Never had a Mac, will I enjoy using OS X?

[adrynalyne]

I actually haven't.  We have Office 2010 installed at work and I've just use Office 2011 at home.  Is it as fluid as Windows?  What about keyboard shortcuts on a macbook?  Do they work as easily too?

Office 365 installs office 2011 when used in OS X.

[fusi0n]

I actually haven't.  We have Office 2010 installed at work and I've just use Office 2011 at home.  Is it as fluid as Windows?  What about keyboard shortcuts on a macbook?  Do they work as easily too?

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of Office 2011 either.. Office 365's web versions are great and work just as well as the Windows versions.. I love it because I can stop and pick up on Linux, iPad, ect..

[tsupersonic]

I actually haven't.  We have Office 2010 installed at work and I've just use Office 2011 at home.  Is it as fluid as Windows?  What about keyboard shortcuts on a macbook?  Do they work as easily too?

The new version of Office should be coming out later this year/next year. If you have Office 365, and install it on a Mac, you'll simply get Office 2011 (same as what you have now). Office 365 is simply just a subscription based service for Office that lets you install the latest version of Office (Mac or PC). 

 

OP, I would say go for the Mac. Like you, I have used Windows extensively, and I recently purchased a MBP and like OS X. It is a change, but you get excellent hardware (it may get pricey). The one thing I miss from Windows 7/8 the most is window snapping. It is really a handy tool for multitasking, and having two windows side by side. Other than that, it is easy to use, and Yosemite sounds like a great upgrade (free).

 

You could always go the Hackintosh route, which is great if you like tinkering. 

[fusi0n]

Office 365 installs office 2011 when used in OS X.

Right. but, you can use the web versions.. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/start-using-office-and-office-online-HA103106031.aspx

The only real reason to install 2011 with 365 is for Outlook, which is still the best mail app for OSX..

The new version of Office should be coming out later this year/next year. If you have Office 365, and install it on a Mac, you'll simply get Office 2011 (same as what you have now). Office 365 is simply just a subscription based service for Office that lets you install the latest version of Office (Mac or PC). 

 

OP, I would say go for the Mac. Like you, I have used Windows extensively. I recently purchased a MBP and like OS X. It is a change, but you get excellent hardware (it may get pricey). The one thing I miss from Windows 7/8 the most is window snapping. It is really a handy tool for multitasking, and having two windows side by side. 

 

You could always go the Hackintosh route. 

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/start-using-office-and-office-online-HA103106031.aspx

you can use the web apps..

[tsupersonic]

Right. but, you can use the web versions.. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/start-using-office-and-office-online-HA103106031.aspx

The only real reason to install 2011 with 365 is for Outlook, which is still the best mail app for OSX..

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-suite-help/start-using-office-and-office-online-HA103106031.aspx

you can use the web apps..

True, but it doesn't look feature rich as the desktop version (Excel 2013 in particular). This is just going off what's available in the ribbon on the web version. I might be wrong though - if so please feel free to correct me! 

 

Don't forget with Mac, you get free Pages, Numbers and KeyNote apps, which are like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

[fusi0n]

True, but it doesn't look feature rich as the desktop version (Excel 2013 in particular). This is just going off what's available in the ribbon on the web version. I might be wrong though - if so please feel free to correct me! 

 

Don't forget with Mac, you get free Pages, Numbers and KeyNote apps, which are like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

I found the web version of Execl to be very complete and works great with formulas..  A lot better than the 2011 version.. I use Excel for about 2 hours everyday and haven't ran into any issues.. When I used the 2011, I had to keep finding work arounds or booting into a VM..

[adrynalyne]

True, but it doesn't look feature rich as the desktop version (Excel 2013 in particular). This is just going off what's available in the ribbon on the web version. I might be wrong though - if so please feel free to correct me! 

 

Don't forget with Mac, you get free Pages, Numbers and KeyNote apps, which are like Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

No you don't.

 

They are inexpensive but they are not free.

[tsupersonic]

No you don't.

 

They are inexpensive but they are not free.

In context, OP is taking about getting a new Mac. iWorks is free with purchase of a *new* Mac or iOS device.

I found the web version of Execl to be very complete and works great with formulas..  A lot better than the 2011 version.. I use Excel for about 2 hours everyday and haven't ran into any issues.. When I used the 2011, I had to keep finding work arounds or booting into a VM..

