What's bad about OS X and MacBook?

I currently have a Compal CL56 notebook, but it's getting a bit old so soon I'll need a new one. The question is then, should it be a Mac?
I use my notebook on the Internet and Word, Excel etc. things as a Mac could do as well. But what I really could use is what bad things switchers have noticed when using only OS X compared to Windows? It's not to start a "I hate Mac" thread, but a way for me to see if I can live with the downsides to OS X.

And som critique for the MacBook also?

 

I just bought the MacBook recently, and I love it so far. The battery life is excellent, the screen is great, and OS X is a joy to use. My only gripe is that the keyboard is somewhat hard to type on... the keys are a little stiff in my opinion (at least with the new SR Macbooks)
OS X, however, isn't the super stable OS that people make it out to be. It has crashed on me once or so... and a few programs have also crashed (Messenger, Office... but I blame Microsoft for that).
If you've used Windows all of your life, it'll take you a few days to get used to it... but it's a relatively simple operating system. If you're used to Unix-based operating systems (e.g. Linux), the switch will be a breeze.

 

I don't know if it should be a Mac. You tell me. The only downsides to Mac OS X is that some software are only Windows compatible. Usually there is a Mac alternative to that, but for some things you just have to dual boot Windows to do. (Like gaming...) Another thing is that you have to remember you're switching to a new operating system. Don't expect it to work the same way Windows does. You have to keep an open mind and be ready to learn what that system offers. I would say 90% of the things are similar in both Windows and Mac.

 

AuroraS, Messenger always crashes on me too...most likely its a flaw in Microsoft's part. Makes it highly unusable.

Critique for the MacBook? It could be thinner, if it was built like a Thinkpad that'd be great, a graphics card would be nice, LED-backlit screen, thinner screen bezel, slot to put in Apple Remote, DVI-out + HDMI (instead of Mini-DVI on the current MacBooks), Blu Ray optical drive, option for higher resolution, could be lighter. That might be as close to perfect as something can get .

But I love my MacBook. These are minor issues mostly and you'll never find a perfect notebook. However, the weight could still be changed...5 lbs for a 13.3-inch is a bit heavy.

As for OS X, don't expect it to be perfect. I prefer it over Windows, but its not true that it never and can't crash, and it does sometimes have bugs. But its less than what I get on Windows, and I love OS X and the way it works, the way it looks and all the different features of it, so I definitely like OS X.

How's this for critique?

 

Sounds more like a wish-list

Yeah it could be lighter... but it's not super heavy. What it really needs is more ports!

 

Not a bad idea either!

Yeah, two USB 2.0 ports makes it hard...as well as the Mini-DVI port.

 

Critique:

--> Quality control issues. Much more so than I've seen on any PC.
--> On the heavy side for a 13"
--> It used to be critiqued for the video card and for not having SR, but the recent updates resolve these. The video card isn't great but it's better than before.
--> DVI/HDMI missing
--> Base model comes with a combo drive...common Apple!
--> Expensive compared to most laptops on the market (even though the mb has better performance than most laptops, say, at Best Buy, it is also among the most expensive).

 

I don't own a Macbook but, Here's my critique:
-could be lighter
-at least 4 USB ports would be great
-cheaper
-at least an 8400M GS option.....
-thinner

 

I have the old style macbook and there is nothing wrong with it. It works perfect and completely as advertised. I've never had a single problem. I bought it for what it was at the time, not what it would be in the future. It plays all my dvd's my music cd's, plays wow and other games in windows, and has great battery life and a fantastic screen.

 

Yes, I love how my MacBook screen is really bright, and its not even LED-backlit! I rarely need to turn it to full brightness.

 

Just to be correct, the Macbook does not have a video card, it uses integrated graphics, and yes, the recent upgrade is far superior to the old GMA950.

Honestly, you can get a decent 14" PC laptop for about 60% of what the MacBook costs.

The Macbook does come with miniDVI, n wireless, bluetooth and gigE ethernet.

Your call if that's worth it.

You can also run Windows on the Macbook and the resale value is a little better than the typical PC.

OS X plays nice with Windows and networks. M$ Office is a little behind the times and would still run in Rosetta emulation. You could always run Office for Windows in Windows in a dual boot or virtualization environment.

