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5 Reasons I Love My Mac & Will Never Go Back to Windows: 1 Year Later

January 19, 2010

One past customer of MacMatters sent us his thoughts on a change he made over a year ago. Here are his insights on his new found love for Macs .

All right, so I’ll admit that never may a poor choice of words. I have nothing at all against Windows. In fact, I was a Windows user for over 10 years but 1 year after switching I’m loving’ my Mac more than the day I bought it.

I compiled the list in a Letterman’s Top Ten fashion with the number 1 reason being the best reason for loving my Mac and number 5 is the last (but not least) reason.

5) Interoperability with the iPhone:

The main reason this one is number five on the list instead of being higher up is that I don’t own an iPhone yet. I do know, however, that Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure that syncing between the Mac OS (mostly) apps like iCal, Mail and Address Book), MobileMe (Apples online syncing system) and the iPhone is a seamless experience that ensures your information is always with you.

This interoperability is not limited to MobileMe either. Agile Web Solutions’ superb password management software, 1Password, is available for both Mac OS and iPhone and comes complete with syncing capabilities.
I’ve found that there are many Mac software titles that have iPhone counterparts.

4) The Mac Community:

I don’t know why but for some reason, when you own a Mac, you can’t help but feel esoteric or that you’re a part of a club that is really cool but only has a small group of members. People have heard of the group and know who you are and there may even be some that say they’ve entertained the idea of finding out more but then never followed though. What ever the case may be, being a “Mac” has a sense of mystery and uniqueness to it.

One of my favorite Mac websites right now is Mac Stories by Federico Viticci. Mac Stories is chalk full of information like tutorials, roundups (favorite Tweets of the week), and reviews of great software that you would otherwise not hear of. You can also follow Mac Stories on Twitter.

3) Time Machine:

When I first got Windows XP and discovered the System Restore function I was very impressed. That function saved me a lot time of when helping customers while working as a tech support rep for an Internet Service Provider.

I do believe though, that Apple has one-upped Microsoft with their back up system, Time Machine.

Time Machine requires either an external hard drive, network drive or second internal hard drive as keeping your back up on the same drive you want to back up completely defeats the purpose. If your drive fails, you’ll be unable to access both your regular data, and your backed up data. I do not believe a second internal hard drive is available for the iMac but if you’ve got a Mac Pro you can do it. Large volume external hard drives are available and fairly economic these days. Just remember that the cheapest isn’t always the best.

When you first set up Time Machine, it will back up your entire hard drive. After that, it runs quietly in the background syncing any changes to your hard drive on an hourly basis. At any time you can access Time Machine via a very slick interface that lives up to the name Time Machine to access your backed up data.

Despite the fact that I am always hitting Command + S (keyboard shortcut to save what you’re working on), Time Machine has saved me a few times in a few different ways.

2) Ability to run Windows, reliably:

When Apple made the decision to start using Intel processors in their Macs, they made it possible to run Windows on the Mac. In what I’m sure was a marketing move; they released Boot Camp, which makes installing then running Windows a breeze.

Personally, I’ve successfully installed and run Windows Vista Business and Windows 7 Ultimate (not at the same time) on my iMac.

Being able to run Windows is very important to me as my work requires I do cross-platform, cross-browser testing meaning the more operating systems (IE: Mac OS and Windows), and the more browsers (IE: Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer), I can test on, the better. Being able to do that one machine is a definite plus.

One very cool thing I found by accident with my Windows 7 Ultimate install is that a right click on the Apple Mighty Mouse (standard with the iMac I bought) actually works just like it would if you were using a two button mouse on Windows!

Lastly, and despite the fact that I don’t like it, there is simply some really great software out there that are strictly Windows based and again, being to do everything on one computer is key.
You really can have the best of both worlds with the Mac!

1) Performance and reliability:

One year after making the big switch, my iMac is still the most reliable and smooth running computer I’ve ever owned.

As a Web designer/developer, I’m always running multiple programs at the same time and need a computer that can keep up. Processor intensive applications like Adobes Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver alone can slow down a lesser-equipped computer.

It’s not out of place to see my iMac running the three above mentioned apps along with a Web browser or two, iTunes and Entourage at the same time so I need something that will not bog down under pressure. My iMac has no problem with this type of multitasking and switching between the apps on the fly is quick and easy.

Just like cars though, computers need regular maintenance and the Mac is no exception. Despite the fact that the Mac OS is pretty solid, it will still benefit from some TLC with a program like TechTool Pro.

So there you have it! 5 pretty good reasons that even though it took some time for me adjust to the switch from Windows to Mac, 1 year later I’m very glad that I took the plunge.