 

Good to know! I didn't know Excel 2011 was that bad! I unfortunately don't have Office installed on my Mac at the moment. My Office 365 subscription only lets me have 2 installs, which I've already used up.

Edited August 4, 2014 by tsupersonic

[fusi0n]

In context, OP is taking about getting a new Mac. iWorks is free with purchase of a Mac or iOS device.

 

Good to know! I didn't know Excel 2011 was that bad! I unfortunately don't have Office installed on my Mac at the moment. My Office 365 subscription only lets me have 2 installs, which I've already used up.

I mean.. it isn't horrible.. but, the web version is much more what you would expect if you have been using Excel for a while.. All the "tricks" and stuff that you get use to, don't really always work in the 2011 version.. But, it might work great for most.. but, I like how it works, and how it works on any OS..

[adrynalyne]

In context, OP is taking about getting a new Mac. iWorks is free with purchase of a *new* Mac or iOS device.

 

Good to know! I didn't know Excel 2011 was that bad! I unfortunately don't have Office installed on my Mac at the moment. My Office 365 subscription only lets me have 2 installs, which I've already used up.

No it isn't unless its a deal offered by the retailer.

 

 

Apologies, its been a couple years and I didn't know Apple changed their policy since.

[+Elі Subscriber²]

 

Dude that's preety cool, so you've made the switch! You make good points - apart from Office, Spotify, Itunes, VLC and Chrome (which are all available on mac) I don't have any need for any particular app. I am interested by the potential for using the apps that are not available on Windows like Iphoto etc - have you used them and found them useful?

 

And the big question, so far, would you say you love windows or mac osx more?

 

 

I have to be honest with you, I like it so far and I'm sure with time and experience as I learn the ins and outs and how to customize things etc I will find myself at home probably sooner than later, but as many others have said, I find that file management leaves a lot to be desired, Windows Explorer is vastly superior when compared to Finder, I hate it how OS X forgets windows sizes and positions on the screen, let alone mouse precision, I have come to get used to it after two weeks, but I find my experience with the mouse much better in Windows too. 

[tsupersonic]

No it isn't unless its a deal offered by the retailer.

 

 

Apologies, its been a couple years and I didn't know Apple changed their policy since.

No worries. You had me confused and second guessing myself.  :laugh:

[scorpian007]

I've used both extensively (almost 24 years on Windows/DOS, 4-5 years on and off with Mac OS) and it's a matter of personal preference, I've owned countless Windows machines (desktops, laptops, Surface Pro) and a couple of Mac's (Macbook Air, Macbook Pro Retina). I didn't see the big deal about OS X, it's no easier to use than Windows, just different. I can't fault the hardware on their laptops, they're built very well. Some things are infuriating about the OS but I'm sure people who go from Mac to Windows will say the same thing.

 

If you're using Office, it's leagues better on Windows at the moment but they may change when Office Mac 2014 is rumoured to be released later this year. Like others have said, its best to play with one in store and see if you like it. It'll mostly come down to what you're using the machine for.

 

Personally I'd never buy their desktops, they're overpriced for what you get but the laptops are nice and there isn't much in the PC space that has similar build quality.

[scorpian007]

I find that file management leaves a lot to be desired, Windows Explorer is vastly superior when compared to Finder, I hate it how OS X forgets windows sizes and positions on the screen, let alone mouse precision,

 

I found the same thing myself, Finder is god awful compared to Windows Explorer. Another thing that drives me insane is if I have a minimised program and I Command+Tab to switch between running programs, it doesn't maximise it, just changes the global menu bar. Same thing with Mission Control, doesn't show minimised programs!

[Denis W. Veteran]

Quick thoughts from having a Mac for a bit over two months, and focusing strictly on the OS itself:

The fluidity of gestures and scrolling in OS X is great. On laptops if you do lots of scrolling with touchpads then compare the same scrolling experience on OS X, I'll strongly wager you'll side with the latter. Scrolling in Windows apps usually isn't great - some apps like Internet Explorer are okay, Metro apps are also okay via touch, but the rest is poor. Trying to enable smooth scrolling in other browsers also has a nice tendency to send the CPU spiking if there isn't hardware accelerated scrolling. Whereas on OS X, there is barely any impact to power usage when scrolling, on top of having butter smooth scrolling regardless of whether you're plugged in or on battery. I've verified this using a battery monitor and noting the current power draw on my Air (which remains around 4.5W).

