switching for a newcomer

[grudz]

Hi,

I was ready to buy a new PC but a friend suggested I look at a Mac, now the reason I never thought about it was the whole conversion (since most of the ppl I know own a PC), but the more I look at the 24", the more I definitly want it. I will go to an apple store near my house tomorow, but I'm always afraid to talk to a rep since I know his job is to try to sell me something instead of telling me the truth.

So anyway, I would like to know what to expect before I fork over 2400$ for the 24".

1) I am not a huge gamer, but I still would want to play, is the problem that the iMac isnt powerfull for games, or that the games wont run properly on a Mac.

2) What about programs like WORD and EXCEL, i heard there is are alternatives for a MAC, but like i said, everybody i know has a PC and if i need to give them a .doc file, I dont want to have a problem. I understand that for most programs (dreamweaver, flash, photoshop) there might be a compatibility problem also?

3) What are the other general issues that a newcomer to Mac (like me) might find out once he purchases it?

4) I read that you can basically run Windows on a Mac, which sounds great, but is it recommended? I read that if i really want to play games, i can simply switch to a windows platform and play....is it that simple?

Like I said, I am 100% ready to switch to Mac, it will take something pretty drastic for me to stick to a PC, but I would still like to be ready before hand.

Im sorry if this is like the millionth time you answer this question, but from most of the threads i read, you guys really help out.

Thank you
(hopefully a new mac user soon)

 

[wordmunger]

1. Many games only come out for windows, or if a Mac (please not MAC) version is created, it comes out many months later. However, if you have a windows CD, you can install windows on your Mac and play all the latest games.

2. You won't have problems exchanging MS office files between macs and PCs as long as you put the proper extensions on the filenames (.doc, .xls, etc. Macs don't need them, but PCs do). I've never heard of compatibility problems with those other apps.

3. I can't think of any right now. But I'm sure if you search around the forums you can find some other issues. If you have problems, you can always ask for help here or on the very good apple.com support boards.

4. Yep. You do have to reboot the computer when you switch OSs, but that won't be true in the future. There's a whole subforum here on Windows on the Mac, so again, if you need help, you know where to look.

 

[grudz]

sorry for the MAC (i edited the question for Mac)

 

[grudz]

http://www.macintouch.com/imacintel/review.html

read the "conclusion" for the incompatibilities issues....that is why i asked the question

 

[mkrishnan]

The rosetta issue isn't an "incompatibility" issue. It's more that applications running under Rosetta will run more slowly than comparable applications written in native binary, and will require more memory than comparable applications in native binary. This issue affects all the Adobe products at this time, as well as Microsoft Office, and some other applications....

 

[grudz]

ok...so basically there is no real reason to stick with a PC, Mac (not MAC) seems like the way to go.....damn that 24-inch looks great.....

Another thing i just thought of....what about programs that i download through the web (like limewire) they usually dont say (download windows version OR download Mac version) all they usually have is 1 download, can I safely assume that it is going to work on both systems?

 

[Chundles]

ok...so basically there is no real reason to stick with a PC, Mac (not MAC) seems like the way to go.....damn that 24-inch looks great.....

Another thing i just thought of....what about programs that i download through the web (like limewire) they usually dont say (download windows version OR download Mac version) all they usually have is 1 download, can I safely assume that it is going to work on both systems?

Limewire has a Mac version, best place to find software is in the Mac section of Version Tracker Follow me... Most programs on the net are Windows-only, there is less software for Macs but what software there is is very good, stable and getting it won't open your system to attack from all the malware that exists for Windows. There are zero viruses in the wild for Mac OS X.

 

[amac4me]

First off ... congrats on your decision to make the switch.

My suggesstion is to use Boot Camp to allow you to boot into Windows for any things you need to do on Windows. Microsoft should be releasing an Intel version of Office for Mac so Word and Excel won't be an issue then. You can still run Office for Mac on an Intel based Mac but Rosetta will be translating the PowerPC code to Intel so it will run slower.

Good Luck

 

[grudz]

can't wait to see that 24" .........

thanx everybody

 

[FFTT]

Try to remember that you can still use your P/C for some dedicated tasks if you so wish.

There are countless people who retire their P/C for offline gaming.

With the P/C offline, you can reformat the drive to run clean and lean, thus improving gaming performance.

Most often though, your P/C ends up gathering dust in the corner, but you have the option to use it if the need presents itself.

 

[mkrishnan]

ok...so basically there is no real reason to stick with a PC, Mac (not MAC) seems like the way to go.....damn that 24-inch looks great.....

I think that is *very* fair to say. There are a handful of things that MacOS are not *great* for. Not that many games, special interest software is not always available (scientific computing, etc), and the state of video chatting technology is not perfect (no great way to get videoconferncing with MSN users, in particular). But with Intel in them, several reviewers have commented that Apple makes the best hardware available on which one could run Windows. And so you always have Windows for those other things.

 

[grudz]

Try to remember that you can still use your P/C for some dedicated tasks if you so wish.

There are countless people who retire their P/C for offline gaming.

With the P/C offline, you can reformat the drive to run clean and lean, thus improving gaming performance.

Most often though, your P/C ends up gathering dust in the corner, but you have the option to use it if the need presents itself.

