Everything In Between

There’s no denying it; Apple is cool. This has gotten a lot of people asking Mac users what the big differences are between using a Windows-based PC compared to using an Apple Macintosh. It’s a fair question. No one wants to spend their hard-earned money on a product they don’t know will be good for them.

Well, when I’m asked this question (and I’m asked this a lot) here’s a few key points I bring up when discussing the benefits of using a Mac.

• Increased shelf-life. I’ve had my personal computer (an iMac) for over 5 years and it still runs the latest applications without much trouble at all. Can’t do that on a Windows-based PC because after five years they get painfully slow. Not Macs; they stay relatievly speedy.
• Hugely improved security. Comparitively speaking, Windows and Windows-based applications are easy to compromise. An attacker of any and every kind will have a lot more trouble breaking into the average Mac configuration than the average Windows configuration.
• And speaking of security, viruses are a major concern in the Windows world. Not so with Apple Macs. Macroviruses do exist on Mac, because they infect applications, so it’s not true to say that there are no viruses (an oft-repeated myth). It is true, however, to say that at this time and probably for the near future, there will be no virus that can affect the Mac OS like there are in Windows.
• A multittude of free features unavailable on Windows. The standard Mac these days ship with industrial server-quality software out-of-the-box for things like Web sharing (hosting your own web site right from your computer), accessibility (new Macs come with a screen reader, for instance), and a ton more stuff. Just peek at the OS X overview.
• These past two points dovetail nicely into this one: Mac OS X is based on BSD UNIX and continues the UNIX tradition, which embodies the philosophy of good, simple, reliable, elegant software. The newest Macs are actually built on a foundation over 30 years old and as you know, the only things that ever last in the computer world are the reliable things. Compare that with Windows XP, which was based on Windows NT and is not even half that old. Remember, in computer speak old equals reliable, and as far as I’m concerned reliable equals good.
• Finally, Macs have an elegant usability that increases your productivty. This one is hotly debated among computer enthusiasts because people often work differently from each other, and your workflow is not like my workflow. Beacuse of this, switching to a Mac means that you’ll have to re-learn some of the things you know to work with Macs, but I maintain that this transition time is short and that the benefits are great. As an example, installing a new program on a Mac is a drag-and-drop operation, whereas doing the same on Windows is often a multi-step process requiring an Installation wizard and even a computer restart sometimes.

As always, your mileage may vary and there’s only one ultimate reason for you to switch to Macs: because you want to. Why you want to, whether it’s because Apple is the new black or because you’re addicted to the iMac’s iSight and Photobooth, is completely up to you. And if you’re still not sure, there’re plenty more reasons to switch.