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Originally posted by: Bossk
So what made you switch? You were such a Windows shill before.
I wouldn't have called myself a shill, just someone who liked to build his machines to his liking and didn't find the Windows 2000/XP experience to be a negative one (Win98 and earlier are a different story entirely). I was also a big gamer when I first got into PCs back in 1998, and the Mac wasn't a good platform at that time if you wanted to play the latest games. I also had bad recollections of my mom's Power Mac from my junior high school days. That thing was a piece of garbage and was one of the reasons I went with Wintel when I bought my first PC and stayed away from Mac for all these years--sort of like a Mac user who hasn't used a Windows OS since Win98 and insists that Windows is complete trash.
I have several reasons for switching. PC building and tweaking used to be a fun hobby of mine, but now that I have more things occupying my time--including new, preferred hobbies--I'm not really interested in building my own PCs anymore. And there's no way I'm giving Dell $2000 for a high-end PC loaded with spyware and a bunch of garbage I don't want or need. My mom bought a pretty sweet Dell laptop at my recommendation late last year, and I was horrified at all the garbage they throw on there. The system tray was completely packed with all kinds of junk running at startup. Quite a different experience from the Dell purchased by the guy who lived across the hall from me in college. That thing rocked and was lightning-fast. Dell has gone so far downhill I almost want to cry.
Also, the bulk of my time spent on computers is for design work. Mac has always been the darling of the design community, so it was a logical move. I can now interact with other designers, printers, and agencies without fear of compatibility problems.
Geeks also like new toys. I had a lot of fun playing around with my Power Mac last night. There was some frustration, but overall it was a good experience. The Mail setup wizard was annoying because there was no way to bypass it and create accounts directly that I could see. It insisted on checking my login info during setup and was having problems connecting to my POP server (worked fine in Entourage), so it just sat there churning away for several minutes. Canceling the wizard closed Mail completely. Kind of dumb. Installing Tiger couldn't have been easier though.
And finally, OS X is pretty. I have a strong attraction to good aesthetics. Superficial, but it adds to the experience.
I still enjoy using computers, but their purpose in my life has shifted from mostly toy to mostly tool.