A Month with a Mac: A Die-Hard PC User's Perspective
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 8, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Microsoft Office
And now we get to my least favorite part of my Mac experience; that is, with Microsoft Office 2004. While I read that many Mac users heralded Office 2004 as an improvement to the previous version of Office for the Mac platform, it doesn't even begin to hold a candle to Office 2003 on the PC or just about any previous version of Office.
A number of my initial complaints about Office for the Mac have been resolved with Office 2004, but the most significant one remains: Office 2004 is an unacceptably slow application. On the PC side, we often talk about why anyone would need a Hyper Threaded 3.6GHz Pentium 4 for typing in Word, but on the Mac, I would do anything for something to make Word more responsive. While I'm assuming that the problem isn't hardware related (I find it hard to believe that the G5 processor has inherent problems with Microsoft Word), it may be a combination of hardware and software, as I have already mentioned that simple things like scrolling do not happen as fast as they should under OS X.
Simple things like bolding a word are ever so slightly slower under Office for the Mac than under Windows; you wouldn't notice it if your first experience with Office was on the Mac, but coming from a Windows user's perspective, it can drive you crazy.
Office is also the only application, which I've used on the Mac, that does not have a plethora of keyboard shortcuts associated with anything but the most common commands. Even Office 2003 for Windows has more keyboard shortcuts than the Mac version; maybe Microsoft's Office Mac team view OS X as little more than a beginner's OS?
Thankfully, compatibility with its Windows counterpart remains top notch; although, I occasionally forget to append an extension to files that I save, making for an interesting time when emailing them to Windows computers (I usually get an email back to the tune of "all I got was a .dat file").
There are clear differences between the Mac and Windows Office interface that are seemingly unnecessary because the changes made to the Mac version don't exactly make the suite fit in any better with OS X as the application still feels very un-Mac-like. Instead, it seems that the changes to Office were made for the sake of making the suite different than its Windows counterpart, which doesn't make much sense at all to me.
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jjf - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
I've always had multiple computers on my desk, be they PC, Mac, Amiga, SGI or Linux. I've been using dual CPU machines for years. The extra horsepower matters on any platform. I have both MacOS 9 and OS X on my dual G4 450. I'm in 9 most of the time because I haven't been ready to spend the money to upgrade all my Adobe apps to OS X versions. Setting up this dual G5 induced some serious lust.OS X is really amazing. I recently migrated a PC user to a dual G5 system - fresh from Apple. If this slick system doesn't make you feel like you're living in the future, I don't know what will. His 20" display is killer. The hard disk was fast, so fast that I was sure he'd bought a RAID. But no, it was just ATA.
To migrate his email, I installed Eudora and imported all his Outlook Express, moved the mbox files to the Mac, then used "Eudora Mailbox Cleaner" to import the mboxes into Mail.app, then imported all that into Entourage. He wanted Outlook-like features. Worked like a champ, nested folders, attachments and all. Importing his 7,000+ photos was a snap in iPhoto. No glitches in moving all his Word documents. Alas, there's no Access for Mac.
Another aspect not mentioned in this article is the tremendous amount of software that has been easily ported from Linux to OS X. The Mac market is no longer dependent on its own freeware community. If an MacOS 9 partition is available, OS X can run old apps. With emulators, you can pretend you're a PC. And there's no mention of how nicely scriptable most apps are. It's like the old days of Amiga ARexx, your scripts can ask apps to do almost anything. Then there's .Mac, Apple's for-pay web service that syncs your email, calendar and address book to a web or other devices.
T8000 - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
It is difficult to compare speed for mac versus pc, as the mac just feels slower. I also had several macs when they where still beige (or black) and according to this review, that experience still stands.When you actually do video editing or other heavy usage, the mac will not loose much speed, but since hyperthreading was introduced, pc's also keep their responsiveness under load.
Also, since macs only come in cute design, lots of male professionals would not want to be seen behind one. A black mac could cure this, but those have not been build for at least 5 years.
