what was hardest by switch from pc to mac?

[blanka]

The absolute worst is Apple's totally suck developper policy. They force developpers to write for the latest OS only, otherwise their balls will be cut off.
So this means every month you have an app running incompatible with your OS, or the need to upgrade your OS to the next.

With windows XP, life is just Piece and Heaven. Every new program works on XP, and it does that for 10 years now. But hey, macs run windows very well too.

 

[forty2j]

I think recently the hardest thing for new users is that scrolling is inverted. It follows the inertia paradigm introduced on their touch screen devices. It feels natural on a trackpad, but with a mouse many people will scroll their way over to the preferences to flip it.

 

[Johnchapin]

No big regrets

Wish I'd made the switch much earlier than 7 years ago.

Many thanks to Philosopherdog for the tips. I like Jumpcut for an easy clipboard.

If you travel, you might want to seriously consider a laptop instead of desktop.

Best
Apple quality: Design, user interface,
Absence of malware
Finder works so much better than anything I ever saw in Windows.
Easy slideshows from Finder.

Worst
Miss my old PaintShop Pro
Don't like iOS for mobile devices, and I never know what "Sync" is going to do.
You would think transfering Notes would be easy between OS and iOS, but it's a struggle. I end up emailing myself.
Still haven't figured out iPhoto and avoid it like the plague.

 

[lexvo]

My father was 76 when he switched from Windows to an iMac. Of course he needed some time to get used to OS-X, but the whole transition went smooth and swiftly. He is 79 now and still enjoying his Mac 🙂

 

[MacMilligan]

Honestly, there isn't a "killer feature" on either platform. The main thing you will probably notice is the nice app suite that comes with a Mac. iLife is quite nice, especially if you are used to pack-in MS applications.

You won't have to go immediately download a new browser. Safari is great out of the box. You will not have to do any type of configuration as everything works well automatically. Finding advanced features is a lot easier on a Mac as they tend to be buried in Windows.

Search indexing seems to be much better on OSX than windows, although Win 7 took large strides to fix that issue. You may enjoy linux commands in terminal more due to your linux background.

Overall, the differences aren't bullet-points but the summation of all the tiny details. How those details affect your perception is something you will just have to jump into to see.

FWIW, if you have a lot of software that you use for CAD, then you need to make sure that you can get access to the Mac version otherwise you may have to relearn in a different program which would probably not be worth your time.

 

[Caromsoft]

I swear the transition has been easier than it was for him going from Windows XP to 7.

I agree with that. Going from XP to 7 was a bigger jump than going from 7 to OS X, for me at least.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Worst

Don't like iOS for mobile devices, and I never know what "Sync" is going to do.
You would think transfering Notes would be easy between OS and iOS, but it's a struggle. I end up emailing myself.

Can't you just enable iCloud for syncing your notes? If both devices share the same apple I/d the notes will sync wirelessly on both devices.

 

[Raima]

The hardest part for me was to try to find replacement programs I had on PC to the Mac. I tried to do it without virtualisation, but once I let go of that, I can pretty much do anything on the Mac. I can do all the mac stuff as well as PC stuff via virtualisation.

 

[Tooloud4granny]

thinking of going over to an Imac myself,
my biggest concern is how would i transfer my extensive Itunes library over, i'm a noob and forgive me if this has been answered already 😉

 

[thasan]

example: i couldnt copy an email attachment from my phone to mac that day..maybe i was missing something but it should be straightforward and intuitive 😕

Can't you just enable iCloud for syncing your notes? If both devices share the same apple I/d the notes will sync wirelessly on both devices.

 

[throAU]

The hardest thing for me initially was getting my head around the difference between closing a window and closing an app - in OS X you can close or hide a window and leave an application running.

With Mountain Lion or Lion, the OS can close apps for you if required anyway.

