Why did you get a Mac?

[galstaph]

I simplyy got tired of fixing windows to make it work. Granted I do still have a win2k machine, but would NEVER EVER go to XP (or vista or whatever else they make up). My win2k machine works well, because I did a lot of work to get it there. I have to be the family techy for my father-in law and brother in laws so I get plenty of experience with xp repair due to slowdown, and other crap. I had played around with OSX a few times a few years back and was looking to get an ibook g3. I never got the money together. I did convince my brother to switch two years ago though. Now this last year in sept. I finally got the $$ to buy my lil ibook, and I couldn't be happier with it. I am now plotting for a new imac (the wife will even let me buy one )... need my tax returns later this year for it though, so more waiting... But hey my mac is great and rock solid. I think I'll be macin' it into the future.

 

[After G]

A Unix-like OS that wasn't Linux.

I used Macs in elementary school, and then my mom bought me a 286 PC. Then I forgot all about Macs for a while, did the whole Windows 95/98 thing, and then when XP came out, I began thinking that Windows was getting boring. So I played around with a few Linuxes. They were pretty hard to use. It was satisfying to get things working on Linux, but it was too much hassle. So when college came around, I decided I wanted an OS that wasn't Windows, and wasn't Linux, but that did all the Linuxy things I wanted. I looked at the Mac, I found this board, and I saved up my pennies and got an eMac, because it was the cheapest Mac. And here I am today with an iBook.

I still play with alternate OSes regularly, and it's still a pain in the butt to use other things besides Mac OS X.

 

[runninmac]

A few reasons:
1. I got tired waiting for my PC to start up, when I got home I would go start up the computer, go to the bathroom, prepare a snack, turn on the tv... wait then went on it, (about 5 mins total, and this was a 1 year old computer)

2. I didn't want to pay for the Nortan Antivirus everyear

3. My computer constantly stuttered at its tasks.

4. Macs just look so cool

5. OS X rocked

6. I loved my iPod, so why wouldn't I love my iBook i thought.

 

[cwedl]

I was spending too much time programming in visual basic making pointless programs, thought that when I go to uni I could have a fresh start with things. Been a mac user for about 2.5 years and am happy!

 

[dorqiekat]

because it was pretty.

the first time I saw a mac, meaning touch and used was my freshman year in college and one of my dorm-mates had one. it was an ibook, and it was pretty.

then, as school started to progress, every professor that used powerpoint lectures had a mac. the lecture was pretty. the OS was pretty.

I had to have one.

and THEN, I learned all the great things macs had to offer. What a bonus.

 

[JHipp]

Well I had a even longer story/autobiography typed out, but I go downstairs for a second and somebody comes and closes the page!

Here we go again -- in elementary school we had Macs that I hated(iMacs I believe, they had hockey puck mice).. so a few years later I just asked for a Dell for Christmas, my parents got a good deal on one and bought it. It was perfect for me for several years. I had a few viruses and had to reinstall XP a couple of times, but besides that it was fine. A year or two later I went to work with my Mother, and saw her boss's PowerBook with Panther, it was a beauty! I didn't think anything special of it, but eventually I got into video editing and learned more about Macs. I learned that they were stable, secure, and had great programs for video editing. I decided I had to have one. I started saving.

Now - 2 months ago I convinced my Dad to get a new computer, his computer at the time quite frankly, sucked. I talked to him about Macs, and one weekend when I was up here he said "Oh yeah, if you wake up early enough tomorrow we can go to Lenox Mall and get a new iMac, I did a little research myself." I was psyched. Next morning we wake up, go to Lenox, my dad picks out a 20in iMac G5 (with iSight) and 1GB of RAM and we both walk out of there happy. I set it up for him when we got him, messed around with it, and LOVEEEEED it. I couldn't wait until I had one myself.

I asked for nothing but money that Christmas, and having a big family paid off, literally. I got around 800 that Christmas and I already saved a little over 200 I would guess. I wanted a PowerBook originally, but knowing that they wouldn't be very faster(they were outdated, face it) I decided on a iMac G5 Rev B.

Alright, 12:10AM on New Year's Day, I notice a iMac G5 17in 1.8Ghz Rev B for $1025 BIN with free shipping, I talked to my Mother about it, bought it, and paid for it. The guy was in California, so it took over a week to get it. It arrived last Monday, and now I'm a happy camper.