It just comes down to what you need the laptop for and what your budget is. $750 will get you a perfectly adequate word processing internet surfing Windows laptop.

 

Aurora, keep in mind that the MS apps you're using have yet to be released as universal binaries, so your issues are probably Rosetta related. I run office on a G5 at work and it's reasonably stable for me.

 

Oh... I don't really have issues anymore. I just had to run a few Office updates and it was all fine and dandy

 

I don't think Intel integrated graphics support HDMI output.

 

I'm an Apple, not just Mac, fanboy. I had a MB for about 8 months when the damn thing just quit working right. Too many problems to go into here. Though I loved the machine when it worked properly, IMO, MB's (at least the early ones) just aren't built to Apple's usual high standards. I finally gave up on mine; returned it after numerous repairs AND exchanges. Was given a full refund cordially by the Apple folks, so, in turn, paid the difference and got a MBP with which I've been perfectly satisfied.

Now, for the things I like about a MB in good working order: size and weight, battery life, the white color (and white cord/charger), great screen, and it's plenty fast enough for my purposes.

 

MNP, a few years ago I switched and bought 600MHz iBook.
I was disappointed because:
1. It was too slow for OSX.
2. It was the beginning of OSX and there were no Parallels/Boot camp
to run Windows on it.
3. There were to many differences between PC/Mac MS Office.

I sold my iBook after 6 months and bought a PC desktop.

When buying MBP today and running windows on your Mac you can get rid off most problems written above. There was also a small issue for me - I missed this ugly Windows Explorer, shortcuts etc. But this can be compromised by many nice features in OS X like Automator, Unix structure, Time Machine, Spotlight etc.

Today, after many years I decided to re-switch. There are a few reasons:
1. MBP has the best screen on the market and I need it as a designer.
2. I can get MBP and see it before buying (what a comfort these days)!!
Try to order HP 8710p with an exact configuration you need (UK) and hope it will be in stock and of course you can't see it before buying or it is very difficult to find it (I am talking about business HP line).
3. In the UK MBP price is very competitive to HP, Dell and Lenovo (Thinkpad Lenovo T61p costs £1600+ while MBP £1400+).
4. You can find a nice refurb deal on the net.
5. MBP is one of the smallest laptops on the market and you have a very small adaptor/magsafe plug (opposite to HP/Dell bricks).
6. Mac OSX - it is not perfect, I need to Think different, there are new shortcuts for me, Safari doesn't work like PC IE/Firefox but... it has a Unix structure which is useful for me (virtual servers with Ruby on board), Time Machine is a class (I am to lasy to backup) and it has this nice and clean look and the best - I have a choice, I don't need to buy Vista.
7. With the MS Office 2008 coming, I can see a nice perspective for exchanging/managing documents.

Try to sit down and write pros/cons for MacBook/PC laptop. Be honest not to regret in the future. Nice design and 'cool' factor is just one point on the list. And the most important thing - what will you be using it for?

That's it for me.

 

Thanks for the replies.

The reason I'm thinking about buying a Macbook is that I get a normal PC from my employer. But there's pretty many restictions on it, I am f.x. not allowed to install winamp, MSN etc. so really it's a pure workmachine. Therefore I need a computer to use in my sparetime. I will then need a computer that's not restricted in my usage of the Internet and so on, but can be used to store and watch videos, listen to music, use on the Internet, write some documents once in a while (but that I can do on my workcomputer too). So to put it simple it's a computer used for fun and sparetime. I'm thinking about a Mac because it can do those things, but I don't need to use time on antispyware, drivers and I've heard that OS X should be faster than Vista and more secure.

I use my current notebook with an external screen so I use dualscreen mode, I suppose OS X can do the same? And further more I've always used Windows, and I like it a lot, but sometimes it's funny to try something else.

 

MNP, I suggest you find somebody with a Mac and play around with it. It is worth as the experience is different from PCs.

 

Yes, that is fine. The MacBook can support dual-screen mode.

ANTDOD, as for Safari, it isn't an issue, really...if you prefer Firefox, then just use Firefox for Mac!

 

I agree with this. Another way it to see if there's an Apple Store somewhere near where you live (even if it's 50 miles away), then going there just to see it and get a feel for it.

Personally, to me it sounds like you want more of a desktop experience than a notebook, since you'll already have a notebook handy for work. That is, unless you travel a lot and would like to have both laptops around.