Yeah that's what i was thinking, I have a laptop thats not made for gaming whatsoever, but still pretty powerfull, I was still afraid of transfering files from one to another; and from what i can understand, going from Mac to PC is easy, what about the other way around? is it just as easy?

 

[miles01110]

If you go to an Apple store, i usually try to find the younger employees to talk to since they usually are not as comfortable talking to someone as opposed to an older employee. If you ask them a question and look them directly in the eye, most of the time their sales pitch will be overridden by an honest answer.

1) I am not a huge gamer, but I still would want to play, is the problem that the iMac isnt powerfull for games, or that the games wont run properly on a Mac.

the iMac should be fine for most current games. You could always use Window via Boot Camp or Parallels if a particular game is windows-only.

2) What about programs like WORD and EXCEL, i heard there is are alternatives for a MAC, but like i said, everybody i know has a PC and if i need to give them a .doc file, I dont want to have a problem. I understand that for most programs (dreamweaver, flash, photoshop) there might be a compatibility problem also?

You'd need a program that reads and creates those file types- if you get Office X, any office file created on a Mac will be virtually the same on a windows machine. Same story for the other apps you mentioned- dreamweaver, flash, and photoshop file types are, for the most part, universal.

3) What are the other general issues that a newcomer to Mac (like me) might find out once he purchases it?

It will probably take you a little time to get used to the OS.

4) I read that you can basically run Windows on a Mac, which sounds great, but is it recommended? I read that if i really want to play games, i can simply switch to a windows platform and play....is it that simple?

Well, most Mac users see Windows as a step down...and it is. So no- it's not recommended. However, most Mac users will also admit that Windows does have it's uses. Booting into Windows or using it through Parallels is very easy, and I personally have not noticed any performance decrease in Windows mode (I use Boot Camp). I even installed Rome: Total War the other day just for kicks and set the unit size to "huge" - my Macbook Pro didn't miss a beat.

 

[grudz]

alright.....SOLD!

and for anybody in my position, switching from pc to Mac......you should really think about it, because from every thing i read, and from the ppl i spoke to, rarely has anybody said anything bad...

again..thank you all

 

[mduser63]

I just wanted to point one thing out. A lot of Windows users and future switches have it their heads that there is no software for Macs because they've never really seen it. That's mostly because they weren't looking for Mac software. To me, as someone who only uses Macs, it sort of seems like there's no software for Windows, because all the stuff I use, and all the sites I frequent are for the Mac.

I'm not trying to say there's not more software for Windows, because obviously there is. I'm just saying that there is tons of software for Mac as well, and a lot if not most of it is better than the Windows equivalent(s).

 

[grudz]

There are zero viruses in the wild for Mac OS X.

Why is that? is it the OS or because nobody creates virues for Mac?

 

[mkrishnan]

Why is that? is it the OS or because nobody creates virues for Mac?

It's a mixture of both, although probably more the latter than the former.

In the former category, OS X does have some core security advantages over Windows -- it's had an integrated firewall for longer, and it never had ActiveX (you'll note that a Windows computer using Firefox, an e-mail program other than Outlook, and a firewall is probably not all that much more vulnerable than a Mac -- MSIE and Outlook are major, major sources of vulnerability in Windows.

In the latter category, one of the stronger pieces of evidence is that vulnerabilities have been converted on very limited instances into actual exploits on Linux and other systems that use cores similar to OS X. So most people don't believe that OS X is particularly vulnerable. But Apple is both itself pro-active and in a position to benefit from the OSS community's dedication to closing exploits (for instance, since Apache is the webserver of OS X, and ClamXAV is the anti-virus software of OS X Server, the OSS people are developing security in these areas and Apple benefits).

 

[miles01110]

In the former category, OS X does have some core security advantages over Windows -- it's had an integrated firewall for longer, and it never had ActiveX (you'll note that a Windows computer using Firefox, an e-mail program other than Outlook, and a firewall is probably not all that much more vulnerable than a Mac -- MSIE and Outlook are major, major sources of vulnerability in Windows.

And that you can't install programs without typing in your password. Basically, if a program gets installed that has some piece of malicious software in it, it's your fault for installing it.

 

[grudz]

Another question I have for the iMac 20", how many slots of RAM does it have, I purchased the 2x512MB for a total of 1GB, but I was told that I have 2 extra slots I can update?

Also, is the RAM for PC the same for a Mac?

thanx

 

[mkrishnan]

And that you can't install programs without typing in your password. Basically, if a program gets installed that has some piece of malicious software in it, it's your fault for installing it.

This is only true if you are not an administrator. If you are an administrator, you will be asked to authenticate only when you mod the system folders -- if you have a program that drags and drops into /applications, no authentication is required. Also there is no requirement that an application run from /applications to begin with -- even a standard user can run a downloaded application from ~/applications or any other location (e.g. your desktop or your download files folder) for which they have write permissions without authenticating. So this really doesn't confer you a lot of security benefits.

Two related issues I do have with OS X is that it does not push standard users to create an admin account and a separate user account when they first turn on their new computer, and that you have to go to relatively a lot of work to prevent users from running applications not located in /applications....