Props to anybody who reads this.

 

[mad jew]

I was brought up on old Performas and finished high school on sluggish OS9. I then left The Force™ because of financial constraints and ignorance on my part. Then, one day I suddenly realised how in love I was with the iBook form factor. This was just the the G4s came out. At the time, I didn't have enough money so I saved up and it just so happens that the day I had enough money was the day of the G4 iBook release. I didn't know what this meant at the time because I really hadn't researched Macs all that much, but I'm pretty glad it turned out that way. The original G4 iBooks were one of the better PPC upgrades in terms of performance per dollar IMO.

 

[Eidorian]

Yeah, I found that 90% of my university's langauge professors swore by their Macs. I was going to switch in 2003 but the iBook's still had G3's and the PowerBooks were out of my reach. I ended up buying a Compaq laptop that in the end turn out to be as much as a PowerBook.

In the end I should have gone with a iBook G3 900 or a Power Mac G4 MDD FW800. The 1.0 Ghz model sold for $1499 and that's before my educational discount.

 

[maya]

Been using the Macintosh OS since 1989, and Windows OS since 2000. Need I say more.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Been on a mac since I could move a mouse or press a key. I had a Quadra 630, well it was the family's, but I used it. I've never switched to PC completely, always had a Mac as my main computer.

 

[steve_hill4]

I'm actually switching as of my MacBook Pro arriving, but use them at work, (currently in retail and we sell Macs as well as PCs, but I always try to persuade to Mac). I liked the simplicity of the system, but the functionality and performance. Can't wait to see what the Intel revisions will offer above the G5, (after all, let's face it the G4 hasn't been performing too well for a while now). I wanted something reliable and stable and of course the halo effect has played it's minor part.

Held out for the first Intel models for the performance upgrades, but a friend is still running his iBook G3 (White casing) and it isn't that slow, so they hold their speed better than other machines do.

 

[Nermal]

I had used System 6 and 7 at school, and I hated them. Watered-down interface with no command prompt, no options for showing hidden files, changing file types, etc.

Then OS X came out. I'd fiddled around with Linux, and OS X seemed to be a bit like a Linux with commercial app support. Sounds great. However, the real thing that pushed me across was price. I remember deciding I needed a laptop, going to a price-comparison site, doing a search for all laptops with at least 32 MB of VRAM (this was in 2002), and finding that a USD1299 iBook was the cheapest option.

In the end, Dad convinced me that if I was going to do it, I might as well do it properly. I ended up getting the USD1499 14" iBook in February 2003. It arrived on Valentine's Day, make your own conclusions

 

[OllyW]

I started with PC's on DOS, then Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP and thought everything was fine. I was always having to fix something, and some things were un-fixable, but that was how I thought computers were.

A few years ago, I got a digital camera and decided to learn how to use Photoshop, so I signed up for a course at the local college. I turned up and there was a room full of Powermac G4s. After a couple of weeks, I had learned enough to use the basic functions. They were running OS9 and though they were quite good, but they still seemed to crash as much as the Windows computers I was used to. I was very impressed with the hardware though.

Anyway, the course finished and it was back to the PCs for me. More of the same old anti-spyware and anti-virus updates, the computer seemed slower and slower all the time, I was starting to get a bit fed up with it.

I had a go with Linux, setting it up as dual boot with XP. I sort of liked Linux, it was very stable, but even though the front ends are getting more friendly, the (to me) complicated stuff was never far from the surface. After spending an whole afternoon trying to load a new program with no success, I lost interest with the Linux and went back to what I knew.

A few months later, I saw the latest iMac G4s in my local computer store. Again, I was impressed with the hardware design but these macs had OS X. I had a good play with them and liked what I saw.

I then got my first iPod, moving from a Sony Minidisc Walkman. The Sonic Stage software supplied with the Sony was dire, it took ages to encode and load the music and was always crashing the computer. I loaded iTunes, sorted all my music and loaded 15GB of mp3s on the iPod, all in a couple of hours. It just worked....... I wasn't used to this.