 

My biggest complaint with mac OSX is that with a lot of the programs that I am use to running under windows, their mac versions kind of suck. Firefox for example is rather unstable under mac osx and usually crashes at least once a day. Granted there are other browsers but I can't live without Firefox's extensions and add ons. MS office is also a steaming pile, oh well I guess, another reason to start learning LaTeX.

 

Sam, I agree but FF under Mac is even worse in case of displaying HTML/CSS/fonts etc and when you design websites PC market is your main one so you need to make sure sites look well under PC FF/IE.

Regards

 

15.4" MBP, T7700 cpu 2GB mem 7200 SATA.

Summary: I found my 14 days of MBP ownership to be a frustrating experience. I spent hours on the phone with Apple technicians, who were all very nice, but did not know, understand, or able to fix the problems. Apple has managed to create a most elegant, beautiful, desireable laptop that doesn't work worth a darn.

1. Extreemely low performance for the "on paper" hardware. On the same applications, my old, 1.7MHz Pentium M with 1GB Lenovo T42 ran circles around the MBP with better battery and radio range.

2. The MBP wireless and graphics start out delivering great performance, both slow within minutes or application freeze. Alerted to this issue, I started crawling around the web and discovered gamers had been talking about this. What concerned me was the lack of resolution. Seemed to be a lot of finger pointing (OS, graphics, application). Last straw was a report that Leopard had managed to both defeat the work arounds and not fix either problem.

Nits. The LCD screen was grainy, washed out and colors were "off". I read a review that didn't like the internal speakers. I found them to be a whole lot better than most. The seperation between the caps lock key and the A key could be more, but I guess this is a personal issue with the keyboard. The ambient light sensors are near the keyboard. I found it a little distracting that the screen and keyboard backlights would randomly dim and brighten based on hand position rather than ambient light conditions. I could not turn on my Apple wireless mouse and have the MBP acquire it. To get them to work together I had to turn on the mouse and then re-boot.

 

nek, that's a bad news regarding the screen. According to my experience MBP's have the best screens from all laptops.

 

Also keep in mind that Macs can run Windows now, quite nicely... so you don't really have to sacrifice as much as you think you do.

 

You can't arrange your open windows vertically or horizontally like you can do automatically in windows. At least not with Tiger (not sure if you can do that in Leopard). And in Tiger, you can only arrange your icons in a Finder window by date/size/etc. only if you're on the 'list' view option. You can't do that when you're viewing it as a column or icon pictures...
I know, OS X can't do the simplest things sometimes. It's insane.
But then again, these are small problems, and I'm hoping TIger fixed both issues.

 

+1

Watch out for squishy trackpad buttons, immature battery wear, and dead pixels.

The macbook is indeed heavy, which is a shame.

 

nek, sounds like you got a bad MBP...if you can get to an Apple Store, best to talk to them about it and see if you can get a replacement.

 

@nek, the screen dimming is just a powersave feature that can be very easily disabled in preferences.

I've used a MB and own an MBP.
The experience has been good, but switching from windows you can run into some strange behaviours. Most turn out to be better ways of doing things, and a few are just annoying.

As for the price, you can get a cheaper PC laptop, but it will probably come with Vista installed and then you need a LOT more power. Vista runs WAY slower on comparable hardware, needs 1.5GB of RAM to be properly usable and prefers a proper graphics card, runs freaky slow on integrated graphics chips and so on.

The MBP has a few nice features, the screen is bigger and even better, more connectors (including FW800) and a full size DVI output.

For connecting an external monitor you'll need an adapter, the MB has a mini-DVI output and you'll need an adapter over to either full size DVI or to VGA. Available at the apple store.
Using it with an external monitor is REALLY nice. In my experience, it just works (pretty much like in the ads). You get a box on both screens for configuration. Independent resolutions (set in a the box on each monitor) and all the usual modes to select from. You can make the setup not appear, but if you travel alot between locations this is a really nice configuration tool.
I've used two monitors on my PC for years, first with an NVIDA gpu then an ATI unit. The configuration for those sucks donkey balls. Mostly because WinXP isn't designed to cope with extreme circumstances like dual screens, and DEFINITELY not for different resolutions on each monitor. (WinXP can handle simple spanning, nothing else. The ATI and Nvidia drivers contain clever hacks to get around this).

