I’m a PC, but I’m Mac Curious
For the past 18 years, I’ve been a PC, but lately I find myself among the Mac curious. It started simply enough. My colleagues here at Nine Lives Media Inc. seem to all be using Macs, and they seem more relaxed and stress-free than I am. I wonder if there’s a correlation.
Then I found out that one of my college classmates, the programmer who went to work for IBM after college graduation is now pushing the CEO of his new company to go with Macs on both clients and servers (he’s the CTO). Other techies who I respect have switched, too. I started to wonder if the end times were upon us. And then another former colleague who used to be a PC, too, told me that his work day is filled with far fewer clicks now that he’s converted. That was the kicker for me.
And yet I’m so far on the other side. The only Apple products at my house are second generation iPods (the first ones with video). My spouse and I own Android phones and Android tablets. My sons steal my Kindle Fire to play Angry Birds (and not my iPad. Because I don’t have an iPad.)
Indeed, my spouse, who works in IT and web development for a company I will not name, has a drawer full of iPads at work. He is in charge of them. People who come to talk to him also spend time fawning over the iPads, including a stack of the next gen ones. But he despises them because they are annoying to configure, he says. He says the Retina display is ugly. You see what I mean.
And yet, I’m still Mac curious. If there were an Apple store nearer to my house I probably would have been there already, testing to see if it’s really so much easier to put together a slide deck using a MacBook Pro. I would have sneaked out without telling my spouse that I was going to the Apple store. I would have smiled joyfully as the slide deck magically came together without the need for clicking on the much-hated ribbon over and over and over again to complete a single task. I would be relaxed and stress-free.
And yet, the nearest Apple Store is 30 minutes away, according to Google Maps, which means a whole hour round trip. I have never met a Genius, and I probably never will. I’m too busy clicking on the much-hated ribbon to take time out for that.
Get Joe to put the next write up in your editorial calendar then expense the hour drive and tell your spouse you’re doing research for an article. No subterfuge needed at home or at work.
You’ll be happy you did. You can have a Kindle Fire and love your new Mac Book Air. No one will think less of you.
Brendan: Remind me to peek at your expense reports 😉
All: An update, here at home I’m cross platform. MacBook Air (love it), Lenovo IdeaPad with Windows 7 (great for the family), Dell with Ubuntu Linux (keeps me focused on market alternatives). Next, I’m keeping a close eye on Ultrabooks running Windows 8.
I was a huge NT 4.0 fan in the 1990s. Wondering if Windows 8 will rekindle my excitement for Microsoft Windows.
Back to Windows
As for my partner in crime (Amy Katz), she purchased a Mac the day we launched Nine Lives Media, but she switched back to Windows about a year ago.
Mac or Windows? Doesn’t really matter to me. The best thing about my platform choices these days = our help desk. We gained one the day Penton Media acquired Nine Lives in August 2011. IT headaches have largely disappeared since that time.
-jp
I will be posting a blog article on the Network Depot Blog (www.networkdepot.com/blog – shameless plug) in the next week or so, outlining my experiences in shifting from having an office to not, and from PC to Mac. Lotsa of little twists and turns along the way but the one message I keep getting from this is that from a buyer’s standpoint, the purchasing experience is vastly different. PCs and Windows are a much easier process for businesses. Apple pretty much forces you to get retail treatment. I believe that when Apple figures out a good way to get the retail mentality out of their process, their business sales will increase and they will assume more of the market. Thoughts?
Rich,
Remember the Apple small business push called Apple Joint Venture?
Apple has called me from time to time asking about my small business needs. But I don’t think they ever effectively “engaged” me in a conversation. Genius Bar experience blows me away every time. Apple Joint Venture? I think if it was doing well Apple would be saying more about it…
*If* Jessica goes Mac I’ll be curious to read about her experiences as well…
-jp
I had no idea that Joe and Amy were both so cross platform. I stand corrected!
Oh the jokes possible….but Joe, you’re right a lot of us are hoping Windows 8 will excite. I’ve been running it on my MBP in a vm since the preview release and its ok. Definitely favors a touch experience, which ironically is very hard to get running virtualized on a MBP.
@Rich – this “retail” mindset you refer to is why Apple has done so well and why C suites everywhere have been asking their IT guys/companies to figure out how to deal, because they are wooed by the retail experience, its nicer, more pleasing, more emotional than the business pc experience typically has been. This is why we have so many interesting BYOD conversations happening right now.
Apple could stand to gain a lot by building a business-process-esque channel, but I’m not holding my breath.
@jp – I started with NT 3.51 and moved through every iteration of Windows (2000, tablet, me, xp, vista, 7, 8) and until last year was Windows all the way except for a brief stint of PowerBooking when I was at Spam Soap in the early days. Back to MBP last year and loving it, especially with good Intel chips and virtualization, I can have it all. 🙂
Interestingly, my work has moved to the cloud enough (Google Apps, SFDC, Awareness, Telligent…) that it truly doesn’t matter what OS I’m on. Just give me Chrome and I’m fully functional.
