Calling Mac experts...

[wee tee cee]

The wee fella just bought a mac book pro- WTF. Makes my dell look like a shitter....

[Gazjam]

Its not what you got its what you do with it that counts

[julesd68]

The wee fella just bought a mac book pro- WTF. Makes my dell look like a shitter....

Love your deft turn of phrase Tony, that really made me laugh out loud ...

I had a similar Mac / Dell experience that is thankfully in the dim and distant past - I still have palpitations when I hear the word Dell. My old Dell laptop nearly gave me a nervous frickin' breakdown getting the guys from the Bangalore call centre to actually accept that they needed to physically fix it under warranty. I really don't want to think about the hours and hours of tortuous phone calls. They were obviously trained to do anything humanly possible to avoid having the damn thing back...

[mikmas]

Apple seem to assume that all their customers can either afford or want to update their machines / software all the time.

To be fair - both Mavericks and Yosemite were free OS upgrades and I encountered no problems to speak of when I upgraded. All my 3rd party software has carried on working flawlessly. That said, I have been a Mac user since 1994 and stuck by them when they approached extinction because I loved the ease of the OS and free software - but lately they have completely lost the plot.

Over the last 4 or 5 years I have avoided or deleted most of their productivity programmes (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and the 'Office' equivalents) precisely because of the frustration of trying to move projects between different OS versions on the various Macs I run

[Gordon Steadman]

To be fair - both Mavericks and Yosemite were free OS upgrades and I encountered no problems to speak of when I upgraded. All my 3rd party software has carried on working flawlessly. That said, I have been a Mac user since 1994 and stuck by them when they approached extinction because I loved the ease of the OS and free software - but lately they have completely lost the plot.

Over the last 4 or 5 years I have avoided or deleted most of their productivity programmes (iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and the 'Office' equivalents) precisely because of the frustration of trying to move projects between different OS versions on the various Macs I run

We have eight machines of varying vintage. A couple of the original iMacs are still running flawlessly, one with system 9 on it as there are a couple of games that won't run on a later system. Switch it on at Christmas for a play. My Mac use started in 1985 and I have always used them at home. Having to use PCs at work put me off for ever in spite of the fact that Windoze has almost caught up now (after 30 years of trying, they should have). I fear that the doom merchants who predicted that Jobs' death would mean the end of the real 'Apple' experience are being proved right.

Fortunately, they still have his legacy products to keep them going but the spark has gone, sadly. I'm nearly 68 so its seen me through. I doubt I will need to get many more afore I go. It might be fun to collect some old models like I'm doing with Quad hi-fi. A 20th Century Mac appeals.

[BilliumB]

I 'need' to move on from my Windows XP machines, have just sorted a 2nd hand Windows 7 machine which I hope will allow me to utilise much of my software, printers and scanner for now. However I have been toying with moving to a Mac Mini (really like the iPad air and use it a lot) - what are people's experiences with switching?

Cheers. Bill

[NRG]

I switched a number of years ago from XP completley bypassing win7 and 8/8.1.... I've not looked back! I've used Macs for years previously but ony in a support roll never as my main system, wish I had done it sooner. I found it quite a natural transition having previous experience, however, the guy I'm helping to transition at the moment also seems to be getting to grips with it despite no previous experience, so it's all good IME! Much easier than the transition from win7 to,8 which is an abomination IMHO BTW I run both Win7 and 8 as a virtual machine on the Mac for support purposes...

[BilliumB]

So Neal, what would you say is better about Macs, and is it worth moving if I have to sort new printer, scanner, software etc?

Cheers. Bill

[NRG]

Intuitiveness, integration and ease of use. Stability is right up there with minimal risk to Virus infection although they can be caught out with Malware if you're not careful. I hardly ever if at all reboot either my MBA or MacMini unlike XP or a Dell Latitude running Win7 which I was unfortunate to have for a while.

I've not found a newish printer the OS won't recognize and the scanner utility is built in along with the ability to create and publish PDF's without an add on or any additional drivers.

Free to use MS office style applications (Libre and open office) are great to use, no subscription General networking, file and screen sharing functionality is also great. TimeMachine backup built in works well for me.

Apps and the OS get updates now and then but nothing like the continuous stream of 'fixes' MS throw out. If I need to run a Windows program and there's no wineskin version I can fall back to a VM of Win7 or 8 and run it from there.

As always though YMMV

[Robprog]

I have been a lifelong Mac user in the home. I have upgraded to Yosemite and so far no probs. However, a strange thing happened yesterday, I was in the lounge of my house and my iPhone rang in another room. The display on my iPad, which I did have with me, showed that I could answer the call on my iPad, which I did!