I purchased my first Mac, the Mac Pro in March 2007, however this was not the first time I had given serious thought to switching to Macs. I first became serious about switching back in 2005 when Apple released the Mac Mini.  It is the most affordable computer to get into the Mac OS X experience, however I decided at the time to pass and wait.  While it was the lowest priced Mac, it was still expensive for a system that may or may not get used on a daily basis, depending on whether or not I liked OS X.

Fast forward to 2007, and I really started to get the Mac bug after talking extensively with a good friend on the benefits of Macs, as well as reading and getting involved in online communities centered around Macs and Apple in general.  It seems that with the bad press Microsoft Vista was continuing to receive, Apple was taking full advantage of this and going after PC users like myself with their advertising campaigns.  The final straw for me was the fact that after installing and running the Vista Upgrade Advisor, suddenly my fully capable Windows XP machine that was only a few years old was not able to upgrade to Windows Vista because of the lack of motherboard chipset drivers.  The gave me the push to again look into Macs.

So I again revisited the Mac Mini, however I found that for it’s specifications and upgrade options it lacked the power that I needed in my everyday life.  I looked into the iMac however I didn’t like the thought on an all-in-one type system with an integrated display.  This led me to the Mac Pro and it’s expensive price tag, however, I knew by looking at the specs and reading forum posts that this was the computer that I wanted and one that would serve me well.  A quick trip to my local Apple store, and I was walking out with a new Mac Pro… well, not really walking as it comes in a huge box and is quite heavy to lug through a mall all by yourself.

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Never before has Mac market share been so high.  What is the reason for the increase?  Is it the Mac Hardware?  OS X and Apple software?  Is it because of Windows Vista and the problems Microsoft has had with it’s launch, driver compatibility issues and bad press?

Welcome to my series Switching to Mac. In this set of articles, I want to document my experiences on switching from using a PC running Windows XP to using a Mac Pro running OS X Tiger, then later upgrading to OS X Leopard. I’m going to be exploring some of the differences between using a Mac and a Windows PC both on the hardware side, as well as the software side.  I’ll explore the pros and cons of using each from my point of view being a web developer who uses both systems on a day to day basis for my work, as well as an avid computer user in my personal life using it for everything from surfing the internet to creating movies, editing photos, and more.  The topics I will cover and discuss will include:

• My Switch to the Mac
• A look at Apple Hardware
• Apple Hardware… meet Apple Software – OS X, iLife, Pro Apps
• Updates, Patches, and Point Releases
• AppleCare Support Services
• Applications for the Mac
• Running Windows on your Mac
• Online resources for recent switchers

I hope you’ll enjoy this series and be able to use some of my experiences in helping you make the decision as to whether switching to the Mac is best for you.  I will be updating this post adding direct links to the articles as I post them.  Of course subscribing to the RSS feed will also ensure you get the articles as they are posted.  Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Information Week has posted an interesting story about Microsoft admitting to Windows Vista mistakes, and about a new ad campaign to target a “pretty noisy competitor”.  In case you’ve been living under a rock (or have the 30 second skip enabled on your TiVo) that competitor would be Apple.

The details come from Brad Brooks, VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, and he had quite a bit to say at a recent Microsoft Partner Conference.  In his statements, he admits to Microsoft breaking a lot of things, and causing a lot of pain.  He goes on to say that Microsoft will be starting a huge advertising campaign in the coming weeks to months.  The best part was the following quote from Brad Brooks,

“We’ve got a pretty noisy competitor out there,” Brooks said of Apple whose “I’m a Mac… and I’m a PC,” commercials criticize Windows Vista. “You know it. I know it. It’s caused some impact. We’re going to start countering it. They tell us it’s the iWay or the highway. We think that’s a sad message. Software out there is made to be compatible with your whole life.”

So Mr. Brooks, you interpret “it’s the iWay or the highway” as what Apple is doing with it’s iLife applications as a bad thing?  What part of creating user friendly, intuitive applications that work and are seamlessly integrated into the entire Mac experience is a bad thing for consumers?  Has Microsoft been able to accomplish this yet with the likes of Windows Photo Gallery or Windows Movie Maker…I think not.

As for those Mac vs. PC ads, many of us within the die-hard Mac community are hoping that Apple changes gears and focus with the ads.  While we do continue to enjoy the Mac vs. PC commercials, we would like to have Apple start to change the tone of the commercials away from just bashing Vista, and instead to touting the superior features of OS X Leopard.  We have seen Apple take this approach with some of these type ads such as the Time Machine ad (link opens to a Quicktime movie), showing off the new automatic backup feature built directly into Leopard, and the Apple Genius Bar ad (link opens to a Quicktime movie), showing the benefits of the tech support you receive at your local Apple retail store.

Apple is clearly riding this ad campaign and the Vista bashing as long as possible, and why not, so far it seems to be working as the overall Mac market share continues to rise.  I’m actually hoping that Microsoft can come out with some interesting ads, to keep Apple on their toes so that they have to create new innovative ads to counter what Microsoft might show (however let’s hope it’s not the same marketing team that came up with the classic Microsoft internal Vista music video….yeah, sure it was a spoof, but man was it bad.)

Truth be told, in a lot of cases, Vista isn’t as bad as most ads and tech talk make it out to be.  I know people who are happily using Vista today with little problem (not many people, but a few).  However, from a pure user experience, after dealing with and using both Vista and Leopard, there is no doubt in my mind that Apple comes out ahead, far ahead.  And with Apple turning it’s focus to Snow Leopard, I think they have a head start on Microsoft and the Windows 7 team.  If both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 are to be fine tuned versions of their predecessors, Apple has a much better product in Leopard to start with than what Microsoft has in Vista.

Good luck Microsoft, I think they’ll need it, both in their operating systems and their marketing campaigns.

As many Apple/Mac loyalists are aware, Steve Jobs announced at WWDC on June 9, 2008, that the next version of Mac OS X will be called Snow Leopard, and it is scheduled to ship in “about a year”.  We can only assume at this point that Snow Leopard will be version 10.6 as the current version (Leopard) is 10.5.

So why Snow Leopard?  Isn’t that close in name to the current OS X version Leopard?  What is Apple thinking?  As it turns out Apple is doing something rather drastic, but something that makes a lot of sense, they are putting the brakes on adding lots of new features to Snow Leopard, instead focusing on improving what they claim is the “world’s most advanced operating system” … a claim I personally happen to agree with.  Why would Apple do this?  Why not come out with more features, more toys, more whiz-bang graphical elements?  I think Apple is realizing what most educated users know…the more features and toys you put into an operating system, the more likely it is over time to get bloated, slow, and buggy.  Take a look at what Microsoft has done with Windows Vista.  They have taken a relatively stable operating system in Windows XP, and instead of improving upon it, they chose to get in way over their heads with adding lots of flashy new elements, a new bloated user interface, confusing driver requirements and lots and lots of problems.  I do give Microsoft some credit with Vista, they did enhance it from a security standpoint, which in my mind is very important, although I still have to ask, “who exactly works in the Microsoft User Interface department”?

So if there are no new features, why would Apple do this, and why would anyone want it?  The no new features is not to be taken literally of course.  I’m sure we will see some new features, however, the changes that will take place in Snow Leopard will primarily be under the hood, at the core level of the OS.

So far Apple has announced that Snow Leopard will include:

• A dramatically reduced footprint
• Microsoft Exchange Support
• Multicore
• 64-bit
• Media and Internet
• OpenCL

What does all this mean to the average user, or even the power user?  Let’s take a look at each one individually.

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