I found myself in the same situation several months ago. Many of our clients were asking us questions about switching from Windows to MAC, so I decided that I would give it a shot and see if I could use a MAC as my ‘daily driver’. That was about 4 months ago, and I’m still using it on a daily basis. I opted for the Macbook Air because I’m a big fan of ultra portable and I wanted a system that used SSD for the speed and low power consumption.
There are a few things that still bother me about using on a daily basis. The lack of the command line tools that I became so accustomed to from the DOS days (MAC has a terminal application, but I’ve yet to spend much time learning the CLI) comes to mind as one that is particularly missed. Outlook 2011 connecting to my Exchange Server works well, is a little slower to get new messages than it’s Windows counterpart, but works well for the most part.
If you are on the fence and considering a switch, I would suggest giving it a shot. Everyone could benefit from having a little different perspective on things by using an alternative platform. Next step: converting the helpdesk guys over to MAC so they can see the differences and learn how to better support them!
I’m an ex-Microsoftie, worked on Site Server and later ASP.NET. Never (ever) thought I would use Macs, but it’s all I have in my home. At work (Telligent) we use a mix of just about everything: PCs, Macs, iPads, etc.
I use services like DropBox religiously. That way I can switch from hardware to hardware without evening thinking about OS, what’s installed, and so on.
As for Apple servers … don’t know about that. Our business runs on Microsoft servers (we run social communities for Microsoft, Dell, and others). I really think Microsoft has a phenomenal web / dev platform with .NET. But of course I’m biased 🙂
Stopped by the Apple store to pick up a MacBook the other day. I knew exactly what I wanted, yet I had to give my name to a receptionist and wander aimlessly for 15 minutes watching the crowd at the Genius bar get serviced. Finally, some guy with a blue mohawk, sagging pants and goofy shoes helps me. He asked what I wanted, I told him, and he proceeded to ask how I was going to use it. I said business use, and he started to try to analyze my business needs… 20 minutes to make a 5 minute purchase.
As long as they have that sort of service, they will have problems selling to businesses. Most of our clients still want to deal with techs who look and act like business people.
Running a MacBook has been interesting – I think the hardest thing has been overcoming 20 years of motor skills memory 🙂
Once you go MAC you never go back! I tried.
I switched to Mac after selling IT Matters and wanted to treat myself to something special. It was love at first sight. I loved my Apple…but when Windows 7 came out, I went back. Well, it didn’t take me long to flip back opting for the sexy Macbook Air and iMac. Now, the only MS product I run besides Office for the Mac, which is so much better than Office on the PC…is a Windows phone. I love the Windows phone. But, so long PC…however, DELL is giving me one of their XPS 13’s to try out…so maybe just maybe.
Stuart Crawford
MSP Business Coach
Toronto, ON
I go way back with Macs and actually still have a Macbook at my desk next to my Dell laptop. As much as I have tried, I just do not like the Mac experience and find the only redeeming quality of my Mac is the fact that I can run virtualized instances of Windows on it. I spent a month last year trying to work exclusively on my Mac and hated it.
I understand why so many people like it, but it just was not right for me, and I know many people who agree. Then again, Jessica did mention I am the only person she has spoken to who is excited about getting a new Windows phone.
I started on Mac many many years ago but moved to Windows 95 due to the far superior networking. Finally made the move back to Mac about 9 months ago because the Macbook Air looked like the perfect travel machine.
And it is, but unfortunately it also runs Mac OS by default. I’m constantly amazed at how much harder basic tasks are – like saving a PDF file from a preview, viewing a slide show, sending a doc via email, saving photos from a camera somewhere other than the standard library, etc etc. Add to that Office for Mac limitations (no Google App Sync, no multi-cell content delete in Excel, various Outlook limitations), and the missing Delete key (yes Mac’s have one labelled Delete, but it’s a Backspace key). There are some good features, but my experience is that they are far outweighed by the annoying, although I am addicted to the touchpad.
My recommendation – buy a Mac and upgrade to Windows and have the best of both hardware and software. Best of all nobody in the coffee shop needs to know you are running Windows, they will just see the glowing apple and assume you are cool.
Twenty year windows veteran who decided to dip a toe in the fruity water a couple of years back, someone offered to buy me a MBP and lets be honest who would say no. Well I wish I had.
For all they are beautifully designed bits of kit I’m eager to move away. At work I use windows devices and I have no problems with them. Perhaps that’s not true, I probably do have problems but they’re generally easily fixable. When OSX goes awry resolving the issue is harder to resolve, oh and for those that say they don’t break let me tell you they do.
When I walk into a shop to buy a cat5 cable Apple want 5 times the price that other retailers want for exactly the same thing. Unfortunately this is true of anything you want to purchase for the OS be it a hardware upgrade or a simple bit of software that is available as freeware on Windows costs a small fortune on the mac.
And don’t get me started on patching. I’d been led to believe there wasn’t any. So far this year mac downloads are twice what I’ve needed for my wife’s Windows Seven machine.
Jessica make that trip, go to the store, but don’t be fooled by it all.
Jessica – if MAC and PPT played nicely together, I’d still be a MAC. But alas they do not. I couldn’t stand another quicktime logo on my presentation and swapping font styles from one computer to another. Yes, the MAC is more intuitive, but for the programs I use, the PC works just fine. And that’s all I have to say about that.