As for software, Microsoft office should get a new (proper) version early 2008. Other office suites are available, some usable, some not. OpenOffice, for instance, is not really usable at this time. NeoOffice (a reworking of OpenOffice) works, but I've heard some complaints. (I use it, and it's just a bit too slow to start for me, I haven't had instability, but then again I only use it occasionally. Apples own iWork seems to have its good sides. I tried the demo and it all looks nice, haven't played around much though, have 28 days left of the trial

Browsers, you have Safari(built in), Firefox (decent), Camino (super light version based on Firefox) and Opera (heavier, has everything built in). Basically everything you're likely to use on the PC as well, even InternetExplorer (if you're a masochist).

For music, iTunes rules the roost on the Mac, and works much nicer than on the PC. Then you have options like VLC, which handles almost any media, just like on the PC.
A glaring omission is Winamp, but as a hardcore Winampt user I'll throw in some sacrilege and state that after using iTunes on Mac for a few weeks I don't really miss Winamp that much anymore (Winamp does have features like amazing customizability, handles specialist audio interfaces and such (ASIO drivers and such). MacOS X just does easily and iTunes "just works"...)

For CD/DVD burning you have Toast, works similar to Nero. There is also a utility for making disks in the OS itself.

For messenger you have many options. One of which is Microsoft Messenger. Stay away from that one. Adium, however, is quite good.
Skype is also available, as is Google Earth.

One thing that surprises most PC users is that the software that comes preinstalled actually works, isn't crap and isn't some kind of cut-down version of a bigger program (you know the sort, you only have 3 options available, the menu includes 10 greyed out and the interface is really designed for power users, or even worse, for and by the programmer)
I used to sell PC laptops. The crap that comes preinstalled from manufacturers is incredible.

As for other applications, there is a bunch of freeware/shareware and commercial apps available. The range of pro audio/video/graphics apps is good.

Really, the only software areas I feel the mac is let down is Office suites and Games. Both areas seem to be getting better.

Pretty much, the clinching factor for me was the little things. Making an external sound card work, easy. Syncing my phone via bluetooth, easy and the sync software was preinstalled and just worked (contacts sync to your address book and calendars sync to...calendar). External monitor, easy no matter which mode I want. Bluetooth mouse, easy. Bluetooth headset, easy and worked in skype on my first try (I've seen that not work on a few PCs, both desktop with USB bluetooth adaptor and laptops with built in. Usually driver related)
I'm willing to pay a premium for that.

MacOS can crash, but if you learn how to force quit an application (and the fact that if you force quit an app twice, then the OS sends a more powerful version of the forcequit command) then OS crashes should be few and far between. Mine last crashed in May.... I use it a lot, for audio work. I run beta applications and stuff that I know will crash. I also ran it for 45 days without restart just to see if it would run that long, it did. Finally had to restart for a software update

long post? Partly pointless?
you betcha.

 

No, great post, Arikol.
I must add that when OS X crashes, it's usually due to a software glitch by a third party, like my stupid #@)(&%!)#( logitech control center. And that's very rare, unless you have a crappy program like the LCC.

I don't think the macbook is that heavy. But then agian, I had a 15.4" HP ZT3000 before this one, which was quiet heavier.

 

Well, the MacBook, at 5 pounds, isn't heavy in the way that its hard to carry around, but its heavy when compared to other 13.3-inch notebooks that are quite a bit lighter.

 

You need to decide if these "Flaws" will affect you...the extra 0.5 lbs the macbook has over its competition really wouldn't bother me, but the fact that there are a lot of people having QC issues would...

 

HOnestly, take it from me. If you just use your notebook for internet, word, etc., u know, regular student stuff like I do, then macbook is great. And I say take it from me because I never thought I would one day switch. When I did, i was hesitant, but i got a really really good deal and the price dropped the ball. The first 2 weeks, OS X was like a maze to me. I had never used it before (1 reason why i was hesitant to buy the mac ... actually, the main reason), and even i had 3 mac 101 websites bookmarked on my browser, i was pulling my hair and ready to throw my macbook to the wall as hard as I could. But slowly I got used to the new OS, and now it's a blaze. My GF has vista, and god I hate everything about it. I can't imagine ever switching back to that dump.

 

OSX crashes???

