1. It’s a safe choice

When you buy a Mac, you don’t just buy an Apple machine: you also buy a PC. Macs are shipped with a software called “bootcamp”, which will allow any user to install Windows on an other partition. Hell, you don’t even need to know what a partition is,  the software is intuitive, easy to use, and in a matter of minutes you’ll have a fully operational windows installation on your machine. This is the guarantee that if something goes wrong during the switch, you’ll always be able to reboot your Mac, hold the option key and come back to the familiar windows world. Small businesses can’t afford to to loose time because they recently switched and don’t know how to perform a specific task on their new OS. Don’t worry, that’s not an issue thanks to Apple’s bootcamp. You can also try the numerous OS emulators.
Try not to get used to it though, because on the long term, you’d be missing out on OSX’s fantastic features, which are at the core of a Mac’s strength.

2. It’s not expensive

I will discuss software-specific details, but let me first underline the very first thing you’ll notice about your new Mac: how beautifully built it is. Sure, it may not have the quad core processor and a gazillion gigaflops per nanosecond graphic card, but it is built by the highest quality standards, and has one of the sturdiest designs of the market. The iMac is a beautiful machine, but good design and engineering really matters with mobile devices. There is nothing about Apple’s laptop that is not useful. By this I mean that every part is carefully designed, and that there are not unnecessary moving parts. The more moving parts you have on a machine, the liklier it is one for one of them to fail, and that is expensive. Time is money, remember? 
On a mac, you’ll spend less time repairing, protecting, figuring out, calling the IT guy, and you’ll spend more time being productive.
On the long run, good quality is less expensive than bad quality, and a Mac is the perfect example for this. Businesses of all sizes can save money over time, despite the higher price tag associated with the initial purchase. The Mac’s greatest ally in calculating cost of ownership is the value of time. Business owners say their Macs experience fewer crashes and other problems than PCs running Windows, translating into less lost work and time. They also tend to keep Macs in service longer than they keep PCs running.
The time calculation works both ways though: You’ll have to place a value on retraining employees on the new operating system and lost time and increased agitation due to slightly different keyboard layouts and a different OS. You’ll also need a budget for Mac versions of the software you plan to run. (Of course, you would probably also have some retraining and software costs upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 if you stuck with Windows.) If you’re starting a new business, you can skip the costs associated with switching. Also, if you already own screens and keyboards, Apple’s Mac Mini seems a perfect solution: Inexpensive, green, quite powerful and discrete.

3. Security

For some, working on a computer that doesn’t have a virus scanner may seem unnatural, but don’t you think that this is how things should be? Well that’s how things are on a mac. Because Apple’s market share is relatively small, creating malware and viruses for Macs just doesn’t pay off, hence the quasi-nonexistence of Mac viruses. One could easily foresee that this won’t last for ever, with Apple’s popularity rising and Macs gaining market share, but some simple (and very effective) security features are already implemented in Apple’s newest OS, Snow Leopard. For instance, you will be warned the first time you open a program, in case some phishing attack may have fooled you into downloading an app.
This means no additional costs for a virus scanner licenses, no nightlong scans of your hardrives, no figuring out why the mouse moves on its own, no troubleshooting and countless reformatting runs, and more time to work.

4. The OS

You may have noticed that the average specs of a Mac are unimpressive, and you are right. But what one shouldn’t forget is that thanks to tight OS/hardware integration (and lack of bloatware), Apple has fine tuned their OS for their relatively small product lineup, which basically means that you won’t need as much speed as on a PC.
Macs are stable, but they do sometimes crash. This is why you should backup your files, and OSX has a truly amazing tool for this called Time Machine. Just plug in a hard drive, and let the computer take care of everything for you. You can also do this over a wifi network, if you’re the proud owner of a Time Capsule.
The OS learning curve is quite shallow, you’ll get used to the Mac in no time. To be precise, you’ll be so used to it that you’ll find it unbearable to work on a computer that doesn’t have spotlight (and instant file finder/app launcher), expose (see all your open windows in one snapshot) or spaces (organize your windows on different desktops).
You may be annoyed by Apple’s window philosophy: No window should take more space than it needs, hence the lack of “maximize” button. In this case, you’ll find plenty of software, free or paid, that will allow you to replicate windows functionality, if you really can’t live without it. This leads us to a crucial point:

5. The software

The times where you could say that there are no decent software alternatives for Mac are over. The biggest concern for a small business, most of the time, is the productivity suite, usually known as Microsoft Office. Microsoft has a fully functional version for Mac, you’ll be able to run Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Snow leopard is Exchange enabled and Office ships with Entourage, that should take care of your emailing.
But now that you switched, why not have a look at OSX’s standard apps? GarageBand is a powerful audio editor, Quicktime X supports screencasts, iWeb will allow you to easily create beautiful websites, iMovie is a great video cutter and iDVD is wonderful mastering tool. Yes, all this is included in your OS, for free.
If you want to leave Microsoft’s world for good, consider buying the $79 iWork suite. One of its apps, Keynote, is worth all the money alone. If you own a business, there’s a good chance you’ll have a to prepare slides at one point or another, and Keynote excels at that. You may be familiar with Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”. Yes, the sideshow was produced on Keynote.
All the Adobe apps are available on Mac, and are not more expensive, which is what most people tend to think. A growing community of Mac developers have created a wonderful range of apps, most of them quite inexpensive (15-35$), but of great quality, focusing in typical Apple fashion on user interface ergonomy and design, but not without sacrificing functionality and usefulness.

6. Support is key

In case something should go wrong, be advised: Apple’s support is the best on the planet. If you are fortunate enough to live in a city with an Apple store, you’ll be able to take your computer to the Genius Bar, and get it fixed on the spot. Because the OS and hardware are produced by the same company, they won’t give you another number to call or simply tell you that it’s Microsoft’s fault. You can even seek support for a Windows partition installed via bootcamp!
Should you live a in a city where there’s no service center, just give them a call (I waited 23 seconds on the line) and they’ll give you instructions on how to troubleshoot the Mac. Worse case scenario, you have to get it repaired and can’t go to a service facility: don’t worry, Apple will come and pick up your mac, for free. This is precisely what happened to me, and they switched the motherboard + lid within 4 days. Also, Apple doesn’t care in which country you bought your computer, they’ll repair it wherever you are.

7. It’s pretty

Don’t laugh. Image is key in business, and Apple represents cutting edge technology associated with a good dose of cool factor. Thanks to their unique and gorgeous design, Apple computers will be instantly recognized when your customer walks into your office. If the customer is an Apple user, a bond will easily created. If the customer is windows user, he’ll at least be curious and see that you, forgive the quote, “think different”.

8. The server licensing fees

If you’ve ever bought a server for a Windows network, you know how they get you. Hint: It’s the licensing fees. Microsoft Windows Small Business Server, for example, has a retail price of $1,089. For that price, five clients can connect to the server. Each additional client costs $77. If you opt instead for a full-fledged copy of Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007, the pricing structure is even more complex.
Mac OS X server costs $999 and includes an unlimited client license, making the accounting simple. It uses the familiar Mac interface, so you don’t need to go out and get a certification before you set up your network. It’s got the communication and management capabilities you’d expect for a small business, and some you might not have thought about, such as a Wiki Server to make your intranet more collaborative and flexible. And, as your business grows, you don’t have to shell out for more client licenses.

9. Because you have an iPhone

Ok, maybe not you, but the iPhone is one of the most popular business smartphones out there. People are just ecstatic about its connectivity, user interface and various (business related) apps. Apple developed the current iPhone OS in 3 years, OSX has been in development for more than a decade. I can guarantee that if you love the iPhone, you’ll adore your Mac. Do your iPhone a favor and buy a Mac.

10. Because it is the best

I know this is a typical Apple fanboy conclusion, but it is true. Now that Windows 7 is here, the cut isn’t that clear anymore, but it is undeniable that Apple offers the most polished up, thoroughly developed and advanced computing experience out there. Why would you have anything but the best for your business? Sure, Macs costs more than low-end PCs initially, but isn’t it worth it in the end to pay a little bit more up front for a computer that works with you, rather than against you? Mac users love their computers, so, if you can, it makes nothing but sense to bring that to your business.  There is a Mac for everyone: The MacBook Air’s feather weight and the MacBook Pro’s record breaking battery life will appeal to the mobile user, the business man on the move, while the all-in-one iMac and budget friendly Mac Mini will be likely to satisfy big screen lovers and business that are just starting up. And then there’s the fabulous Mac Pro, the holy grail of Macs for power users. The strides Apple has made in offering business solutions over the past decade are making the Mac a more sensible choice, and I haven’t heard of an unsatisfied Mac user… ever.