15 years ago, when the first Powerbook was introduced, Apple was ahead of its time, but today, I would say the mac can be great for first time users and for loyal Apple users, however it is just not ready for the average user anymore.
toocoolracing - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Hi I enjoyed your article from a PC users perspective. I would consider myself an intermediate Mac user and don't really use PC's other than as required at work. Though I sometimes "fix" friends and relatives PC issues. There's more similarities than differences.I thought you did a nice job with the article and did a nice comparison. It can't be easy to switch to a foreign platform and delve in to it as deeply as you did with what seemed to be a pretty open mind. I love the Mac and wouldn't relish the idea of delving into Windows or Linux. I'm not a tech head, but not a novice either. Nice job and I appreciate your compliments of the Mac.
srain315 - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
I was very surprised to hear IE rated over Firefox. In my experience, Firefox blows IE out of the water! (Not just tabs, also extensions and Speed.)Some Googling showed me that a fast fox is a hit-or-miss proposition. For those experiencing a slow fox, I found the following link to help you tweak it: http://www.tweakfactor.com/articles/tweaks/firefox...
Don't forget that you can type "about:config" in the address bar to change Firefox variables.
Best of luck!
-J
vedin - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
I have only one question. Outside of some really serious Photoshop effects, and some enconding..what's the purpose of having a dual 2.5ghz G5 if you don't use it primarily for gaming? Perhaps you spend 4 hours a day encoding and such? If so, why are you using a desktop? It just..seems odd to me to have that much power for a mundane computer. There again, I wouldn't spend more than 1500 dollars on an outragiously fast gaming machine. But I don't do encoding, I don't own Photoshop, and if I did, I wouldn't spend much time doing much with either.FinalFantasy - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Everyone...remember...this article was written from a non-Mac users point of view for the everyday PC people! This article was not written to be 110% correct or to please Mac people. It was written to relate to people like me who could give a squat about a Mac, but sometimes wonder "what the hell is the purpose of one of those machines?".Here's a simple solution to all of this guys and gals...
Mac people stick to Mac's...
and PC people stick to PC's
A person who was born and raised on a PC is not going to get the purpose a of Mac. Personally I see no use for them. From seeing a friend who has a Mac and hearing her stories about it and from my knowledge of them (I'll admit, it's limited...I'm not like "Crazy" Cindy...j/k) They:
1) Are overpriced
2) Not nearly as easy to upgrade
3) DON'T PERFORM AS WELL IN A LOT OF BENCHMARKS AND THE ONES THAT THEY DO PERFORM WELL IN ARE ALL BUT USELESS (I'm exagerating here)
4) Did I say overpriced? (Price:Performance ratio is way better on a PC)
5) Are not compatible with a lot of softwares, hardware etc (The M$ Office for Mac works like crap)
My friends husbands Mac just got a trojan horse the other day...when more people start writing viruses, OS exploits and such for the Mac platform and the Mac's security is severly comprimised (remember security is one of the biggest draws of the Mac) no one is going to want to buy one. Period. MAC IS NOT GOING TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WHEN THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO START PACTHING THEIR OS BECAUSE SOMEONE ACTUALLY TOOK THE TIME TO FIND AN EXPLOIT IN THEIR SYSTEM. Macs are so useless that no one even wants to sit down and write a virus or trojan for it really.
The only thing Macs are good for is making money and keeping it in their hands, where as with a PC it made for the "people"/users who can goto newegg.com or Fry's or BB (if you will) and upgrade their system and buy parts from pratically from any company! Any upgrades done with a Mac are done through Mac giving you a very limited selection.
That's just my 2 cents...
