A few weeks living with Apple Macs

[JodyH]

On my latest computer upgrade at the house I recently switched to Mac.
iMac as the family room computer (replaced a Dell Win XP desktop) and MacBook Air (replaced a Dell dual-boot Ubuntu/Win7 15" laptop) as my personal/business machine.
After using the Macs for a few weeks I thought I'd offer up my impressions.

The iMac is the perfect family computer. The all in one design is a great form factor for a desktop.
OSX is simple and trouble free for my somewhat "computer indifferent" wife and boy. Power on, point and click, everything works.
It was simple to set up multiple user accounts and the parental controls work without being overly aggressive.
Since I'm the only one with Admin rights it's easy to monitor what gets installed and changed, that should keep it running smooth and virus free.
iMac = great computer for the family.

MacBook Air, the hardware is awesome. Sleek and solid at the same time. Mad props on the hardware.
The Magic Trackpad rocks, I found a base that snaps the wireless keyboard and trackpad solidly together and it's the best combination I've ever used for interfacing with a computer.
OSX on the other hand has been somewhat irritating.
I've found no way to attach my Samsung Galaxy 3 to my Mac, even as a USB storage device. Had to break out the Win7 machine to root and ROM it.
Getting Time Machine to backup to my Seagate NAS (supposedly Mac/TM compatible) has been an exercise in frustration. I'm currently backing up to a 2TB external drive attached to the iMac but would prefer to use the NAS attached to the router.
I attached a Apple external CD/DVD drive and went to play a DVD... the DVD Player crashes on startup (internet search reveals this is a common problem). Downloaded VLC Player until Apple releases a patch to get the native player to work.
I have noticed that non-native applications aren't as stable as they are on other OS's. Chromium browser and Open Office have both been rock solid on Linux and Win7 but both crash frequently on OSX.
Probably my biggest gripe with OSX is how hard I have to look to find the "power user" settings and configuration editors. Just like iOS devices the nuts and bolts are hidden and almost impossible to access. OSX is definitely made for two levels of user, the casual user and the hardcore geek. Things are too dumbed down feeling for me, but really getting into the deeper settings takes more research and effort than what I want to put into computers anymore.
Overall I'm happy with my switch to Apple/Mac despite the issues I'm trying to work through.
If I had it to do all over again I'd definitely stay with the iMac as the family machine but might look into a Samsung ultrabook dual booting Win7Pro 64bit/Ubuntu 12.04 instead of the MacBook Air as my laptop.

[Jason F]

...OSX is definitely made for two levels of user, the casual user and the hardcore geek. Things are too dumbed down feeling for me, but really getting into the deeper settings takes more research and effort than what I want to put into computers anymore....

I completely agree.

I was a Windows geek for decades, but 5 years ago or so I decided to finally switch to Apple full time. (I'm a photographer, and most of my industry runs Mac's, so I was definitely a bit of the odd man out before)

At first I missed delving in to the nuts and bolts and tweaking the crap out of everything... but you know what, my life got busy, business got more complicated, and I grew to love that the Mac's just worked for me 98% of the time without having to tear them apart and reconfigure them and the software - and then support the new confliguration I'd created by myself.

My brother is still a hard core PC nerd, as is one of my best friends. But when I consider the annual amount of hours I spend doing real hard core troubleshooting on my systems - versus what they have to put in on an annual basis? - it makes me happy with my setup.

Gosh this kool-aid is tasty...

[Vinh]

Thanks for the update. I am one month into my MacBook Pro ownership. I like the hardware, but cannot share my thoughts on the software.

[ToddG]

Jason -- Good explanation and I'd echo the same. After years of customizing and tweaking various flavors of Windows (and OS/2 for those of you who remember such things) now I just run the Mac.