Also, prior to Lion, you couldn't resize a window by any edge (only the right lower corner) which was annoying as hell.



edit:
as far as data transfer goes, there's a migration tool included. have never used it to migrate from windows to mac, but presumably it works 😀

 

[timcullis]

thinking of going over to an Imac myself,
my biggest concern is how would i transfer my extensive Itunes library over, i'm a noob and forgive me if this has been answered already 😉

Check out http://www.macworld.com/article/1146958/move_itunes_windows_mac.html

 

[Jenni8]

Hardest thing for me to get used to was to stop tinkering with the OS. It doesn't require constant cleaning up as it does those things mostly on its own. The more I would fiddle with it the more likely I would cause a bug. Once I relaxed, the better the OS worked.

With windows it required Constant virus spyware cleaning and registry cleaning.

Best thing about the switch? No damn defrag. So sometimes I repair permissions with new apps or whatnot. But it takes minutes not hours. And no need to be religious about it either.

And now that windows 8 has come out Im so glad I have a Mac.

 

[micke1967]

Hi well I do actually run some cad in the form of NX (since I work for Siemens PLM which used to be Unigraphics Solutions->creators/owners of unigraphics/NX)
But that works really good on virtual images if I have 4gb or more ram...so im not to worried about that really...

Am I right in assuming that I will be able to write to NTFS with some xtra software??

Or will I be able to write fully to ´ntfs external hardrives from vm ware fusion or parallells??
best regards micael

 

[throAU]

Or will I be able to write fully to ´ntfs external hardrives from vm ware fusion or parallells??
best regards micael

I haven't tried to write to NTFS from OS X, but in parallels or Fusion, you're actually running a copy of Windows, so it will have NO PROBLEM writing to NTFS disks, if you "attach" the disk to the virtual machine while it is running.

 

[Jenni8]

The hardest thing for me initially was getting my head around the difference between closing a window and closing an app - in OS X you can close or hide a window and leave an application running.

With Mountain Lion or Lion, the OS can close apps for you if required anyway.

Also, prior to Lion, you couldn't resize a window by any edge (only the right lower corner) which was annoying as hell.



edit:
as far as data transfer goes, there's a migration tool included. have never used it to migrate from windows to mac, but presumably it works 😀

I had a hard time with the windows only resizing from the corner. I was glad for the fix. I also had a hard time getting used to closing the app all the way. I still sometimes forget to do it right. I've gotten quite used to closing with command q which helps a lot. Although some apps Will close fully when closing the window such as the App Store and a few others. That alone can make it a bit confusing though for a new user.

 

[IronWaffle]

Still adjusting to hotkey combinations that require three keys instead of two. I'll get there.

I'm confused by what seem like inconsistencies in how the "green" button (beside the red and yellow ones on each active window) works. In iTunes it minimizes, in Safari I think it maximized last time I tried. A minor nuisance.

 

[bbkr]

From hardest to easiest issues:

Sick mouse acceleration - Apple has its own "we know better" philosophy on this despite thousands of users reporting it as broken. Fortunately 3rd party software allows to kill it.

Enormous amount of junk files - Apple leaves ._*, .Trash, .DStore, __MACOSX and other files on network drives and external storage cards. Significant amount of time is required to purge this Mac pollution when working in multisystem environment.

Home/End keys not moving to beginning/end of line - I'm a developer so I use them a lot and pressing combination of keys to do such simple thing was annoying. Again 3rd party app helped and most apps respect remapping.

Maximizing windows with shift+green - Apple-ism I learned to live with.

Counterintuitive placements of few options - Why speakers setup is in midi tool and not in system preferences? Why screen lock padlock icon on bar is activated through Keychain app? Why to prevent iPhoto from opening when connecting iPhone one have to change preference of Image capture app instead of iPhoto? And so on...

Skeuomorphism - I simply hate it. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Despite mentioned issues I had no problem with apps or overall system design and understanding. Moreover - I like it A LOT and decided to move to new iMac 21" from my hackintosh 🙂

 

[Dirtyharry50]

I found the transition very easy to take. At first I realized I was a little lost not knowing OS X equivalents for some favorite editing hotkeys, etc. so I looked them up and once I knew those I was and have been since, golden.

The system feels very natural and intuitive to me now. I love how everything just works and there's no maintenance to screw around with, no antivirus suite to bog down the system, no need for utility software, etc. It's great.