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Images courtesy: Apple

Did you ever wonder why your computer seems so much similar to your first box back then in your youth? Did you ever wish some witty invention could re-revolutionize the desktop just like the graphical user interface did back then when Apple released Lisa?

The problem is that our interfaces haven’t changed much since then. The Apple II DeskTop in 1985 is practically
identical to “Aqua” (Mac OS X today). Yes, there have been evolutions beyond the shiny stuff like the trans-lucid menu bar, and cool zooming effects. The easiest to spot true interface addition is the dock. The dock is an iconic peace of gloss that sets Apple’s latest OS appart. But even that is not much. Basically, a dock is a non-extendable panel* that has a cool scaling effect when you mouse over it.

There are differences between current environments (the menubar sits on top of the screen in Mac OS X but is positioned inside the windows in other GUIs) but at first look they are basically the same: they all follow a similar “desktop metaphor”, interpreted as such:
Your whole screen (or practically) is your desktop. You can place objects on it that are called “icons” and that represent files or folders. Folders are directories that open up in “windows”in which you can browse all your files. A window is a square object that you can move around, hide, or play with on your screen. The selected window is in front of the other windows, blocking them (partly or entirely) from view**. All applications run in windows (except for a few full-screen programs like games).

There’s one thing that bugs me in what I just wrote: not all applications run in windows. Full screen applications don’t seem to need to. One very good example coming out of Redmond is the Windows Media Center. WMC has an interface of its own, and is capable of browsing files and folders just as well. Plus it has the advantage ow being able to use the whole screen. If we suppress the need for things like the taskbar, the titlebar, or the menubar (all of which are eliminated in WMC) we can win valuable space***. Others ideas have also come out.
Tabs are getting even more popular in browsers, proving that users generally prefer to have all their pages inside only one window. Google has taken this idea to an extent with Chrome, and Chrome OS might have the first interface to fully suppress both windows and the menubar. Even Microsoft realizes that interfaces are lagging. They have removed the menubar’s drop-down menus in favor of an innovative “ribbon” interface on most Microsoft Office products.

There seem to be a few innovations, so why am I complaining? Well the problem with computers is that they have become so intricately intertwined with people’s lives that people got used to them. So much, actually, that every time something changes they complain. Windows Vista was not that bad (if it came pre-installed and if no bloatware came with it), but people hated it because of a lot of misinformation by the media and anti-Microsoft individuals, and also because it changed their computing experience.
The true and biggest error in Vista is that it came way to late. The whole world had gotten used to XP, and they didn’t want to start doing things differently, even if “different” meant better. Really, Vista’s interface changed very little. It got more beautiful, more useful, and slower. But computers had gotten better too, so that wasn’t a real problem per se****. The little change it had brought, however, was hard to swallow for most users. Vista was an error in many respects, but that error was widely exaggerated.

Complaints like these spark up every time something longstanding is radically changed. These complaints generally die out as the dissidents pick up the changes and get used to them. Sometimes these complaints are based on something real, like those during the release of KDE 4*****,  but they are almost always based on misunderstanding and reluctance to see things in a new light. KDE 4 is great, and most (open minded) users agree on that now. Going back to XP from a working Vista installation is anoying to say the least.

The folks at Apple have understood this. They haven’t radically changed the look of their OS since it began, but rather have built on top of it. Some long-standing Mac users are under the impression that the Mac OS look has not changed since they started using computers from Cupertino. The truth is that is has evolved slowly, and never dramatically, to where it is today. In a sense, Apple’s strategy is great. They evolve without the user experiencing confusing changes that (s)he does not understand. The downside is that there is no way to innovate core components of the user interface (UI). Imagine: Steve Jobs decides drop-down menus are out-dated. What to do next? You can’t suddenly decide to remove the menubar that has been at the top of the Macintosh’ screen for decades and replace it with a ribbon menu.