Two weeks later I had bought my first mac, a second hand Powermac G4 dual 867 MDD off eBay. I set it up with a KVM with my PC. Another used mac off eBay, an iBook g3 soon followed for my wife to browse the web on. The PC was getting used less and less.....

18 months on and the G4 has gone and a dual 2.0 G5 sits in it's place. I've still got the PC for a couple of programs I can't replace on the mac, but it's rarely used. I think I was first hooked by the macs on the Photoshop course, it just took OS X, the iPod and iTunes to convince me to switch

 

[emmawu]

Have a Commodore 64
An Apple II
An Apple III
A Quadra 849 AV
A Mac SE with a case autographed by the development team
A Mac SE 30
A Performa 6320 with a remote control and AV capabilities
A Powerbook 170
A Powerbook 190
A Powermac 8600 maxed out
An iMac Bondi Blue Rev B
A Quicksilver upgraded umpteen times and screams
An iMac G4
A 12 inch G3 iBook
A 14 inch G3 iBook
A 14 inch G4 iBook and our baby
A New mac Mini with Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
We never look back only forward

 

[0098386]

1) Fed up with Windows
2) I just got into university and we only used macs, the lecturers badgering me into getting on helped too
3) Needed something smaller than my then current 15" laptop
4) smallest point here but kickstarted things nonetheless. I loved my iPod. I wanted a laptop with a full sized Firewire port and better iPod integration.

Thankfully all those happened at the same time.

Infact I've had my PowerBook for almost a year now. I told myself I'd write a "year in review" thing for my blog and coursework. time to get crackin'!

Best thing (computer wise) that ever happened to me. I'm watching freeview with EyeTV, I have a 20" Widescreen monitor linked with DVI, dSLR camera. If I never got a mac and therefore never have found Macrumors - I wouldn't have moved forward as much as I have.

 

[p0intblank]

My purchase was kind of an unexpected one. It started out with the Mac Literacy class I took in my first semester of college. It's actually kind of funny... I dissed the Mac the first night I was there. You know, the usual "right-click! right-click!" jokes. Well after class that night I was at a diner with my family and my dad says out of nowhere "if you get all A's this semester, I'll buy you a Mac." So that obviously put me into Mac Mode and I became obsessed. Well I couldn't wait any longer and I honestly did not think I could get all A's in one semester, so I broke down and got myself a PowerBook G4 17-inch (see sig for specs). I got it from CompUSA with the Apple Bluetooth mouse and iSight. From then on, I was obsessed with Apple. I watched the iMac G5 keynote from MWSF '04 and could not believe my eyes. I remember thinking "how the hell did they do that?" I was totally amazed by the design. I could go on and on about how I switched, but that's a short version to give you an idea. I may be a little rough on the details, but you get the point.

So ironically, I didn't switch because I was tired of Windows. It was kind of one of those moments that I didn't see coming... but boy am I glad it happened that way. Now I look at Windows as the less superior operating system, especially with the viruses and spyware problems. I am very biased and I even annoy my best friend with it sometimes. I barely even use my Windows box anymore. The only time I do use it is when my best friend spends the night to play games. Other than that, I never use it anymore. I'm always on my PowerBook now, for everything. I've switched my dad, my mom and a close friend of our's throughout the process, too.

I went way too into this topic. The point is: I've switched to the Mac and I am never going back to Windows as my primary OS. End of post.

Edit: Was the iMac G5 introduced in Macworld Paris is '04? If so, then that's what I meant, rather than MWSF '04.

 

[Jovian9]

Design of the hardware....and word of mouth from a few friends that "they just work".

 

[0098386]

ooh my computer life story...

1985 (year before I was born) my dad got a spectrum that I played on after birth, funnily enough.
1991; NES
1992; Commodore Amiga 600
1996; PC! I was very chuffed. but the big gap goes to show how powerful the Amiga's were.
1998; new PC. Pentium 2! IIRC: 266mhz
1999 (I think); NEW PC! Pentium 3! 500mhz. still working. utterly fantastic machine.
2003 (again, I think); Pentium 4. ooo the power. loved it. still working as the main desktop PC.
2003; my own personal IBM laptop and Toshiba Pocket PC.
2004; Super fast 3.06ghz Pentium 4 laptop. pity about the slow HDD.
2005; PowerBook.

