a few hundred dollars worth of PSN cards and glad I went with the MBA because long battery life and has its own screen. Plus, my ASUS hangs on me almost every time I turn it on. Good to have backups for each device. I also own three tablets now and barely use any of them.

I do agree somewhat with the OP. Been on Windows PC for nearly 20 years and still not familiar navigating with Macs and also it can't open ESPN being a flash site. I got so used to the double click and the right click. Renaming files and moving them seems so much easier with Windows or perhaps I am just so used to it. I only downloaded two programs for it. Android File Transfer and Transmission. The former is kinda a hassle since my Windows can recognize my phones but it works. The latter is quite awesome! I used uTorrent on Windows and it kinda sucks.

Most important gadget -
Smartphone
Computer
Tablet

Most Functional -
Macs
iPads
iPhones

Yes, I prefer iPads over iPhone models because they have way better multi-window features even though tablets are generally an artificial need and added accessory. But iPhones are the most popular because smartphones are the most important gadgets to own and the installment plans. Apple loves to sell more mobile devices which is why they ignored Macs for years and years.

Again, kinda love my MBA -

+ Beautiful, iconic design that doesn't smudge like matte black iPhone 7/7+
+ Long battery life
+ Charges fast (estimated 50 minutes to 90 minutes)
+ Transmission (no torrents for iPhone except if you jailbreak it)
+ Fast transfers with simple drag and drop
+ Doesn't get hot unlike phones or my old Sony VAIO
+ I love seeing my name on the screensaver
+ I love how quickly it boots up and doesn't lose much battery % while closed

While it isn't the most popular product line from Apple (7% marketshare), it is becoming my favorite from them and find it to be far more useful. All these arguments about Samsung vs Apple smartphones when I find neither one satisfactory. I like Samsung for TVs and Apple for computers. The rest is just noise from fanboys.

 

[KALLT]

Been on Windows PC for nearly 20 years and still not familiar navigating with Macs and also it can't open ESPN being a flash site. I got so used to the double click and the right click. Renaming files and moving them seems so much easier with Windows or perhaps I am just so used to it.

I don’t really understand these points. Adobe Flash exists for Safari as well. Double-clicking and right-clicking works in much the same way, although you have to enable the right-click in System Preferences → Mouse first. What is different about renaming and moving files?

 

[nkarafo]

I do agree somewhat with the OP. Been on Windows PC for nearly 20 years and still not familiar navigating with Macs and also it can't open ESPN being a flash site. I got so used to the double click and the right click. Renaming files and moving them seems so much easier with Windows or perhaps I am just so used to it.

You could also use xtrafinder where you can configure it to open a folder with enter and rename as windows. I have done it myself. I have also configure the F6 button to be as a "F2" rename in windows. You have plenty of options.

 

[hdthu]

I have been using rMBP for three years, kind of disappointed. Mac OS becomes less reliable while Win10 is getting better.

 

[nkarafo]

I have been using rMBP for three years, kind of disappointed. Mac OS becomes less reliable while Win10 is getting better.

Can you please be more specific? I have used windows 10 but I couldn't work under this interface. It's ugly. Windows 7 by the way are the best windows and I dislike when they change all the time the interface and the functions. You cannot also change the firewall / antivirus and this stupidity about sending your personal data to M$ is not good at all (and you cannot change it either). Still mac os has benefits like the programs are somehow portables where you don't need to install them except some very few programs eg Photoshop and it has way better memory usage vs windows. For games, yes windows are indeed the best choice but for programs I believe mac os is very good.

 

[agaskew]

Can you please be more specific? I have used windows 10 but I couldn't work under this interface. It's ugly. Windows 7 by the way are the best windows and I dislike when they change all the time the interface and the functions. You cannot also change the firewall / antivirus and this stupidity about sending your personal data to M$ is not good at all (and you cannot change it either). Still mac os has benefits like the programs are somehow portables where you don't need to install them except some very few programs eg Photoshop and it has way better memory usage vs windows. For games, yes windows are indeed the best choice but for programs I believe mac os is very good.

What do you mean "You cannot also change the firewall / antivirus" ? There are any number of alternative AV/Firewall solutions available.

What makes you think your Mac is not sending data about you to Apple? Of course it is.

 

[SoYoung]

For me its the opposite. Last spring I switched to the mac when I was a lifetime PC user (I'm 37 years old). I switched to the mac because I have an iPhone and iPad since many years so I wanted to have everything in the same ecosystem.

Honestly I was surprised that I can do almost anything I did on Windows plus I like the trackpad so much better. I love retro games, I play a lot of them on my PC so on the mac I was surprised how easy it was with openEmu and configure my PS4 controller. What I like so far on my mac is how far simple it is to just work. Plus I love the bonus to SMS my friends directly on my mac or answer phone calls.

The only thing I realy miss from Windows is current games. I installed steam on my mac and I can play some of my past purchased games but still, Windows is the operating system to have if I want to play more games so thats why I will install Windows 10 with bootcamp in a near future strictly for games I can't play on my macOS, Everything else, I'm very pleased with my purchase.

 

[agaskew]

I have been using rMBP for three years, kind of disappointed. Mac OS becomes less reliable while Win10 is getting better.

After switching to OS X seven years ago, and having 4 different Apple laptops, I finally gave up with it. The OS has many great features and capabilities, but it is IMO slowly getting worse. Each new version of OS X brings features I don't want or need, breaks stuff and starts to look more and more childish ("Magic Toolbar" indeed!). Apple seem hell bent on trying harder and harder to sell me their locked-in world, but I have zero interest in iCloud, Apple pay or iOS, any more than I want to be locked in to Microsoft or Google.
Windows 10 absolutely flies on my rMBP which remains a great computer. It isn't perfect but it is evolving mostly in a direction that suits me - Ubuntu and a proper shell on Windows is another reason not to use OS X. Apologies if anyone is offended!

 

[nkarafo]

What do you mean "You cannot also change the firewall / antivirus" ? There are any number of alternative AV/Firewall solutions available.

What makes you think your Mac is not sending data about you to Apple? Of course it is.

I cannot double check it now because I don't have 10 installed but I have heard that when you disable its firewall and then reboot, it stays enabled again. It doesn't let you keep it disabled. Maybe its the same for antivirus but I'm not sure. As far Apple, in system preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy you can select if you want to send diagnostics & usage data or crash data with app developers. I have these check boxes disabled. I don't know if it indeed send other data but it seems that our files have not been sending to them for analysis, etc. In windows from what I know you cannot disable from sending data to Microsoft.