Advertisement I’ve been using Macs for about 5 years now, and before that I was a 100% Windows and PC guy. What happened exactly? Why did I switch? Without wishing to start a flame war, here are 8 reasons why I now buy into “the Apple way”. Quickbooks 2011 for mac crack. This isn’t designed to convince die-hard fans of PCs, but if you’re wondering what the fuss is about, and why someone with a geek level of 9000+ would ever consider a Mac, then read on.

The following are 8 reasons why I switched to Mac. OS X happened Before OS X came along, Macs were pretty bad. Incompatible with virtually anything in the consumer marketplace, they were proprietary machines that hadn’t quite reached that pinnacle of usability that defines Apple today. They were “hobbyist” machines, not for real work or the business place. Then along came OS X, built on a rock solid UNIX foundation and making astounding leaps in UI design. It was a radical change for Apple. I however, was not quite willing to buy into that yet, not until 2.

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Apple moved to Intel Hardware For someone like myself who had grown up with predominantly Intel hardware (after the Amstrad anyway), and who loved tinkering with processors and memory and hard drives – the move to Intel was a big step in the right direction. As far as I was concerned, on an Intel platform I would be far more able to switch out the hard drive, change the memory, and use existing files and data – not to mention thousands of USB peripherals that would work.

The Mac Mini Made It Easy To Try Of course, I was apprehensive about switching 100% to a Mac given I’d never even touched one before – and it was then that Apple introduced the Mac Mini and I finally satisfied my growing curiosity in the platform. The Mac Mini was revolutionary, and a fantastic marketing move on Apple’s part – in that I could take my existing monitor, mouse and keyboard and plug them into the Mini.

It didn’t matter that the thing was underpowered compared to my PC gaming rig – I’d heard good things about the Mac, and I wanted to try it. All at a truly affordable price point. I ran it alongside my PC, and even shared the mouse and keyboard with a standard USB input and video switcher. At first, I only used it for emails. Outlook Express had been my app of choice for so long, and I found Mail.app to be far more reliable piece of software that just worked. It was a slow start, but I was convinced.

Pretty soon, my internet browsing went through the Mac too, and slowly but surely I bought into the Apple way. No Drivers This is one point that seems rather contentious as to whether it’s a good or bad thing. Because Macs are built using a specific subset of hardware that is officially supported, the base systems don’t ever need drivers to function optimally.

For someone used to reinstalling Windows on a half-yearly basis and the inevitable hours following spent hunting down all the correct drivers (again), this was quite revolutionary. Of course, for some this is turn off – you can’t simply swap out your aging video card for the newest model – which is precisely the reason why the Apple platform has remained a loser for the gaming community.

At this point though, my gaming was almost 100% done through an Xbox. We should not need to find drivers, and Apple understood that.

For Windows users, finding the correct drivers was just an accepted part of owning a computer. It Just Works I am geek, and I do like fiddling with things and hacking them, but sometimes I appreciate software that just works. I must admit though, I was afraid that the user experience on OS X would be just so dumbed down I might be insulted, or officially lose geek points. It’s a natural reaction to Apple’s marketing – a computer designed for the everyday person to just use and be productive and have fun with!

It’s easy to scoff at that – if people don’t know how to configure or protect their computer correctly and download the right drivers, then damn it all – give them an etch-a-sketch or something. And then something magical happened. I used it, and I wasn’t insulted.