Who converted to Mac mainly because of the OS or a software specific to Mac?

[Corrosive vinyl]

I switched to a mac because a friend of mine showed me his and burned CDs, connected to another mac in another state, and showed me the interface in general. What got me over the hill was my PC suffering from a hardware issue, where a piece of hardware (the CPU fan) said on the box it would fit and ended up breaking my CPU.

Now easy interface without the worry of hardware incompatibility issues.

 

[NutsNGum]

Logic and Bootcamp sold me.

 

[designs216]

The user experience of OSX and the build quality of Apple hardware is superior IMO. I expect to get three years of use from my PCs but a minimum of five from my macs, negating any "apple tax" you hear people complaining about.

 

[Crazy Badger]

The beauty of the original MBA sold me, although don't think I would have made the jump if I didn't have the option of continue to run XP (as required) in the early days. I still have a Bootcamp partition (now running W7) on my 2nd gen MBA but use more and more infrequently.

I don't have a single Wintel only device anymore, and everything is connected to the Apple ecosystem. I love the simplicity and syncronicity across devices and how everything just works, with very little effort to maintain.

Probably very close to being consider an fanboi

 

[svenmany]

I didn't switch to Mac because of the software but I am staying with it because of the software.

I'm no longer fond of Apple as a company. I love their hardware but I'd rather buy something cheaper. But I'd die without the OS and certain applications.

Applications -

All the omni stuff - OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner. Circus Ponies Notebook. Devon stuff - DevonThink and DevonAgent. SourceTree. BBEdit. Forklift. Arq. LaunchBar. LittleSnitch. BusyCal. Adium. Carbon Copy Cloner.

I'm sure these and a bunch of other stuff have Windows equivalents. But I don't find them as pleasant. For example, I love 1Password on the Mac but it is kind of crappy on Windows. I love TimeSlice timekeeping software on Mac but I hate it on Windows. Every time I try something on Windows I feel the developer lacks taste. Well, at least my taste.

Surprisingly I don't like the Apple created software that much except for the OS. Though I do like iWork.

OS -

I could not survive if I couldn't move or rename a file while opened in an application.

I would hate have to alt-tab through every window of an application and across applications. I need the separation of the two that OS X gives me. Also the alt-tabbing on Windows 7 either makes me queasy or feels crippled, depending on the setting I use.

I much prefer the menu bar at the top of the page. I've read some theoretical articles discussing the advantages of this in terms of easy targeting.

The aesthetics of the window adornments and or subtleties suits me. I find them pleasing but not distracting. I find Windows 7 fun to visit but the visuals interfere with my work.

I do find Windows rolls out updates an order of magnitude more frequently than OS X. It is truly annoying but it might be a good thing. I don't know if it's an indication of more problems with Windows or their paying more attention to problems. In any case I don't want it.

I need a unix flavored command line. I also work on Linux so my skills apply to OS X.

From a system administration point of view I find OS X so easy. Man pages are available, much of what I do is configuration with text files. I'm just ignorant about Windows. But I find it hard to dabble like can easily do with OS X.

I do like the easy integration with my iPhone.

On the other hand, I have friends with good taste who like Windows 7. So I don't mean any disrespect to Windows, its developers, or its applications.

 

[TomCat]

I did, but it was 1984, and I was not converting from Windows, I was converting from a Commodore 64 and a Commodore 128.

I was able to circumvent the horrors of Windows all the way to XP, when I needed it for work, and I needed to know Windows for work.

 

[BlkBear]

I switched in the G5 era. They were pretty nice Unix workstations (switched from a Linux workstation). I do parallel computing, and develop code that runs on Linux clusters/supercomputers. To me OS X gives me the best of both worlds, a Unix environment where I can do my work (I just need a C/C++ compiler and Python interpreter), and a consumer OS where I can easily stream movies and music, etc.

I also use Omni Graffle, OmniPlan, Powerpoint, and Word for work.

 

[Fresh Burek]

I like Macs mainly because of how well they're designed and put together. It feels like a solid product rather than a bunch of computer parts put together. I don't really prefer OSX over Windows as far as OS go, especially since I started on Windows. Windows' "windows" have more structure and can be aligned better whereas in OSX, they're kinda free floating. The maximize button in Windows is greatly missed in OSX. And I think the window close, minimize, and maximize buttons are better in top right than top left.

But yeah, when it comes to hardware and product design, a Mac owns everything else.

