Why I hated my Mac

Yesterday I sold my Mac.

I bought it almost exactly five months ago on a recommendation from my brother-in-law.  I don’t blame him for recommending it to me, because he loves his.  But the whole situation was a bit of a nightmare for me.

One thing you have to give Apple is that they have very successfully branded themselves as a perfect solution to the problems people face with PCs.  I fell for it – at first.

This post is to set the facts straight (in my opinion, as always).

What Macs are good for

1.  If you work with video or audio, or even with graphics, I understand why you would like the Mac.  The Mac software for this is cheap.  And it works well, from what people tell me.  However, some very good software also exists for the PC.  (It’s just not as cheap.)

2.  If you have never used a computer before and just want Internet and email, a Mac is a good choice too.  Start with a Mac and you’ll probably be happy.

Mac Myths (in my opinion)

1.  Macs just work.  Sorry, this wasn’t true for me.  My Mac crashed the first day I used it.  It also crashed several other times, even when I wasn’t doing anything unusual.  Not sure why.  Don’t believe the hype.

2.  Macs do everything a PC does.  Wrong again.  Macs do the basics well.  Anything unique or specialized is usually only available on a PC.

3.  You can run your Mac as a PC.  This is somewhat true.  The good software is called “Parallels”.  You buy it for about $80.  It allows you to run XP or Vista in a window within the Mac software.  It does work pretty well.  But it only uses a portion of your resources.  Imagine running your PC software on 1/4^th of your RAM.  That’s what it’s like.

4.  Mac OS X is the best OS ever.  Ha!  You gotta be kidding me.  It’s a nice OS and does the basics well.  But it’s missing a ton of options, switches, and settings that heavy PC users are used to.  It’s “pretty”.  That’s about it.

Why I’ll stick with PC

All of the above is true.  But it’s not the real reason I hated my Mac.

My real reason?  I could not find a single program that I prefer using on the Mac instead of PC.

Let’s start with email.  The mail program that comes with Mac is very simplified.  It does the basics.  Nothing special.  There is no Outlook for Mac.  For the Mac, Microsoft has made “Entourage”.  It stinks. 

All of the programs I use for my business are PC based.

None of the programs that come with the Mac work better than PC.  They all are lacking in one way or another.  The only exception may be the Video, Audio, and Graphics editing programs.

Conclusion

I could go on and on.  If you ask me in person, I probably will.  But here’s my conclusion to the matter.

If you want a computer for basic Internet and email use, try a Mac.  Otherwise, you’ll probably be frustrated.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this post.  I think I’m the guy on the left.  I’ve been using Microsoft products and a PC since 1993 and I probably always will.

Thanks Microsoft!

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