This post is part of my “I’m Not a Mac” series, chronicling my controversial migration away from Apple after 15 years as a Mac user. Find other entries in the “I’m Not a Mac” series archive.
And so the deed is done. Since the middle of March, I have been a PC. Contrary to the popular myth among Macheads that turning to the alleged “dark side” of the computing world would mean time and space as I know them would come to a sorry end, honestly, I couldn’t be happier. After 15 years as a confirmed Mac user, that happiness is the biggest surprise of all.
When last I left off in this series, I had decided to put my desire to migrate away from Mac OS on hold. I still resented the way Apple seems to try and lock users permanently in to Mac-centric software solutions (iTunes, iPhoto, iAdinfinitum), promulgates a myth of reliability, and refuses to even acknowledge Linux–all the while marketing its overly expensive machines as the best solutions in the computing marketplace.
I wanted to give both Windows 7 and my preferred Linux flavor (Linux Mint) an equal chance at becoming my next operating system. Being (for better or worse) a recent CLEAR Wimax convert, though, my new OS would need to let me use my USB Wimax modem–and as of last writing, there just weren’t any native Linux drivers for Wimax modems available. So I sat and waited.
While I was waiting, I continued to migrate my desktop life into the Google cloud, including contacts, calendars, and photos (via Picasa), so I’d eventually be ready to make the leap to a new OS. I also switched from Firefox to Google Chrome as my browser of choice, due to the availability of Chrome extensions to provide me with convenient Gmail, Google Voice, and Google Calendar alerts directly from my browser bar.
Then last month, the economy forced my hand. Needing to further right-size my life to deal with the vagaries of an uneven consulting income, I decided to make the leap once and for all and sell my unibody Macbook. This, the same Macbook I bought 13 months earlier for $1,350 after my previous Macbook died in the middle of a business meeting. (See: myth of reliability.) Having bills to pay and being less than in love with Mac OS anyway, I felt it was the right time.
Linux Wimax drivers still not being available, that meant my only option was going to be a Windows laptop. And after 15 years of listening to Apple fans talk about how much better the Mac OS is, even after all my research into Windows 7, I was leery of becoming a PC for the first time since Windows 3.1…although every time I used Windows 7, I actually kind of liked it. A lot.
What’s more, I realized I didn’t need all the bells and whistles of my Macbook–like a 13″ screen, an optical drive I rarely ever used, or a level of computing horsepower that mostly sat around filing its nails while I confined my use of the machine to email, blogging, and web surfing.
After a week of researching PC laptops, though, it wasn’t just the lightheadedness of learning how many hundreds of dollars cheaper Windows laptops were versus Mac laptops with similar specs that got to me. I was also amazed to see how commonplace technology long desired on the Mac side of things was in the PC world. HDMI ports? Screaming fast, multi-core processors? Built-in Wimax? (Admittedly a new trend.) Really?
Yes really. Who knew? Certainly not a long-term, knee-jerk Mac user like me. I eventually settled on a Toshiba satellite subnotebook (a T115-1100), smaller and lighter than my metal-brick of a Macbook, with a modest processor, an HDMI port for streaming Netflix onto my HDTV, and an absent optical drive that I wouldn’t miss one bit. I bought it for less than $400, including shipping. If the laptop hadn’t been a factory refurb (the likes of which I’ve bought a few times in the past on the Mac side with no problem), it would have cost me $50 more. Oh the horror!
In fact, except for a slower processor, the specs on the amazingly affordable laptop match or surpass what I had on my Macbook, including the same amount of RAM, a multi-touch trackpad, and a much larger hard drive. And although macheads love to suggest otherwise, transferring over my files was as simple as dragging my Documents, Music, Photos, and Movies folders onto a Windows-formatted (FAT32-only, migrating Mac users) USB hard drive, and then dragging their contents into the folders of the same name on my new PC.
I was worried iTunes and my iPhone wouldn’t work without some fiddling after my migration. As it turned out, all the fiddling I needed to do was to download and launch the PC version of iTunes, which instantly found my old iTunes folder in its new PC home, including all my music, playlists, and iPhone apps, with no problem at all.
