My old eMachines desktop arrived in Denver shortly after I did. Unfortunately, I apparently hadn’t packed it well enough for the plane and truck trip, because it was clear when I booted it that the hard drive was suffering from Alzheimer’s. I took that as a sign from the gods of geekdom that I should move forward to my computational destiny. I headed to the Apple store at Cherry Creek Mall, ready to buy not one, but two, computers: an iMac for family use and a MacBook Pro for me.
The Good
- Decreased risk of virus or spyware infestation. The first thing I would do if I bought a Windows-based PC is load it with an Internet security suite (my favorite is ZoneAlarm) and a smorgasbord of spyware search and removal apps. With Macs, you can put such tasks lower on your priority list because they suffer from far fewer spyware and virus attacks than do PCs. But they’re not completely immune. Apple is investigating some unpatched security holes in OS X. Though no programs are known to take advantage of these, the potential for problems exists. The situation with respect to viruses is similar: Mac viruses do exist, however, they’re uncommon and you can mostly protect yourself by avoiding untrusted downloads and mail attachments. If you do decide you want anti-virus protection for the Mac, you might like to check out ClamXav, a free Mac OS X virus checker. One day, I might check into that. Or maybe not.
Limited options to choose from. Once I decided to buy Macs, I had very few choices to make. I wanted an all-in-one monitor/PC setup for the kitchen so I looked at the iMacs. I only had two choices to make: 17″ or 20″ monitor and wired or wireless keyboard and mouse. I chose the 17″ monitor, because that’s the one that would fit easily on our kitchen countertop, and the wireless keyboard and mouse. For the laptop, there was no chance I’d go for anything but an Intel-based system, so I just had to choose among three. According to Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, fewer choices often lead to higher satisfaction. Fewer choices means fewer thoughts about “what might have been.” It’s easier to settle on something if you didn’t have the whole universe to pick from in the first place.- Mac OS X is a UNIX-based operating system. One of the greatest surprises I had on coming back to tech was learning that Macs had gone UNIX. In the mid-nineties I had thoughts of running Linux on my PC, but was too lazy or busy to make it happen. I’m thrilled that I get a consumer and a programmer operating system all in one box, installed and configured for me.
- It boots so fast. These machines come alive in a few seconds. Maybe a new PC without hard-drive dementia would boot as fast, but I’ve never seen such liveliness during morning startup.
- Things that make you go “wow.” I fired up my MacBook and next thing I know, my own face is staring back at me. I didn’t know these machines had little cameras built in. Cool! When I downloaded Firefox to install it, I couldn’t figure out what to do. There was a little picture indicating I should drag the Firefox icon into the Applications folder. That was all I had to do to install a new browser? Amazing.
The Bad
- Consumer software companies care less about Macs. Look at Intuit and Quicken. For Windows, you can get Quicken Basic, Deluxe, Premier, and so on. There’s just one Mac version, and it’s not as polished as the Windows one. Okay, I like having fewer choices. But I want quality choices, not afterthoughts.
- The AppleCare hard sell. The same week I bought my two new Macs, we bought a car and a shredder. In all those cases I was subjected to a doom-and-gloom story about what might happen if I didn’t buy the extended special dance-remix warranty on my new purchase. But now I still have a pot of money that I can direct toward whichever item breaks—or something completely different. Despite Les Orchard’s Ode to AppleCare which made me wonder if I’d miscalculated in this case, I am against buying specific extended warranties. I think I’m better off saving the money and then having it available for whatever breaks.
- Less than perfect cooperation with non-Apple hardware. To get the machines talking to my Linksys router when it had WPA security turned on, I had to upgrade the firmware on my router. Not a huge deal, but it wasn’t a problem I had with my PCs. I’d like to buy a wireless keyboard and mouse to use with my laptop, but I’m worried that if I don’t stick to Apple stuff I may run into problems.
The Inexplicable
- No docking station for the MacBook Pro. We know the Intel-based Mac laptop is designed for professionals. It has “Pro” in the name and the price point puts it at a level only the professional or the profligate would be willing to pay. What professional doesn’t want a docking station? This is utterly crazy. I have a gorgeous new 20″ Samsung flat-panel display (no extended warranty, natch) living in my electronics closet because it’s too much of a hassle to get it replugged in after going mobile. I’m hoping a BookEndz dock will be made available soon.
- Only one button on the wireless mouse. It’s a beautifully smooth piece of technology, but just one button? What about my right-button context menus? How about a scroll wheel? I gather from Apple’s marketing material that they’re positioning this as easy and comfortable, but I find it annoying. It’s a step backwards in time, to my college days, when I was thrilled to have 1MB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive on my Mac SE. Then, one button was enough, but not now.
Yeah, I like my Macs. I can live without a docking station and 21st-century mouse for now.
10 Comments
You’re right about the one button mouse, and almost any two-button bluetooth mouse will work with the mac. macally.com produces models that work well for me.
Welcome back to the Mac fold!
I, too had a Mac SE many years ago, and was forced to move over to the Windows world due to professional pressures. I switched back about a year and a half ago, and aside from a few glitches I am thrilled to be back on a computer that acts like I think, and is more stable to boot.
Regarding your inexplicables - ditto on the lack of a docking station. Makes no sense. There might be one out there, but for now I unplug my speaker, external hard drive and monitor each time I go mobile - which isn’t that big a deal, but a strange pain to have to endure. Oh, and I also unplug the base station/battery charger for my Kensington wireless keyboard and (two button with scroll wheel) mouse - which worked out of the box with my PowerBook. Wireless Optical Desktop for the Mac - model #K64354 - http://us.kensington.com/html/3853.html
We’re an all-Mac Household here (from our G4 dual 450 tower to husband’s year-old powerbook).