--predictions--

late 2006; my own desktop for games. Isotope case. beautiful.
2007 (graduation gift); MacBook Pro for career in new media design and that. no dual boot. keeping Mac and Windows separate.

 

[rhb1899]

Hmm, don't know why I didn't get one earlier...

Yeah, that's a good question.
And you know what? I got a mac because I hated computers. *laugh*
I know that doesn't make much sense, but I've always had the opinion that macs are a good computer for people who HATE computers.

Windows never made sense to me, and I've had several dells and hps throughout my life, but I'd always had problems with them. Truth be told, I was scared of them. Every time I used a PC I was so worried that it would crash, freeze, get a virus, or have some melt-down that I wouldn't be able to solve. I was always sick to my stomach ever time I'd get one of those damn little grey boxes that popped up whenever something went wrong. They usually consisted of some computer language with tons of 3 or 4 syllable words in them and plenty of numbers to things I had no clue about...
So, by the time I'd reached high school, I absolutely HATED computers and consequently, went out of my way to avoid them. Needless to say, I STILL don't know how to use programs like powerpoint, and I have only a BASIC knowledge of word.

Well, when I entered college, I KNEW I'd need a computer...you can survive without one, but it's hard. So I gritted my teeth and started researching computers. I'd gotten through all the PC brands available and was starting to rethink my decision to get a computer when my room mate suggested I look into macs. She didn't know anything about them either, but she said she'd heard good things about them being very user-friendly.

So, I went online, got a membership to this forum, among a few other mac sites, and did my research. I was convinced after about a day that the mac was for me. I saved my money and bought my first iBook, and I've never regretted it. Absolutely adore the thing. I struggled through the first month of having it because I didn't know the OS at all, but you know what? My feelings of worry, aprehension, and stress about using PCs didn't transfer to using my mac. It's just friendlier. It's frozen, like, twice since I've had it and for everything that I do in college, it's perfect. I've made damn nice looking resumes, great presentations using Keynote, and learned a heck of a lot about computers because of my newfound interest in macs.

So, whenver people ask me why I have a mac versus a PC, I simply tell them that for "chronic computer haters," macs are the way to go.

 

[Temujin]

Was looking for a new notebook. My old Acer, Centrino 1.4 - 512 ram 40 gb harddrive onboard graphics (what was I thinking ) was a bit of a disapointment. It was slow, heavy, had a crappy screen and battery.

Didn't really know any mac users at the time, but decided to go for an Apple product anyway. Had heard only good things about their products. Got the 15" PB DL. And this is by far the best working notebook I've ever owned (not metioning the Line Problem that is ).

I'm still using a XP system for games, encoding and so on.

 

[h0e0h]

Born and raised on PC

Lik the title suggests, I was born and raised on PCs unfortunately. My mom brought her first Mac home in like 1998 or so with OS 8 and i didn't really like it. For me it seemed buggy and slow, and I "didn't know how to use it". After fortunately dodging Windows make ME vomit I got on the bootleg XP kick. I was a senior in highschool and realized... man, I can't keep living like this... I began to look into the Powerbook as a laptop for my parents to purchase for me for High School graduation and low and behold i had to do my homework to overcome their objections. Things like nothing works on macs, you can get a good dell for $500, and "it aint got solitare", but i finally convinced them for a Rev. C 1.33ghz PB. BTW it was the best move i had ever made.

To make a long story short... no my mom owns a 14" iBook, my brother owns a Mac Mini, and i even added a mini to my collection, which now includes a 4th gen 20gig iPod, 30g Vid, and 4gig nano. Hopefully by this time next year i'll own a (hopefully) 3rd Gen MacBook Pro and an HD cam to take on a ski trip. I'm excited. Good luck to all you switchers out there and I love to hear the stories.

 

[iEdd]

I've been on a mac since I was a kid. LC520 I grew up with, followed by a Powermac G3.

 

[Sideonecincy]

I started at school and was all set to buy a Dell and one of my teachers raved about macs and i said they were too expensive. He told me to look at them anyways and when I did, the powermac g5's were released and I just fell in love with them and had to get one...

 

[DaveP]

I wanted to expand my computer boundries and try something new.

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

Switched? Who switched? I'm a lifer.

Ditto.