Why have pie-menus (circular-shaped menus) not become more common? Their advantages are considerable as they permit users to repeat similar tasks without the nead to read or even look at the menu. They have already been extensively tested in games. Several add-ons for Mozilla Firefox implement this feature on the browser, but it makes no sense if the pie-menu system is not generalized to the whole interface. Ribbons, again, are becomming more and more common. MS Office’s main Open Source competitor, Open Office, is developing a ribbon interface of it’s own. Conclusion? I’m much more efficient with than without.

Media players like Windows Media Center show that you don’t even need a mouse to have a user friendly and efficient UI. Graphical interfaces could generalize the tab-system implemented on chrome for the whole OS.
We could look at things a new way.

And maybe we would find something better than what we are using today. Our graphical user interfaces are based on the same principles discovered by blind experimentation at Xerox’s PARC labs in the ’70s (Xerox Star, released in 1981, thumbnail) back when the GUI was invented. Now that GUIs have become part of our lives, maybe we could imagine things being completely different. I used to say I would buy the first OS that fully suppressed the old list based menus (by replacing them with pie-menus, ribbon menus, or anything more innovative).

I’m still waiting.

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* An extended panel runs trough the whole width of the screen (like Window’s Start Bar) and a non-extended panel uses only the length it needs to show the objects that it holds.

**There are “always on top” options in some window managers.

***these generally take up 24 pixels of height each. That’s 72 (24×3) times the the width of your screen lost. On my netbook, that’s about one fith of my screen real-estate.

****A bigger problem was the re-emmergence of Apple in the market, through their newly acquired and refurbished OS.

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If you are interested in the evolution of desktop environment interfaces, you’ll probably love guidebookgallery.org (from where I shamelessly stole the Apple II screenshot)

The Xerox Star screenshot courtsey of toastytech.com

]]> http://techhaze.com/2009/11/our-gui-is-getting-old/feed/ 11 http://techhaze.com/2009/11/why-i-switched-to-mac/ http://techhaze.com/2009/11/why-i-switched-to-mac/#comments Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:01:04 +0000 Florian Wardell http://techhaze.com/?p=172 I was raised with PCs. My dad used to work for IBM. I remember being intrigued by this mysterious “Internet” that we had at home when still very few people had access to it. My dad would refer to it all the time. I remember the monstrous Thinkpad, resting on that desk, in the dark, with all the little LEDs changing colors and stuff, the sound of the modem. I also remember spending hours in front of it playing minesweeper or pack-man-like games. Most of my friends know me as a PC person. I used to say stuff like “Mac? Pfft. Looks great, but that’s it. No control over it. It’s a pretty screen with browsing ability.”
My mom had a mac. I hated it. It was a white macbook. I found it slow, I hated the fact that you could not maximize windows with a single click, and now and then, we had to send it in because the screen detached itself from the body, etc… It wasn’t great publicity to my eyes.
So when I was 16, I bought a PC. My first one (I used one of my dad’s before). I still remember the day. It was in Cambodia. I had a look at all three computer shops in the country, and after 2 or 3 days of browsing forums and asking for advice, my choice was made: A Vaio VGN-AR620E would be mine. It’s a nice computer, 17 inch screen, 2GB of ram, 2.1 Core2Duo, and a dedicated NVidia GPU.

Design wise, and for a PC, it was topnotch. The screen was gorgeous, and the speed was really good too, compared to the previous Pentium based PCs I used to work on. It came with Vista Home Premium, and a LOT of bloatware.
Let me stress a point here: I know many people hate Vista, they find it slow, sluggish, bugy, etc… Now, many people don’t deinstall bloatware. Who needs four media centers on a single unit? Who needs five burn programs? Frankly, nobody. True, Vista was slow compared to XP, but once I had reformatted the HD, once I had done a clean a reinstall of Vista without the bloatware, it ran like a breeze. Seriously. I was stunned by the performance. To put in a nutshell: I like Vista. It looks nice, runs pretty fast once it’s tweaked, and it’s really easy to use. And Windows7 is even better.

However, the computer was heavy, the screen got scratched too easily, and the battery life was unbearably short (1-1h30). I kept on getting viruses. I reformatted twice.

One day, I got accepted into this big uni in France (Sciences Po Paris), where more that 50% of the students work on macs. From time to time, I borrowed one. That’s how I discovered Keynote, which we don’t have on PCs, right? Nor do we have iPhoto. Or GarageBand. Compared to my mom’s mac, which had a desktop filled with .psd files, which had a 95% full HD, my friend’s unibody macbook was a race car. Oh! And the mouse gestures. And the dashboard.

