What Changed You???

[limike28]

My computer legacy began with the Commodore 64, and shortly there ended. I hated computers and didn't really use them until college. I then bought a cheap machine and upgraded the heck out of it. After building a few machines and supporting machines at work. I was tired of drivers that didn't work, tired of all the Windows issues and just wanted a machine that worked and I didnt have to think about. So in 2003 I happened to be walking by the Apple Store in the mall and decided to take a look. Shortly after I bought my first iBook. So I guess you could say I was a mall convert.

[ex2bot]

One word: Windows ME

Well, it was a bit more complicated than that. But if you had a computer running ME, I'll bet you know what I mean.

Windows always looked like the cheap rip-off that it was. When then Michigan Governor John Engler showed up at my door with a new 2001 iceBook, I was hooked.*

Then I spend $4000 on a couple more Macs. What the heck.

Doug

* He didn't _actually_ come to my door. He got the legislature to pass the TTI -- Teacher Technology Initiative, a computer for every classroom teacher in the state. Excellent. I was a Republican for a WHOLE MONTH.

[easterhay]

Tired of viruses.
Tired of autoformatting (man, I r-e-a-l-l-y hate Word's obsession with autoformat)
Tired of system crashes.
Tired of incomprehensible user interfaces.
Tired of bizarre and pointless programme shortcomings (why shouldn't I be allowed to start page numbering at, say, page 3, if I want to?)
Really very tired of viruses.
And Spyware.
Tired of being hectored by my Mac friends to get a Mac.
Bought an iBook. Love my iBook. Kiss the iBook. Lovely iBook.
Good for Bill Gates for giving all that money away, but sorry, Mac is the Word, and the Word is Mac.
Still, my flakey old HP Omnibook is better at burning open session CDs than my snazzy iBook G4, but who's perfect? Not me.
Happy switching,
easterhay

[mattsuzu]

Originally Posted by easterhay

Tired of viruses.
Tired of autoformatting (man, I r-e-a-l-l-y hate Word's obsession with autoformat)
Tired of system crashes.
Tired of incomprehensible user interfaces.
Tired of bizarre and pointless programme shortcomings (why shouldn't I be allowed to start page numbering at, say, page 3, if I want to?)
Really very tired of viruses.
And Spyware.
Tired of being hectored by my Mac friends to get a Mac.
Bought an iBook. Love my iBook. Kiss the iBook. Lovely iBook.
Good for Bill Gates for giving all that money away, but sorry, Mac is the Word, and the Word is Mac.
Still, my flakey old HP Omnibook is better at burning open session CDs than my snazzy iBook G4, but who's perfect? Not me.
Happy switching,
easterhay

well said

[powermac]

This did not change me, I share a quick story.
A close friend of mine always laughed at me for using Mac. He is (was) a devoted PC user. If Microsoft came out with a disease he would purchase it and defend it to the end. In college, we went our separate ways, as far as studies, he a engineer, and I a psychologist.
When Windows 95 came out, he was one of those that waited in line at the mall to get his copy. Ran home and installed it immediately. After a few hours of install, he called me to boost about all these features it had. I remember him telling me about the recycle bin on the desktop, etc. I told him, sounds cool, but I have had those features for years.
In any event, after all the issues Easterhay mentioned, and he mostly being forced to use Mac in his field, he finally got a Mac. Over the years, he has been a hard person to convert, and honestly, I had given up on him.
Remember the Ad Apple, "Hell has froze over." He getting a Mac and loving it is exactly that. After all those years, and now using the Mac he has admitted, "Why didn't I do this years ago."

[jwoods]

Hi, first post. I haven't actually switched yet, but hopefully I'll have my 20" iMac here next week.

Why am I switching? It's fairly complicated, but the nutshell version is that I never really "liked" windows.

When apple moved over to OS X my interest went up, but I still thought the equipment was too much for too little. I was keeping an eye on the OS, and reading the reviews of the various versions of OS X, but still kept from jumping over. I don't recall what exactly triggered it, but XP took a dive and I was trying to fix the problem. I just kind of looked up at my wife and said, I'm buying a Mac. I thought she was going to roll her eyes, but instead she said, "Great! The kids use them in school anyway, might be better to have one at home."

Then I told her the "plan"! I wasn't buy just a Mac.....I was buying two, perhaps three of them. When I woke up at the hospital, I thoug.....(just kidding).

She actually wants a laptop, so we're also looking at the Macbook Pro. I want to wait a few months before grabbing one though. I really want to see what else comes out of Apple's laptop line up. (Perhaps just a Macbook in the coming months?)

Anyway, that's it. No real defining reason other than having been a long time fan of various Unixes, and a growing hatred of windows. It's more about the OS than anything else. The fact that Apple's hardware looks good doesn't hurt I guess.

[Chimp]

I have always associated Microsoft with work, a place I am usually pretty intense. Things get stressful especially when a dialog from one program pops up in front of an email I'm trying to write in a hurry, or any number of various other things that happen against my expectation when using a computer.

I used to have a Windows PC at home but only switched it on for games (I'm not an avid gamer - pretty poor reflexes). I avoided connecting to the internet due to all the trouble it seems to involve, which partially comes from seeing how hard our IT guys at work have it.

So what it boiled down to me was three things: discomfort with Windows, I wanted the internet without the effort and in the past I had heard some pretty good things about the usability of Macs.

What's kept me with Apple? (I'm on my second mac already) It is just a nicer experience, and until my work buys me a copy of Office for Mac I have an excuse for not bringing work home.

On the downside: I tend to spend more time on computers at home than I used to. Maybe I should switch back

[Amie]

I could write a book on this. But I'll spare you and just make it short and sweet:

Quite simply, I was drawn to the Mac OS in general. I find it to be a much more stable OS than Windows, more secured, safer, and it just plain works. I was tired of all the headaches and painstaking efforts to get my PCs up and running and functioning properly. Apple computers are like a trusty old friend, who is always reliable; whereas PCs are like a schizophrenic half-friend, who is sometimes nice and sometimes rips your face off without warning. I don't like the instability of Windows PCs. Plus, the fact that Apple tends to design all their software, programs, OSs to make them all work synergistically--the way a computer system *should* work. As opposed to Microsoft's design-it-and-hurry-up-and-get-it-on-the-market-don't-worry-about-perfecting-it attitude.

After using PCs my whole life and using Macs the past four years, I'm never going back.