 

[Daysight]

A most pithy and useful post, philosopherdog. Went straight into my notes.

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thinking of going over to an Imac myself,
my biggest concern is how would i transfer my extensive Itunes library over, i'm a noob and forgive me if this has been answered already 😉

I worried about this too, so spent a lot of time carefully planning that move by googling, and it paid off. Don't delete the old files on the Windows box until certain the move is done. Don't customize the setup on the Mac box, keep it standard. This job requires extra special planning, but it is easy to do right.

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Worst
Miss my old PaintShop Pro
Don't like iOS for mobile devices, and I never know what "Sync" is going to do.
You would think transfering Notes would be easy between OS and iOS, but it's a struggle. I end up emailing myself.
Still haven't figured out iPhoto and avoid it like the plague.

Preview does a lot of things I used PSP for in my Windows past.
IOS works brilliantly for me. For Notes I used simplenote/notational velocity, but switching to Evernote.
iPhoto takes getting used to. I went straight to Aperture when I switched. Same novel (alien for windows users) headspace required to use Aperture as iPhoto, but once I got onto it I much prefer it. Gotta relax and let it do the work.

 

[garpen]

Ok.

The Mac computer mouse is useless get yourself a pc mouse.

Then you have to pay more money for the same parts as intel.

Do you play games? not all games run on Mac.

There is not much virus but it will be more in the future when more people start to use the Mac.

 

[bigcat318]

The hardest part is realising you have been drafted as a beta tester for each OS release. Apple do notoriously little testing which is why there are so many patches and updates.

You think OSX has 'so many patches in updates?" Within a 2 month span I had 75 windows updates. Not an exaggeration, I could prove it with a screen shot. The list was so big I had to scroll through it on my 27" monitor.

 

[forty2j]

The Mac computer mouse is useless get yourself a pc mouse.

This is a matter of personal preference, but yes, most people hate the Magic Mouse. I use a gamer mouse, and plan to also use Apple's Magic Trackpad for the gesture interface and general use.

Then you have to pay more money for the same parts as intel.

Yes, it's true. You could buy the same components and put them in an inferior case and hook them up to an inferior monitor for less money. Whether you want to pay the so-called "Apple Tax" really depends on how important build quality and display quality is to you.

Do you play games? not all games run on Mac.

Yes they will. Not all run on OS X at launch though. There are games where you will need to wait for an OS X port, or if one isn't coming, set up a Bootcamp partition so you can run them in Windows.

There is not much virus but it will be more in the future when more people start to use the Mac.

When you use the term "virus" as it's actually defined for computer programs, there are zero for the Mac. There are a tiny number of malware programs, all of which are "trojan horses" that basically require the user to do something stupid to run them, and all of them are cleaned & prevented by the latest OS X patches. I expect this trend to continue. (There is, as I recall, one that required less user action, but that was a universal Java problem and affected OS X equally as Windows.)

I'm actually not sure what your purpose was in posting. The OP was asking about the hardest thing to adjust to when switching, and it seems like you were trying to spread some FUD to talk him out of it.

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I'm confused by what seem like inconsistencies in how the "green" button (beside the red and yellow ones on each active window) works. In iTunes it minimizes, in Safari I think it maximized last time I tried. A minor nuisance.

The Green button is basically both "Maximize" and "Restore". "Maximize" may also elect not to fill the entire screen if the application doesn't think it needs it.

 

[Fishrrman]

"however is ther no cut,copy and paste in max os??"

Ha ha ha (just had to laugh at that one).

Where do you think the concepts of "cut", "copy", and "paste" -came from-?

They came from the original Mac in 1984 (and were later "stolen" by MS to put into Windows).

They are still here.

Come on over!

 

[MonkeySee....]

Best things:

Syncing with iOS
Homesharing with Apple TV
Simplicity
Not having to constantly shut it down
Updates rarely need a restart
Software and Hardware work better
Build quality and design
Magic TrackPad and gestures (MS will bring out one of these for sure for windows 8)

Bad things:

not had any issues yet 😎