 

[glutenenvy]

I ran OS/2 Warp for a short amount of time, but didn't have a great experience with it since the compatibility from what I remember stopped at Windows 3.1 for Windows applications and I owned several Windows applications.

Since I didn't spend too much time in it, how did it compare to Windows NT at the time? Seems both were very stable and both 32-bit. I seem to recall that many ATM machines ran OS/2 for some reason.

OS/2 worked fine for me partially because the DOS/Windows apps were running occasionally. The main apps were OS/2. These worked well and multitasked well. I didn't have the same kind of regular crashing I would if it were DOS/Windows.

I didn't run any NT until the time XP showed up. By then I had stopped using OS/2. I do remember that scripting with Rexx seemed to be better than scripting in DOS.

Yes some ATMs are still on OS/2 last I heard.

 

[chiguy20002]

I recently switched to OSX from Windows 7. I still like Windows 7 as an OS. I have used Windows PCs for over 15 years, I liked Windows XP, skipped Windows Vista, and I like Windows 7. I am not sure about Windows 8 yet. I switched primarily because of the need to use the Adobe Suite for Web Development, and I was told that the Adobe Suite runs better on a Mac than on a Windows PC.

My wife switched from a Windows PC to an iMac a few months before I got my MacBook, and I liked the way it operated, it just seemed to work, with no issues. The fact that I can easily dual boot into either OSX or Windows sealed the deal, though I don't use Windows on my Mac as much as I thought I would.

 

[Macsonic]

I use Mac both for the OS and for the hardware. Though I was a longtime Windows user for many years. I think both Windows and Macs can achieve results depending on one's personal preference and needs. For media work and heavy graphics, I prefer the Mac. Just noticed that when many apps and files are open, with windows it tends to lag and slow down. With Macs it can handle the multiple apps and files. But for general computing and light files both OSs are just about the same.

 

[Jord5i]

I got an iPad 2 for graduating, got a bit more into apple then, I saw the lion event coming up, watched the keynote and thought "wow windows is crap!". Bought a mac mini a month or 2 later

 

[notjustjay]

Back in the day I enjoyed video editing (DV) as a hobby. I had bought a powerhouse of a Windows laptop -- a Dell Latitude D800 with a Firewire port and ultra-high-resolution screen (almost retina! and this was in 2003!), loaded with expensive professional grade video editing software. One thing it still wasn't quite powerful enough to do was real-time rendering or smooth full-screen previewing of DV video. I just figured the technology wasn't there yet.

My friend, at the time, had a 15" Titanium PowerBook G4. Not purpose built for video editing. Not even close to new. He liked to brag about how it never crashed and how it could do this, and do that, and I always just ignored him. One of those Mac users.

So when we were both asked at the last minute if we could put together a video presentation, I said no way. There was not enough time to capture, edit, render to final-output DV file, dump back to camera for playback, etc. Couldn't be done in the time we had.

My friend said "sure, I can do that in iMovie."

Inside, I was laughing. I was thinking, there's no way. My pro rig can't handle that, how could his consumer laptop? With iMovie? Toy software! I knew Windows Movie Maker was crap. How could iMovie possibly be any good?

And yet... and yet... He did it. I asked him how he possibly found time to render the final video. He gave me a quizzical look and said "Render? I didn't render." Then he showed me. He pushed the "full screen preview" button from iMovie and up it came, full screen, full motion, no dropped frames, right off the timeline.

Honestly I was shaken. And I remember going home thinking "if he was right about that, what else can his Mac do that he's been telling me about all these months that I've ignored?"

A few months later I decided to find out for myself. I bought a 12" PowerBook G4. Sold the powerhouse Dell a few months later. Never looked back.

 

[iMacFarlane]

I started computing on a C-64, went DOS then Windows. Always thought Macs were kind of silly.

I got a first gen iPod Touch back in 2008. Loved it. Most amazing piece of electronics I had ever seen.

Always dabbled in programming, got interested in programming for iOS. Went to apple.com to learn how. Saw some videos to get me up and running. First 10 seconds of video:
"Welcome to the world of iOS. We are as excited as you are to create applications for this revolutionary new product. To develop your own applications for iOS, you'll need to do a few things. First, you'll need a Mac"

Oh. Super. Really?

The desire only grew, until I decided to jump on the bandwagon and buy my first Mac in May of 2009. Never going back to Windows. I use it daily at work, but enjoy my iMac and MBP at home and on the road.

I like the new iMacs, but will probably wait until Haswell to buy one.