For fullest disclosure, I did some advance planning to make my migration go as smoothly as it did. I made a list of all the software I’d need to find PC versions of or replacements for, then downloaded them in advance on my Mac and transferred them over to my PC along with my media files so they’d be ready to install when I needed them.
I also made a list of all the Chrome extensions I’d need to reinstall, and synced my bookmarks with Xmarks so that I could sync them back into Chrome after making the switch to my new PC laptop. (Using Xmarks also enabled me to sync my bookmarks with Internet Explorer, giving iTunes a path to sync my bookmarks onto my iPhone.) Overall, it wasn’t an enormous amount of prep work and it was pretty easy to do.
And with that, two weeks ago, I sold my Macbook on Craigslist, making me an almost complete PC, except for my iPhone. (I became a complete PC a week later when I replaced my AT&T iPhone with a Verizon Droid Eris–click through for my long-promised, I-kid-you-not, hammer-iPhone death match video.)
So here’s how I feel about my migration from Mac to PC two weeks after the fact…
Happy. Because after two weeks of using Windows 7, I have the uncanny feeling that this is the operating system Mac OS X could have been all along, if only Cupertino weren’t so dead set on locking users in and shutting all other current technologies out. Windows 7’s glassy, translucent Aero interface is far more elegant than Mac OS X’s interface, which has looked more or less the same for almost 10 years. And I find the Windows 7 taskbar more useful and far more customizable than Mac OS X’s oddly placed, ridiculously shaped Dock, offering all the functionality of not just the Dock but of Mac OS X’s ill-defined menubar notification area and Apple menu, as well.
Windows 7 also offers more numerous and helpful tips, advice, and suggestions throughout the OS, both in on-screen descriptions and pop-up text boxes. It feels like a breath of fresh air compared to Apple’s overly zealous parsimony of on-screen assistance. (After all, you’re just supposed to be able as if by magic to intuitively use a Mac, since they’re supposed to “just work” out of the box, right? So why bother with richly worded, on-screen assistance? Would that be why Apple devotes an entire section of its website to teaching Windows switchers how to use Mac OS?)
In fact overall, by switching from Mac to PC after 15 long years as a Machead, I have the uncanny feeling that my day-to-day computing experience using Windows 7 is actually more Mac-like than when I was still using my Macbook. Maybe I’m just feeling the difference between using an operating system seemingly designed according to the whims of a single user (Steve Jobs) versus an OS specifically re-designed in response to input from an entire installed user base unhappy with the previous version (Vista).
Either way, that after a decade and a half as a Mac user my day-to-day computing life feels more Mac-like on a Windows 7 PC is a pretty damning outcome for Apple, which has officially lost me as a member of their “locked in” user base. But, you won’t read many similar stories of Mac-back-to-PC switchers no matter how hard you Google for them. (Trust me, I’ve tried.) After so many years of corporate indoctrination, it just never occurs to Mac users to consider what life might be like using a Windows machine.
Let me assure other Mac users considering making a similar back-migration, this new PC is having the time of his life right now. After 15 years as a Mac user, now that’s really thinking different.
Categories: "I'm Not a Mac" Series
Mike
I’m an #OpenlyAutistic gay, Hispanic, urbanist, Disney World fan, New York native, politically independent, Jewish blogger in Chicago. I believe in social justice, big cities, and public transit. I write words and raise money for nonprofits. I’ve written this blog since 2005. And counting...
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i agree with robed64, and thx for telling us. i used mac briefly for design work, but these days, with data-sharing i watch in pity as visiting mac users cant get their hands on my anime collection [evil laugh] without hours of piddling about
Well, i have been a PC user since the first computer i ever touched and just bought MacBook Pro. Best of luck in your PC world and with cheap products. Thats the best thing about a PC so many makers keeps price down. But i would take zed’s advice and learn how to restore, reinstall and pray things work after you load your computer up and add 3rd party programs. I think there is a reason not to many people write about their great experience switching from Mac to PC(windows). Oh, wait till you need tech support. Maybe you can understand the person on the other end but i do not speak broken indian-english. I do wish you the very best w/ your PC!
