Metropol

As a Mac user who is considering switching back to Windows upon the release of Vista, I would say... don't bother.

Macs are fine, and I like mine very much, I really do. And Mac obsessives will throw at me some great long winded thing about unix or that shite, I know this. But put things into perspective here...

No more casual games of minesweeper on MSN with your mates...

No more games full stop, really, given that the vast majority are not actually converted over...

Experience how it feels to be always the last person to get software upgrades (Google Earth, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Office, Skype, Real Player, anyone? All products currently available in a far better form on that ''other'' platform. Ooh, but don't worry, you'll get iTunes first.)

Think about how when you do actually get Microsoft Office you'll have to save most of your files in PDF if you're going to transfer to Windows because you're not sure if they're going to turn out the same at all... and usually they don't.

Think about the fairly pathetic specs that Apple laptops have coupled to a very high price. And don't be fooled into thinking that this means better quality... Apple are notorious for appalling manufacturing processes, and with a whole 3/6 months (count 'em) aftercare programme, you'll be wondering what the attraction is. I've had my laptop battery recalled, and my screen backlight is now a bit iffy too. Apple: "Yes, lots of iBooks have that problem"

Think about all those webpages that won't render properly, in either Safari or Firefox (and there are TONNES).

The next time you get a phone and it comes with one of those installation discs for you to put extra software on... there won't be a Mac version available.

Don't get me wrong there are a lot of plus points to a Mac (nice looking fonts? Check. Virus free... mostly? Check. Erm... oh, yesh, it's always one step ahead of Windows, but that's because Apple release a new version every year and charge you £100 to upgrade).

They are more stable - crashes are exceptionally rare - and that is something Windows can't get anywhere near to competing with, but in my experience XP has not been THAT bad. I used it for a year and actually had very few problems. People who fiddle and are constantly installing and uninstalling and playing about with settings, changing configurations, etc... well, they deserve all they get, which is mostly a reformatted hard drive.

Mac OS X is clunky at best. The response times for simple things like minimising windows and opening folders are a tiny bit slower than Windows, but it gives the impression you're sort of having a nice stroll through the computer rather than being able to do anything with any real speed. Dashboard is a joke, and the Vista sidebar looks much better.

There are some things I'd miss if I switched to Windows - the stunning font rendering, which Vista will resolve; the Spotlight feature, which Vista will resolve; the stability issue, which Vista might resolve a tiny bit; the security issue, which again, Vista looks promising on; and the installation procedure, which basically amounts to dragging a single file into a single folder, and uninstalling it by deleting that file.

I'm going to look closely at 10.5 and Vista when they're out, and decide then. But if you're buying it for the hype and thinking they're so much better and so on, don't kid yourself. They're not.

Oh, let's not forget the dire performance of Flash in webpages.

Good lord you'd have thought they'd have at least tried to resolve that. A five year old PC running Windows 98 performs better than a brand new Intel Mac (believe me, I've checked).

I seem to recall that the fancy search tool has been dropped from Vista and will come as an add-on to XP or Vista whenever it's ready. I'm not convinced about the security - so long as windows has a massive market share, it'll always be a target to weirdos, and these things only need one little imperfection to take root.

BUT it should be very pretty (which seems to be a big feature for you cat) if you have a computer that can handle it...
512MB ram, GeForce FX/Radeon 9500 upwards graphics at agp 8x or pci express at the moment.
Won't be a cheap upgrade at any price!

One other thing: Vista is schedules for almost a year from now, Willing to wait?

e are some things I'd miss if I switched to Windows - the stunning font rendering, which Vista will resolve

I'd have to agree with you on that one. In the time I've had to use the Mac suites at college, the fonts on screen are a lot more pleasant to look at, for both LCDs and CRT screens and Windows looks rough in comparison, even with the font smoothing turned on. Cleartype is only much use on TFT screens, and looks shite on normal CRT screens.

Whatever the standard non Cleartype font rendering is that's used for normal screens, it's OK but nothing near the Mac's capability where everything is smooth and pleasant to the eye. And it looks shite on TFTs - shame the whole of the college is still running Windows 2000, then. Horrible bitmapped jagged egdes on all the screens, and by default the IT bods have not worked out how to turn it on when you log in so it's the first thing I turn on (god, aren't I vain? ).

Windows XP is OK like you say, and in the main, it is fairly stable. Give or take the odd duff driver or dodgy app that causes the whole machine to hang or need a login/logout I've had little problems with it. Or bit of failing hardware that causes all matter of odd problems. But that's a rarity and soon gets sorted.