Flame away.
vedin - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Cygni - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
Ive got a 15in G4 Powerbook with Panther as my primary laptop. All of my other computers have some form of Windows or Linux on them, and most of them a combo. Ive used both Apple's and PC's for years, starting with an Apple II.IMHO, OS X was a huge leap forward for Apple, and the G5 also seems to be a big step in the right direction. But that doesnt mean that it is anywhere near flawless. There are some primary problems with it: the handling of files, folders, and programs is simply not intutive to me, just as Anand pointed out. Things seem really disorganized at times. There are 2 other complaints I have with MacOS X, and they are the classis complaints against MacOS. 1) Programs dont close when you close their window, and often stay running without you knowing. This has KIND OF been fixed in OS X, but it can still be difficult to tell. 2) WHERE ARE MY OPTIONS MENUS? Im not talking about the way the OS looks or handles, im talking about for programs and hardware and the like. If anyone has attempted to make a mixed Mac OS / XP or Mac OS / Linux network (especially wireless), you probably know what im saying here.
In the end, XP has tons of problems. Just as many as MacOS. MacOS has some things that it really shines doing, but it also has some problems. XP handles lots of stuff well, but also has some problems. In the end, both just seem to be copying each other back and forth, so its probably going to a neutral middle ground soon anyway, heh.
By the way... some Mac people like to point some things out which are urban legend bs.
One) "Windows is nothing but a copy of MacOS." Actually, MacOS is nothing but a snatch of original work done by Xerox, with a dash of OS/2 and Amiga, and even some cross polenation with Win. Windows is a combo of the exact same stuff. Different interpretations of the same semi-stolen matterial. Nobody is "morally" higher here.
Two) "Macs are somehow better at graphical editing/music recording." Time to lay that to rest. It was a gap in software thats now gone.
Three) "My Mac can do anything your PC can do." Seriously, its a myth. My XP cant do everything Linux can do. So what, no OS is perfect.
Four) "OS X is more stable than XP." My PowerBook has just about the same number of crashes as my XP computers... not very often.
jjf - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
abEeyore - Friday, October 8, 2004 - link
He said it at the beginning of the article, he's a Windows user. If you are choosing between OS X and Windows, it can be a tough choice. x86 is cheap, and reliable, and XP is a usable OS.I'm a *nix user though, and I will never, ever go back to Windows (except for games).
Trying to get any kind of work done in Windows is agonizing. To get anything at all done I either have to contend with PuTTY (ugh!) or install CYGWIN or VM-Ware and Linux.
OSX is FreeBSD with a pretty face. It's binary paths are slightly non-standard (as are everyones), and the old StartUpItem sytax was clunky, but in general, the only truly evil thing about it was NetInfo - which they are killing off... but then I don't like Solaris either.
As far as Safari, it has caching issues. Rendering speed improved dramatically as soon as I disable caching, but your average user would never have found that.
I can sympathize with his perceived disconnect from the file system, mostly because I now feel that way about windows.
The byzantine maze of the registry with it's 10's of thousands of keys of questionable value, and the file system's seemingly non-existent organizational structure, and genuinely non-existent GUI independent index.
Apple has always targeted low-skill users, and that has lead to its polished interface. It now has SERIOUS power behind too, and that is it's most compelling aspect (for me).
The article was good, for what it is, but passed over much of the best that OSX has to offer. It's networking, both over and under the skin is far more robust than windows (mostly thanks to *nix), background services are nearly bulletproof, and BASH and applescript provide an incredibly powerful and flexible scripting without the terrifying security holes in VB Script.
To be fair, the entry level skills for these features are NOT low, but like vi, or emacs, there is just no way to go back once you get there...and OS X does a very good job of managing that complexity but letting you grow into those features if you want to - or letting you ignore them without leaving the OS feeling crippled.
Mac v. Windows is a deeply religious debate. In the final analysis, we like what we know, and changing platforms is hard no matter which way you go, because the fundamental assumptions change.
Unless you are a die hard Windows power user, with no Linux leanings at all, I'd recommend giving OS X a look. G5's won't change the world, but they are quick, and the architecture has a solid map for future growh, even without the PPC-980 on the hoizon.
If you want to hedge your bets, spring for an ibook, or a PowerBook. All of their new ones are respectably fast, if a little light on factory RAM, look good, have great battery life, and they hold their value amazingly well if you decide you dont like them.
My .02