The OS itself isn't better nor worse than Windows. As others have mentioned, things are different. Apps in OS X, and the OS itself, tend to be very heavy on keyboard shortcuts - example, almost any app has their preference pane as Command + ,. Most apps available on Windows and OS X have equivalent keyboard shortcuts, but there are some differences especially with Finder. For example:

• Enter a folder: Command + DOWN in OS X, Enter in Windows
• Go up a level: Command + UP in OS X, Backspace in Windows
• Rename: Enter in OS X, F2 in Windows
• Cut and paste: Command + C then Command + Option + V in OS X, CTRL + X then CTRL + V in Windows (why Apple insists on not having Cut in Finder is beyond me, but it is still possible to cut and paste even though it's not immediately obvious)
• Immediately delete a file: not possible in OS X, Shift + Delete in Windows
• Switch views: Command + 1/2/3/4 in OS X, ALT + V, L, then selecting a view with arrow keys in Windows

Window management: With Mission Control you can quickly flip between any app in the current desktop, any of your open desktops, or any full screen app. The last point is both a blessing and hindrance. I really like the ability to flip between a full screen VM, a full screen browser window, and my desktop by simply swiping left or right with four fingers. However at the same time, for full screen apps that aren't games (which completely take control of all keyboard/mouse input), you can easily trigger the menu bar or Dock by moving the pointer to the top or bottom. In VMs it's infinitely frustrating when I accidentally activate the OS X menu bar when intending to, for instance, access the guest Ubuntu's menu bar also located at the top.

As for switching windows: Instead of Windows where ALT+TAB cycles through every possible window or Metro app, Command + TAB cycles through apps and selecting one will bring *all* windows associated with that app to the front, maintaining their hierarchy. Then you can use Command + ` to cycle through the current app's windows. Matter of personal preference in this case.

Expose versus Aero Peek: also personal preference. Expose works if you're on the touchpad, but is otherwise useless with a standard mouse plugged in.

Lack of Aero Snap: that is indeed something OS X could use. There are some commercial apps that bring that to OS X. I personally use Shiftit which is free (be sure to read the Download part, which directs you to a fixed build that works in 10.8 and up), but only allows for keyboard shortcuts to rearrange windows.

OS X is at its core a Unix-like OS so if you're used to say Linux, then it should also work here (i.e. add tasks in crontab, bash scripts, assign custom mounting options in fstab).

App quality: the apps that are exclusive to OS X are great. Cross platform apps are usually good (i.e. browsers). However you'll find that, not unlike iOS, useful tools that help your workflow or fix some OS X annoyances will tend to cost a bit (more on that below). Free tools aren't particularly plenty. One weakness I found as an example are archivers on OS X - the popular free archivers such as The Unarchiver or Keka (which I use) only allow for extracting an archive to a folder, or basic archiving options in Keka's case. You can't open an archive like WinRAR/Winzip/7zip, browse through its contents without extracting anything, and then choosing a file to copy. Also, apps tend to be quite large - the libraries OS X apps use are usually statically linked on compile time, a.k.a. copied into the app or app folder, whereas Windows apps can dump shared DLLs into system32, saving disk space.

Speaking of apps: the way to uninstall apps is a bit haphazard in OS X. For most apps you can simply move the app folder to the trash. But if the app installs kernel extensions, extra preference panes, etc. then you'll have to search for the uninstaller located in the app itself, or a script bundled with the .dmg you downloaded. Unlike Windows there isn't officially a central 'repository' of apps you can access to do a clean delete unless you use a third party tool like AppCleaner. Also, no package manager like yum/apt/whatever in Linux and Windows Installer.

Now for one annoyance I have with OS X: unlike Windows which has had the ability to hide tray icons since XP (or 2000?), the menu bar tends to fill up quite quickly with tray icons and there isn't a way to hide them. You can use something like Barkeeper to add in a popup tray window like Windows 7/8, of course assuming you're cool with shelling out a few bucks for it.