Beware though, as a PC tech for decades I can assure you that there is no “only need to install once” in the Windows world. Even Windows 7 will eventually slow to a crawl and require a reinstall of the OS. Most people just buy a new computer thinking that theirs is outdated but the ugly truth is that WIndows gets slower and slower the longer you own it and the more times you install or uninstall programs, and YES that includes updates.
I’d strongly advise you to use a program (Norton Ghost is great) to back up your entire computer as an image so you can easily just restore the computer to its “like new” condition down the road.
Also I don’t know what the specs are on your RAM and HD and processor but there are lots of tweaks to reduce the load on your system that may make you reconsider buying a new machine.
I do back-end web dev company that’s mostly mac-based. The company didn’t have a macbook for me the first few weeks, but I’d just gotten a new quad-core i7 with win7 ultimate on it. I wanted the same dev env as everyone else (easier to get up to speed that way), so I installed OSX into a VirtualBox VM using instructions from osx86project.org. Works great for development – like linux, except prettier, with good device support. Dual-monitor between win7 and mac is just cool. I run Office, CS5, and other productivity apps from win7, and keep all of my dev stuff like IDEs, app servers, databases, etc on the VM. Makes backups stupid easy, too. And if I drop my lappy in a puddle, I can just plug the backup drive into another machine and be done with it. Best part: compilation is faster on my VM than on a coworkers newer macbook using the same stack.
Sorry. I’ve used them both. Mac is better by far. Saving as a PDF, better in mac. Snapshots of anything on the screen, better on mac. Troubleshooting, downloading, safari, applications, i-movie, virus-free environement, BETTER ON A MAC!
b, you sure aren’t! But we never get the headlines that the Mac switchers do. And it’s true, while you can change your desktop image easily in Mac OS X, there certainly isn’t a built-in all-in-one theme manager for desktops, sounds, and UI colors.
As this point a few months since my own switch, I’m a bit disappointed with my Toshiba Satellite laptop, but that’s simply because I bought a low-end version to be thrifty. It still does all I need it to and I will eventually trade up to a speedier, more powerful system. However, I still love Windows 7, regardless of the weeniness of my processor, and have no plans to return to Macdom.
as a former windows user i’m glad i wasn’t the only one wanting to switch back from mac, after this year with saving up my money i’m going to get the next hp laptop with bluray and get rid of my apple crap. though i’m surprised that it’s playing well with my android phone (for now until i do something un-apple like convert my tvshows.)
i miss changing my desktop theme, and icons.
I am enjoying reading this series. I have had my Mac frustrations, but not enough to make me go back to the world of PC. However, I do really like Windows 7, it is SO MUCH of an improvement over Vista, I can’t even stand it. I used to do IT for a NFP organization, and 60% of my time was taken up by cleaning off computer viruses, running restore scripts, and destroying malware, that I will never even consider a return to PC unless they come up with a system that is so Virus-Proof that it would make Linux users jealous.
Your one line that really stuck out to me is “as a Mac user my day-to-day computing life feels more Mac-like on a Windows 7 PC.”
I mentioned earlier a that I have had some frustrations with Mac. This takes me back to the original Macintosh commercial. When Jobs put that together, it was a masterpiece. But it could almost be said now more than ever that Jobs is the one up on the screen, calling out for corporate conformity and unity of user experience. (Kind of ironic. lol)
However, I happen to like the Mac GUI and the fact that I can do just about everything that I need to ootb with any Mac that I buy. So, I don’t mind being a fanboy. I’ve converted many, and I’ll continue to do so. Just call me the Macevangelist. haha
You sir, are made of so much awesome. Enjoy your Windows 7 setup. (:
Thanks, Phil. Those reinstallations might not be so bad, as long as you do adequate advance planning. While it’s a bit annoying to have to re-input preferences and such, if you make sure you have your install DVDs, CDs, and installer filers ready to go, it shouldn’t take too much time. Essentially, as a Mac-to-PC switcher, I had the same experience as XP upgraders face–i.e. reinstalling everything anew from scratch. You only have to do it once 🙂
This is a really interesting series. I had been toying with going to a Mac for a few years, especially after the Vista debacle. I do have a few hesitations, though, beyond price.
This series has really spoken to me. I’m going to see if MS creates a viable XP to 7 upgrade path that doesn’t require me to reinstall many desktop-based apps.