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What made "the switch" worth it to you?

I'm a mac, my wife is a PC.

I decided a few days ago to just get her Word 2010 for her Windows 7 PC because she has been having a bunch of compatibility problems with her student's files with her current version of Word (2003). So I tell her that I'd be happy to install it for her, thinking it would only take a few minutes (as it would on my Mac). She made me promise not to install it until the weekend since, as she put it, she "needs her computer to be working during the week..." (I should have known right there...). So Saturday I sit down to install Word.... It gets about 3/4 of the way through the install before an error message pops up and the install halts... four hours later after trying every one of the multitude of suggestions I could find online I give up and spend the next hour figuring out how to undo what I've done and re-install Word 2003 on her PC.

I do not miss using a PC at all.

Mac... it just works.
 
I am excited as well to see what Lion will bring. I wonder what improvements it will make on Snow Leopard...
 
I'm so happy to be getting a MBP for a main machine. I've had no issues with Windows 7..Yet.. The constant thought of a virus or keylogger is driving me insane.
 
Lets see....

1. Next to no viruses
2. Security updates once a month, not twice weekly
3. No 'eventual' corruption of basic system,
hence no rebuilding of OS just to keep it running
4. Consistent Hardware quality
5. Ecosystem integration of iphone/ipad/appletv/Macs
6. Just plain fun to use, regardless of what your doing
7. finally, and most importantly.......it aint Windows. Vista, XP, Me, whatever....it just aint Windows, and everything that that entails.
 
I made the change because when I needed a new computer, I picked the Mac over a Thinkpad (which I still own); simply put I decided I needed a change. OS X looked intriguing, so I picked it up.

Today I'm use both. I have a Thinkpad (a new one) for the work that needs Windows and my Mac takes care of the rest.
 
Why did I switch?

1. I got the iPhone, loved the UI and its simplicity.
2. Beyond the beautiful design, sturdiness of the laptop, the biggest benefit from switching was the increased productivity I got from owning the MBP. No background virus scanners running to slow things down, no hunting for drivers, updates, Expose, Spaces, etc.
3. I wanted to do work with my computer instead of working on my computer. Ever since I made the switch and learned all the short cuts, that's exactly what I've been able to do. Updates are provided for me and rarely do I have to fix anything or worry about its maintenance.
4. Although the MBP may feel bulky now that I'm jaded, moving to a < 1 inch high laptop from older laptops by Sony, HP, Dell, Compaq, etc. that were 1 to 2 inches tall was a whole new world. It felt more mobile and convenient - exactly how a laptop should feel.

I'm now at the point I won't even consider jobs that don't use Macs as their primary work stations. Win7 may have improved and other manufacturers may have improved their looks, but Apple has always been the leader in making things smaller and more intuitive. It makes sense...
 
I've recently made the switch. Been using Windows (and recently Ubuntu) all my life, and any Mac experiences I had in were in school, where as we all know, the computers tend to be horrible. I was thinking of dual-booting Windows, but so far I haven't had the need to. What keeps me on Mac is the trackpad and the UNIX environment (which is awesome for a CS major). 😀

What triggered the switch though was that I was tired of my heavy PC laptop that was also crapping out on me (just the hard drive and graphics card driver, which I couldn't seem to get working properly with Windows 7). I also wanted a UNIX terminal. xD
 
Up until 2004 I was a hardcore Windows OS user. I built computers on the side (which I miss to some degree) and was pretty satisfied with XP. I had a Dell Inspiron and swore up an down on it. My wife was a life time Mac user and would always pick at me 😀 I usually made fun of her cute little 12" she used - at this point 2 years old. I had owned my Dell for 1 year.

On that fateful one year point, I had purchased a DV camcorder and was making movies of our newborn. I was putting the finishing touches on my very first video. As some of you may know, when your learning a new program and new techniques, it takes a long time to actually edit something worthwhile to watch. I had been working on this particular video for about a week.

As I was adding one more new transition, I got the dreaded blue screen of death and my computer dieded. It died in a spectuacular way by taking my hard work and running it through the grinder and corrupting everything. I had been having problems with both hardware and software on and off ever since I had a PC and that was the straw that broke it's back. 10 minutes later I had a BTO G4 15" on it's way. 4 months later my Dell died due to hardware issues.

Currently I am running a 2011 15" SSD HR macbook pro and it runs both OS X and Win 7 quite well. Nothing like being in OS X and needing to be in windows and it takes less than 25 secs to be working in the windows enviroment. Hell it took a minute to boot windows in parallels on my last macbook pro but now I can bootcamp in half the time.

Little things make this machine shine where the other manufacturers fail at.

1. Bloatware - still exists. Why HP/Dell etc think they need to plaster their 3rd party apps all over the place before I even get the computer boggles my mind.

2. Expose' - brilliant idea. Combined with "Spaces" - multitasking is a snap in OS X. No convuluted button pushing to get to a window - No alt tab or any of that mess. Just mouse to a corner to open all windows, mouse to another corner to open spaces and blam choose the running program.