Anyways tl;dr - as others have said, if you go in with the mindset that you're prepared to do certain tasks differently in OS X, but not wildly unfamiliar to you (i.e. telling someone used to GUI notepads to use vi), then you should be okay with the experience.

[binaryzero]

Why do you need to change? What can't Windows do that you think your Mac will do?

 

OS X is OK, Windows is OK. Both have pros and cons.

[+virtorio MVC]

I have to be honest with you, I like it so far and I'm sure with time and experience as I learn the ins and outs and how to customize things etc I will find myself at home probably sooner than later, but as many others have said, I find that file management leaves a lot to be desired, Windows Explorer is vastly superior when compared to Finder, I hate it how OS X forgets windows sizes and positions on the screen, let alone mouse precision, I have come to get used to it after two weeks, but I find my experience with the mouse much better in Windows too. 

I've (after almost 10 years) never gotten used to the weird mouse acceleration in OS X, I'm always happy to get the Logitech software installed which makes it much closer to Windows. Likewise with Finder, I've always used a Finder replacement like PathFinder or Forklift.

[Ravensky]

It'll work ok for you if you do general computing. If price isn't a factor, then no problem, go for it.

 

If you extensively use Excel, I would stick with the Windows version though.

 

I disagree, I mainly use PC's but at work I am forced to use a mac with Microsoft Office and I must say that I actually find Excel on OSX to be just as good as on Windows.  I think you will LOVE OSX and your new MAC.  And you can always use BootCamp and dual boot with Windows.  :)

[(Account no longer active)]

I've (after almost 10 years) never gotten used to the weird mouse acceleration in OS X, I'm always happy to get the Logitech software installed which makes it much closer to Windows.

Mouse acceleration can be disabled via the Terminal:

 

Run: defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1

Log out and in again/restart.

 

No third-party app needed.

 

To read the default value, run: defaults read .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling

[binaryzero]

Mac* OS X*

[(Account no longer active)]

I tried switching to Mac/OS X several times and always found window management poor. That was until I found out about window hiding.

 

No more (time-wasting) Dock. No more Mission Control (or Expose, Spaces, etc.). Window hiding (command-H/command-option-H) and fast app switching (command-tab, combined with mouse selection) are so much faster to use. Yet, probably 99% of Mac users don't actually know about them!

 

Maybe get an older (no earlier than 2009) used MacBook off eBay to experiment with.

 

Regarding Office, v2011 takes a bit of time to adjust to (if coming from Windows versions) but does the job well (although I'd recommend a using it on a 15" screen, at least).

 

What I dislike the most about OS X is the static menu bar (can only be focused on one app at a time). Also, I wish Snap (formerly 'Aero Snap') functionality were included. However these are some of the things that make a Mac 'a Mac'.

 

Snow Leopard FTW/Snow Leopard forever!

[+virtorio MVC]

Mouse acceleration can be disabled via the Terminal:

 

Run: defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1

Log out and in again/restart.

 

No third-party app needed.

 

To read the default value, run: defaults read .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling

Thanks, but I'm aware of this. I don't want to kill the acceleration, I want to it work like it does in Windows. I've been spent plenty of time playing with USB Overdrive, ControllerMate and various other tools, and I could never get it the way I wanted, until I installed the Logitech software.

[(Account no longer active)]

Thanks, but I'm aware of this. I don't want to kill the acceleration, I want to it work like it does in Windows. I've been spent plenty of time playing with USB Overdrive, ControllerMate and various other tools, and I could never get it the way I wanted, until I installed the Logitech software.

Windows has mouse acceleration? :) Maybe it was introduced in Windows 8...

 

Edit: just thinking about it, it probably does, but it's hard to notice (so natural).

[offroadaaron]

Windows has mouse acceleration? :) Maybe it was introduced in Windows 8...

 

Edit: just thinking about it, it probably does, but it's hard to notice (so natural).

 

It always has, it's just because you're use to it.

[Gone]

Yes and no. I like the looks, I don't like the lack of games [though I don't have time for that anymore with my wife and daughter ;(].

 

I like how quick my mac is compared to my out of date HP Pavilion laptop (which I have since installed Linux on it).

 

 

What are you going to use it for? In all reality, if you will use it just browsing the internet, Microsoft Office, Mac is okay. But if you are using it for business, stick with Windows (7).