Just when I thought I was ready to plunge Mac-wards, Jeremy Zawodny blogs about why he is moving the other way — but not entirely. Highlights:
Something has been bugging me for the last few months. Though I got my nice new Mac and switched to using it as my main personal desktop/laptop machine, it's been a frustrating experience at times. … it never felt quite right. The Mac felt slow and awkward for daily "office" use. So I decided to begin using the Windows box for my work related activities in 2005. Instead of hauling the Powerbook to Yahoo each day, I now take the Compaq. …
I've found that nearly every one of the Open Source applications I've installed seems to work better and significantly faster on this machine than on my nearly new Powerbook. In other words, open source applications feel better on Windows than on the Mac. …
The Mac isn't going to collect dust. I still use NetNewsWire daily. iPhoto and the Flickr plugin are still my preferred way to deal with digital photos. iTunes, my iPod, and the iTunes Music Store are still the center of my personal music world. … But Office on the Mac just doesn't compare to Office on Windows. …
The Mac is my media computer. I see it handling my audio/video/entertainment needs for the foreseeable future. …
The only viable choices (for me) are Mac OS X or Windows XP. And Windows lets me:
- feel like I'm getting more out of the hardware
- stop fighting the Mac's usability problems (the tab key being useless in most dialogs, the lack of hotkeys in most apps, the X11 requirement for some apps)
- have decent power management—almost as good as the Powerbook
- get full IT "support" at work (meaning that I get on the "real" network and don't need to do all that tunneling crap)
I can quite see the appeal of a Mac for media stuff — and maybe the ideal is a Windows machine for "work" and the rumoured about $500 Mac (due to be announced tomorrow?) for all things play and media: a Media iMac.