3. Installation - One stop drop and erase (for the most part). Some programs require "installation" but most just drop right in and to get rid of the program you just drag it to the trash. Simple. Some programs are sinister on how they install but you just have to pay attention to those. Rule of thumb - big ticket programs are like this.

4. Backlit keyboard on a laptop.

5. The laptop doesn't creak, crackle, pop or flex when moving it. Solidly built. Could use it as a blunt force weapon in an emergency. 😀

6. Dual OS's -mac can run both and run both well. I like Win 7. Great job MS for finally catching up to some degree. Apple was there before but still good that you got there. Only niggle I have at this moment with Win 7 is that it appears my color pallet threw up all over my monitor. There is a balance with flashyness and usability. But it's a minor niggle.

7. Track pad - the holy grail of trackpads. I can only imagine the testing that went into that to make it work as well as they did. I love the mouse. Great for gaming. But when I am just working...the trackpad rules.

8. The wireless just f'in works. Apple got this right out of the gate. I hated dealing with my router vs. computer.

9. Remember the 12" Powerbook G4 I mentioned in the beginning of this mass of text? Ya it still works and is still performing other tasks. I can think of no other laptop I have owned lasting 8 years. It has a few dents on the lid but it still works. Now to get an ssd in there to make it scream 😀.

I still have the following laptops and they all still work: 15" Powerbook, 12" Powerbook, 15" Core duo Macbook pro, 13" black Macbook, and the current workhorses: 15" i7 and 13" i5 2011s. Notice the trend of his and hers 😀
 
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yesterday i used a pc at our with vista on it and i was like: ok that neat.
but then it started to laaaaaaag and do those windows things and well i was happy to get home to my lovely mac.
 
Pretty much everything design based works better with Mac OS, and the OS generally doesnt feel as sluggish. Also, the fact that Mac OS has superior memory management over Windows. I hate the fact that any Windows machine needs a minimum of 8GB RAM just to be able to run more than a web browser and another program.

The experience in general is just much more refined.
 
alphaod said:
I made the change because when I needed a new computer, I picked the Mac over a Thinkpad (which I still own); simply put I decided I needed a change. OS X looked intriguing, so I picked it up.

Today I'm use both. I have a Thinkpad (a new one) for the work that needs Windows and my Mac takes care of the rest.
Click to expand...

This is the same for me. I wanted a change, and in the end my heart and mind leaned more towards a Mac. I'm not anti-Windows though, so it's not really a switch......yet. lol
 
I have been wanting a Mac a long time now. I used to be a MacUser in the 80's and early 90's. I had a Mac Plus and then a Mac II and Mac 6something in there as well. Every time a component died though I had to buy a new machine and the costs became prohibitive. So I bought my first Windows machine. I was happy using the Windows machines since that was what we had at work and it just seemed natural.

Then in 2003 I bought an iPod when iTunes became available on Windows. Everything worked great, in 2008 came the iPhone 3G and it was fantastic so I started thinking Mac again. 2010 came the iPhone and the iPad. I really didn't have many issues with Windows but I was longing for a Mac. !0 days ago I bought a MacBook Pro and literally have not even turned on my Windows 7 laptop since. The first day I transferred all the data files over and have not looked back.

I eventually will have to do some things on the Windows laptop since some of the apps I used on it are not on the Mac, or I have yet to get their Mac counterparts. (Quicken, Hallmark Card Studio)

One of the features I really love is that I did a side by side test of the start up. I started both machines at the same time and by the time the Windows 7
logo came up the Mac was ready to go. I have actually been bringing my laptop to work with me and doing things on it during my breaks, something that was unheard of with Windows. By the time it loaded up it was time to go back to work on a 15 minute break. On a 15 minute break I can not only read any emails I received, but reply to those and check facebook for updates, or just read up on apps I might be interested in online or in the App Store.

Bottom line is I am very happy to be back in the Mac playground. It took awhile to come back, but I am glad that I did.
 
kobyh15 said:
So this leads to my reason for posting. I was wondering if there were others like me who had used PCs throughout their undergraduate education, and then chose to make the switch before entering their graduate work. What about OS X or the Mac hardware made it worth it to you? Is there anything you miss about using a PC/Windows? Thanks in advance for the replies.
Click to expand...

Not quite. I got my first MacBook before starting my undergrad. It was great — a helluvalot more portable than my old Windows laptops had been, so using it around campus was great. And it never crapped out on me when I needed it.

I'll probably be starting the PhD program soon, and got the new MacBook Pro for the rest of my graduate education. In addition to all the great multitasking features like Spaces and Expose and the awesomness of the multitouch trackpad (I could never have anything less now), the other real nice thing is that it's Unix. All of our research servers are Linux, and having a *nix system just makes everything much more seamless and easier. (I feel like noting that my friend who runs Ubuntu on a Dell is always amazed whenever he uses the trackpad on this thing.)
 
Hey! I started this thread awhile back. Nice to see it still has some life. I guess I could take this time to update everyone. My brand new 2011 13" i7 MBP was delivered to my parents house this evening! I am at school so I will pick it up this weekend. Parents sent me a picture of the box, can't wait to get my hands on it and boot it up for the first time!
 
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