You get the point =) I decided to get a mac, sooner or later. Meanwhile, my old Vaio was still functional, but I began to realize how heavy it was by carrying it everyday to the uni. I decided to find a short term solution to the problem and bought an Asus EeePc 901, which came with a very poor Linux distribution called Xandros. I immediately installed eeebuntu, which was much better looking, more functional and specially tuned for for the Eee (custom kernel, drivers, etc..).
I’m mentioning this to avoid “Forget Windows and OSX, go Linux” comments. I did try linux, found it surprisingly easy to use, but i wasn’t satisfied by it. Without custom themes, it looked childish. The eee was so slow it could barely playback a Youtube video. Right now, I’m using the Eee as an electronic notepad in class. One thing is sure, its size is amazing, and so is its price.
Let’s go back to Mac vs. Pc: After a while, my Vaio kept on crashing, the screen started feeling loose, and it eventually completely detached itself from the body. The webcam didn’t work anymore (a bad contact, apparently), the screen began flickering, and it overheated far too easily. Numerous times, a blue screen simply deleted hours of works on papers. I was starting to feel really frustrated.

Thanks to deals between my uni and Apple, I was able to buy a Macbook Pro, Late 2008, unibody.

This is the computer I’m writing this blog post on right now. Let’s face it, it looks incredibly sexy. As soon as I unboxed it, the design, feel and finish of that thing left a smile on my face. The screen is gorgeous, and I still haven’t scratched it one bit – After 3 months of intensive use – which is quite important when you’re into design and photo retouching. The unibody design does seem to be very sturdy, there are no moving parts. You can say whatever you want about OSes, but Apple is the best when it comes to hardware quality.

I fired it up, watched the beautiful introduction video, put all my data in, and it was ready to go. That’s right, no virus scanner to install, no bloatware to deinstall, no programs to activate. It was just ready. I plugged my pictures dedicated HD and iPhoto imported everything, scanned it for faces (with great accuracy) and ordered it by events. Same goes for music and iTunes. I quickly installed iWorks (the Apple suite comparable to Ms Office) and fired Keynote up, because I had to do a presentation for tomorrow’s law class. I was blown away by its beautiful design, transitions, and speed.

By the way, speed: This was the main disappointment for me, regarding the MBP. This thing is hardly faster than my old Vaio, even though the processor is better, it has faster ram, and the GPU is superior. In fact, I couldn’t play a 1080p .mkv movie with VLC. It either died or played at about 10 fps (The issue resolved thanks to VLC maturing to 1.0 and OSX to Snow Leopard, which I have since then installed). Boot time is actually longer on OSX than on a clean Vista. But who cares about two extra seconds, because what you get for those two seconds is worth anything you could ever find on Windows.

OSX is *really* good. It looks good. It works well. I got used to the right click issue. I got used to the maximized windows issue (Ask yourself: “why do we actually maximize windows if we don’t need to?”). iLife is fantastic, and so are Preview, Expose, Spotlight. etc… A bunch of features i could not live without anymore.
I know the Apple price premium has been quite controversial lately, and it’s true that macs are generally more expensive. But I now understand why. You get a stable, reliable, functional, innovative and good looking OS on a beautifully designed machine.

So, what’s my point? Well, it’s going to be a classic conclusion: Choose your OS depending on what you want to do with you computer. Remember that windows is an OS that can be installed on millions of *different* machines, while OSX is fine tuned for a couple of computers. A PC can do everything: Gaming, programing, image editing, and what not. A mac, however, can run all operating systems available, with the help of Apple’s Bootcamp which means it can do even more, despite people saying mac software is limited. While its functionality (especially in the gaming area) is not as developed as a PCs, it’s getting there, with major software and gaming titles being released for it.

So will I ever switch back to PC? Probably not. I enjoy Snow Leopard and Windows 7, which I have installed on my mac as a parallel OS and use to play Flight Simulator. One you’ve switched, you’ll never go back. True.

What OS do you use? Use the poll to give us an insight on your preferences and don’t hesitate to comment!

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Thumbnail courtesy: Drewsof