All of them have third-party mice - some cordless some not. Absolutely no problem using any of them, and no need to install any additional hardware. I’d go find yourself something you like and go crazy
I didn’t have a problem setting up our Linksys router, other than that the software that came with it was PC only, so I had to rely on my sysadmin brother-in-law to talk me through some of the settings.
I’ve heard horrendous things about Mac Quicken. When I did, I went looking for other Mac personal financial software, and found a number of packages out there for various sums of money. In the end, I wrote an Excel workbook that does most of what I wanted to do, but there is quite a bit of stuff out there, depending on what you want to do with it.
Hey Anne,
I will tell you to get any ye old 3 button mouse. I also enjoy apple’s mighty mouse, and my logitech notebook mouse as well.
Now, to why they only include single mouse buttons on the notebook and why the mighty mouse defaults to single click with scroll action.
This is an important UI design - by making right click difficult to do, it forces designers to do their UI without requiring “context sensitive menus”. Meaning, all your options are visible in either the UI or in the visible drop down menus. This is part of the old apple HIG - don’t hide menu options, grey them out. By hiding things, people don’t know they are there, but greying it out, people can see what their options are (even if its not applicable right now).
The context menu is supposed to be an add-on. But with the way windows programs are being done nowadays, many functions are hidden behind context sensitive menus - now imagine your UI is a big mess of widgets, panes, etc. That one function you need is only accessible in pane foo context menu, which is hidden by default unless you use the other context sensitive menu in pane bar, which defaults to 20 pixels tall.
I am one of the most power users you will ever find. I used to mock Apples back in the early 90s. I am a heavy duty unix user, programmer, etc. I don’t miss the 2nd mouse button.
The best thing about the new apple books is the 2 finger scrolling on the trackpad. Check out the syspref, and then you will die with enjoyment. Much cooler and more awesome than then scroll “area” of a trackpad on a PC.
Good luck, don’t struggle, you won’t miss it. The UI is better for the lack of a 2nd mouse button.
Hey everyone, thanks for all the great info. Guess I need not worry about whether a non-Apple mouse and keyboard will or will not work with my new machines… one never knows when one starts from utter ignorance.
ryan, great insight into the context menu thing. I am so used to using them on Windows that it’s hard to imagine getting by without them. Two finger scrolling? Gotta go check that out!
under syspref (system preferences, hit the blue apple menu on the top left and then select system preferences), check out the keyboard & mouse icon.
Once you’re there, check out the trackpad tab, and in there, trackpad gestures. Check “use two fingers to scroll” if its not, and i would suggest not checking “allow horizontal scrolling” - its hard to get pure vertical scrolling and thats the most important use case (reading webpages, emails, etc).
Also turn on clicking - it might not be. I dont use dragging or drag lock (not an option unless dragging is on). This does mean for me dragging is a two handed affair, you might want to try out the dragging trackpad gesture. you might get a few more options than me since your notebook is a year newer than mine.
If you need s/w hints and other tips, drop me a line. Always happy to help a new convert
Don’t worry about deciding right now about AppleCare. You can still buy up until your machine’s 1 year birthday and you get the same benefit as if you bought it on Day 1. The only difference is that you won’t have the phone support after 90 days, but if you have a problem you can always buy AppleCare then wait for it to go through then call.
Honestly? Get the AppleCare on the MacBook Pro, and skip it if you feel like it on the iMac. AppleCare does NOT cover any accidental damage, so you’re on your own if you drop it but statistically they do suffer from more wear and tear than their desktop cousins that Apple will cover as long it’s not obvious abuse.
I’ve never purchased AppleCare for a notebook that didn’t pay itself back. I did buy it for my G5 which will be celebrating its 3rd birthday in September. That turned out to not be necessary as it needed a warranty repair on the graphics board, but it was within the 1st year. But who knew?
Hi Anne,
I recommend the Logitech S530 for a better wireless kbd/mouse. Its built for the mac, so it has the apple key instead of windows and all that. It also has a bunch of extra buttons for use w/ itunes, though they wont work on the macbook pro until Logitech updates their software (supposed to be this month). However, the mouse and kbd work great and are comfortable to use, and they also match the mac styling.
Ditto the right-mouse button. Ctrl-Click will bring up a context menu in a lot of places where you fell like you need one (Firefox, for example), but it’s clumsy.
Two finger scrolling, OTOH, is way cool. I like it MUCH better than scroll wheels.
I’ve been on a PowerBook for a couple of months now, and I like 2 finger scrolling so much, I wouldn’t trade it for a right mouse button…
Just my .02!
AppleCare has been great for me and my G4 Powerbook. In 2-1/2 years I’ve accessed it several times. Once I fell asleep with the computer on my lap and it toppled on the floor, denting in the round power supply plug…AppleCare covered replacing something (can’t remember what) in there and tapping the dent out so that it worked again. Phone support & troubleshooting on the Airport Xtreme card, which was okay, but a new one would have been covered had it been bad (turned out to be my Linksys router which I then replaced with the Airport base station). Replacement power cord when an interal crimp developed due to rolling/folding/shoving the cord in my bag almost every day for 2 years. Lots of free phone support, too. On another note, make sure you optimize your battery. And check out Apple discussion lists for lots of good advice when things go wacky. Love my wireless (one-button) Apple mouse, but 3rd party choices are available, as mentioned.
:)anne