Trust in Mac

I just purchased my first Mac a few weeks ago after approximately 15 years as a staunch PC user. I wanted a small laptop and didn’t care about gaming on the go. I was admittedly seduced by curiosity (not to mention that damn glowing Apple logo- Curse you vile temptress!). Here I am, not even two months into this crazy experiment and already with some startling results; the most startling is that I whole-heartedly prefer and would recommend a Mac to any computer user except a gamer.

Admittedly, this may mean very little. I don’t do everything with a computer. I don’t do CAD, 3D graphics, and a plethora of other things. However, I probably do more with a computer than most. I find myself trying to solve almost every problem with my computer. Another finding that has surprise me is that I have not really found anything (gaming excepted) I can’t do as well or better on my Mac as compared to my PCs. Here are some other observations.

Positive

1. There are capable and beautiful applications for performing every task I do on my PC.
2. Most tasks are easier on my Mac.
3. My Mac performs very well and is a stellar multitasker (I have the white 2.4GHz model.)
4. The learning curve was painless.
5. There is little room for interface customization. Wait… isn’t this a negative observation? No! This means you can’t fuck up the beautiful interface! Remember the hot dog stand color scheme?
6. Two finger scrolling on the touchpad is awesome! I can scroll horizontally or vertically no matter where my fingers are on the pad.
7. I have shut the computer down maybe twice since I have owned it. This means I am up and working from standby in seconds, and I am back down and ready to go in a similar timeframe! (Check out SmartSleep.)
8. The keyboard feels very nice compared to most laptop (and cheap desktop) keyboards.
9. The battery lasts nearly forever.
10. QuickSilver. Why has no one ripped this off for the PC?
11. The software and hardware are rock solid and well-designed. I’ve got things I’m wishing PC manufacturers had cared to include in their machines. Maybe I’ve just been buying cheap PCs.
12. Integrated web cam.

Negative

1. It seems a greater share of the cool applications I’m finding for the Mac are shareware where I might be able to find freeware equivalents for PC. Many of the good free Mac apps are ports from Linux.
2. Firefox, my favorite web browser, has some visual quirks that are not present in other versions. I’m guessing most of this will be eliminated with Firefox 3.
3. There seems to be no equivalent to the PC’s “home” key. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
4. No gaming whatsoever! Gaming on the Mac seems to come down to this decision: emulators, the handful of commercial titles that have been released in the past five years, or some Tetris clone which is evidently beautiful and totally awesome. (Too bad I’m not much on Tetris.) I was sure I would find some quirky and wonderful Mac exclusive $10-15 shareware games. If they are out there, I’m not looking in the right places.
5. Safari isn’t too hot. Camino isn’t much better. Sure, Firefox isn’t a Cocoa app, and I lose some functionality as a result. It doesn’t outweigh the value of my extensions. I have at least ten extensions I consider a necessity for web browsing. Luckily, I can run Firefox with all my extensions so this is a relatively minor negative.

I will add to this list if something comes to mind, but my experience has been largely positive up to this point. If you are interested in gaming, go with a Windows system. If you aren’t, I haven’t yet found a compelling reason not to make the switch. If you don’t like it, you can always boot Windows out of BootCamp.