Although, there are some parts of Windows which need major re-work - the search tool is a pain in the arse and hangs frequently, simply because it starts searching automatically when I try and open a file in the search pane (even though the button is labelled "stop", it doesn't stop. It's more like "pause and carry on at will"). Couple this with large diks and a slightly over zealous antivirus program and you've got treacle. All because Bill Gates doesn't understand the meaning of the word "stop" (cue classic geeky "If Microsoft made automobiles ..." jokes)

I've not used a Mac for an extended period like you have, but I'd love to be able to trial one over, say, a week and attempt to do what I normally do on it.

And the iTunes music store can kiss my arse. The files it offers are crap of the highest order - not so much the music contained within them, but the low quality that they sell them in. Lack audio quality with DRM shite, to put it bluntly. It's nicely presented, but I'd rather they offer quality audio and had a site that wasn't as visually attractive. Like you say, Apple is all about looks at the expense of quality.

Aston, do you use Macs in your everyday work, since you work(ed?) in the broadcasting industry? Is this what has led you to your decision?

cat wrote:Oh, let's not forget the dire performance of Flash in webpages.

Good lord you'd have thought they'd have at least tried to resolve that. A five year old PC running Windows 98 performs better than a brand new Intel Mac (believe me, I've checked).

Now I must argue with that. Flash performance in Safari on an iMac G5 1.9Ghz is among the best I've ever seen. It is slightly sluggish in Firefox on the same system though.

Luke-H wrote:

cat wrote:Oh, let's not forget the dire performance of Flash in webpages.

Good lord you'd have thought they'd have at least tried to resolve that. A five year old PC running Windows 98 performs better than a brand new Intel Mac (believe me, I've checked).

Now I must argue with that. Flash performance in Safari on an iMac G5 1.9Ghz is among the best I've ever seen. It is slightly sluggish in Firefox on the same system though.

I know this is going to sound a little anal and a bit noobish at the same time, but is it me, or do the stripes on the flash buttons not move as quickly under the Mac in Safari?

It's one thing I noticed when I viewed TVF a Mac - why this was I don't know, but it gave the me the impression that it was struggling, since this is the sort of thing I'd get on my really old PC. I've no idea how to bring up the equivalent of task manager on the Mac and wouldn't know if it was killing the processor or not.

Just a thought.

Chris wrote:Aston, do you use Macs in your everyday work, since you work(ed?) in the broadcasting industry? Is this what has led you to your decision?

No, I've never really come across Macs with work, everything is pretty much done on PCs apart from Graphics.

I quite fancy one just because I'm told they're better, work more efficiently and because they look gorgeous too!

Look great, yes...

Work better/more efficiently?

Depends what you want. If you want to be compatible with most of your friends, then, get Windows. They are no more efficient or 'better' than a good solid Windows laptop... they look nicer, and OS X looks much smoother and more refined than XP and has far greater capabilities, but Vista will resolve most of that.

As for flash... sorry, I have to disagree. I've tried it on the latest G5 when I was in Regent's Street recently, and it is nothing compared to a new PC's running of flash. Macromedia have even admitted as much in a response i've read from one of their tech people.

I've been a Mac user all my life, but I'm getting increasingly disillusioned. A few weeks ago I got a new G5 iMac (the very last spec to have the PowerPC processor before they brought in the Intel one) and I've been plagued with bugs and compatability issues.

The broadband modem software keeps deleting itself every few days for no apparent reason. Apparently it was never designed to work with Tiger, and there's no fix. What am I supposed to do? Buy a new modem?

The date and time in the corner keeps disappearing every time I boot up.

If I put the Mac to sleep it won't reconnect to the internet unless I do a restart.

Microsoft Office suite (Word, Powerpoint, Excel & Entourage) for Mac doesn't like ANY of the fonts I've worked with for years. It won't start up if they're in the Fonts folder. Apparently the only way around this is to temporarily take them all out of the Fonts folder, then put them back in if I need to use any of them for Graphic Design apps. As I switch between Graphics apps and MS Office apps all day as part of my work, this is utterly ridiculous.

Now I can't get my HP printer to work with Tiger either.

It's all a completely fucked up nightmare. After spending £1100 I'm disgusted. I never had any of these problems with my 3-year old G4 eMac.

cat wrote:Look great, yes...

Even that I'm beginning to question. About a year ago I'd have agreed wholeheartedly that macs win on the looks front. Then I converted my PC into a mac skin (using Flyakite OSX) and enjoyed it for the first 5-6 weeks, but then missed the Windows look, and I've never looked back having deleted it. While macs are nice for first impressions, it's all just a bit dull once you get used to it (how much bloody white and transparent plastic can you get!)

Get a normal laptop and give me what you save on buying an Apple so I can get one too