[JodyH]

OCD and OSX are not a good combination.
If something doesn't work, I want to know why and I want to fix it.
With Win7 and Ubuntu there's a mid-level of preferences and settings that usually accomplished what I wanted.
With OSX there's only 1st grade ("Oooh I changed backgrounds! I'm a power user!") and PhD ("Terminal: sudo ~ insertgeek bootinass -getsum").

Take connecting my Samsung Galaxy 3 phone to the USB port.
Windows and Ubuntu both recognized and mounted it as a USB storage device. A quick trip to Samsung's web site and I had device drivers installed that allowed me to upload, download and change phone settings from my desktop.
OSX doesn't recognize it and no drivers exist. I hear that there's a way to access it via Terminal but why would I want to?
Seriously... it's 2012 and mounting a phone as a USB storage device should be a no-brainer.
I know why they do it (*cough* sell me a iPhone *cough*) but it still ticks me off.

The Mac works great as a internet surfing word processor but to indulge my inner geek (root and ROM flash a phone for example) I still have to keep a Win/Linux machine around.

I think the best OS for me will be the next generation or two of Linux Ubuntu. More streamlined and secure than Windows, more open and tweakable than OSX.

[Jason F]

Jody-

You're definitely right - if you connect any modern phone via USB to OS X it should at least show up as a storage device. That is kind of dumb. But to Apple's credit, their walled garden is tightly controlled to keep it all nice & tidy, so I can understand their point of view. But it is frustrating where if you try and step just slightly out of their line of thinking, you run in to all kinds of problems trying to get OS X to work nicely with something.

Proof that just like weapons, an OS is a tool. No one OS is perfect, and if you have a variety of needs, perhaps a variety of OS's (and hardware for them) is the best solution. That's not a perfect situation (being forced to have multiple machines), but it may be a point of view worth considering.


And I'm currently in the same boat of "C'mon Apple, WTF?!". Why? I just got an iPhone 5 and I'm digging iOS6 so I want to ugprade my iPad to iOS6 as well for harmony across devices. No dice. Why? Because I have an iPad 1, and it's no longer supported. It is literally 2 years old this Christmas, and it has just been put out as being "too old". THAT is frustrating.

[kmartphoto]

I completely agree.

I was a Windows geek for decades, but 5 years ago or so I decided to finally switch to Apple full time. (I'm a photographer, and most of my industry runs Mac's, so I was definitely a bit of the odd man out before)

At first I missed delving in to the nuts and bolts and tweaking the crap out of everything... but you know what, my life got busy, business got more complicated, and I grew to love that the Mac's just worked for me 98% of the time without having to tear them apart and reconfigure them and the software - and then support the new confliguration I'd created by myself.

My brother is still a hard core PC nerd, as is one of my best friends. But when I consider the annual amount of hours I spend doing real hard core troubleshooting on my systems - versus what they have to put in on an annual basis? - it makes me happy with my setup.

Gosh this kool-aid is tasty...

Same story here almost word for word.

[kmartphoto]

Take connecting my Samsung Galaxy 3 phone to the USB port.
Windows and Ubuntu both recognized and mounted it as a USB storage device. A quick trip to Samsung's web site and I had device drivers installed that allowed me to upload, download and change phone settings from my desktop.
OSX doesn't recognize it and no drivers exist. I hear that there's a way to access it via Terminal but why would I want to?
Seriously... it's 2012 and mounting a phone as a USB storage device should be a no-brainer.
I know why they do it (*cough* sell me a iPhone *cough*) but it still ticks me off.

Typically with an android phone you have to tell the phone how you want it to mount. I haven't tried a Samsung but that is how it works on HTC & Motorola.

[DVCPrepper]

I was in the same boat as Jason until 5 years ago. As a hobby, PC tweaking ad Linux tryouts were fun but having something that "just works" is nice. It's the Glock of the computer world.

I still have old Macs that run just fine, all my old PCs died of hardware failure.

[Jason F]

....My brother is still a hard core PC nerd, as is one of my best friends.....

Same story here almost word for word.

You do realize I'd already mentioned you in this thread, right?