 

Really nice to get all these replies and advices. It has made my decision much more enlightened as I knew very little about the downsides to Macbook and OS X. Usually I've only read good things about OS X, so it's nice to have som critique also

At the moment it's MacBook vs. HP DV2699eo Verve. Like the design on both, Verve is the most expensive, but except the cpu also the most well equipped. The biggest diffence on those two really is the OS I think. But I guess I have to think some more And try the MacBook out at the lokal retailer.

 

Thx, was afraid I had started rambling....

Does the whole system become unresponsive due to tha Logitech control center?
If you cannot force quit it (the Finder going unresponsive) can you start a Terminal? From there you can try killing the process (just manually force quitting, really).
To find the process number it good to use (without the quotation marks): "ps -ax | grep -i xxx" where xxx would be part of the name of the process, in this instance probably lcc, logi or logitech.
From this you see the process number (you should see 2 processes, one of them is the command you just made) and can issue a new command: "kill -9 xxx" where xxx is the process number.

If you just issue the command "ps -ax" you just get a list of all running processes, killing random processes will make your system go screwy....
The kill command is the same as force quit, kill -9 is the same as doing force quit again (lower level command)


So, to MNP, you need NEVER see the terminal if you don't want to, it will remind you of the MS command prompt, but isn't really anything like it in use and WAY more powerful.
On the Mac you have the choice between superb simplicity and proper power. On Vista you can choose between slowness and instability Ok maybe not that bad, but I did maintenance on XP and then Vista until May this year (still service some personal friends with Vista) and can say that Vista is definitely not usable yet. XP may be boring but is relatively stable if managed properly.

 

there's no need for more thinking. As an ex-Windows die-hard fan as recently as May 2007 (I knew the ins and outs of XP) who knew nothing of OS X and hated it for hte first 2 weeks, i can tell you that the OS X is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better.

 

I'm trying not to be so blunt about it but, yeah, ditto...
More like one week ,though

 

Everyone I talked to about the MBP, whether directly associated with Apple or not is/was really nice, really supportive. Its a community I wanted to belong to, be a part of. I don't see how anybody who is familiar with a PC would have a problem switching. Everything I needed may have been in a different location or called something else, but the functionality remained the same. Since it was within the 14 day trial window, I just got my money back. I got a different 15.4" Santa Rosa/8600M notebook... bigger, uglier, heavier, louder, zero style, speakers from hell, XP Pro, get's the hard use - desktop replacement job done fast and reliable.

 

I'll have to agree with that. Mac users are really, extremely supportive of each other. And its amazing how calm the Apple forum here on NBR is; you'd expect a lot more flame wars and Mac bashing + Mac fanboy-ing on a tech forum, but all the famous flame wars rarely happen here!

 

Pretty cool ain't it!

 

I agree... I rarely see a flame war happen here... and I hope it stays this way.

 

There used to be a minor amount of flame wars here...I almost got into some of them . But the troublesome members have mostly left.

 

Agreed, I may be wrong but I haven't seen MM or Home-URR much anymore.

 

(disclaimer: didn't read previous posts)

Hardware critiques: I had to put some paper on top of the battery to get the touchpad button to click properly. The lack of a sufficient thermal solution means I can never run my Macbook at full throttle without some kind of special external cooling (maybe not then; I haven't tried it). It clocks itself between 1.6 and 1.8 GHz (CPU's max is 2) with CPU temps at 90+ C and the fan constantly going at its max of 7000~ rpm when I try computationally intensive processes (Folding @ Home). That fan quickly becomes audible any time there's significant CPU load (such as loading a web page with a flash ad).

Software critiques: You will probably want to install some third party program to help you launch applications, if you have much of a list. Quicksilver is excellent for this, and is probably a good thing to have installed anyways.

I've found that my Mac crashes more than my Windows machine. When something goes seriously wrong, it seems to tend to be weirder. Guess that's pretty anecdotal, but I don't think it's possible to corrupt a Windows installation to the point where a Windows installation disk isn't able to nuke it and start over. (I thought that was ridiculous (and a bit funny ) when it happened to my Macbook.)

Codec support. In Windows, it's pretty painless to play back all sorts of videos, even stuff like mkvs with multiple audio tracks and multiple subtitle tracks. This is less supported in OS X. Usually for those sorts of files you just use VLC. I haven't had the greatest experiences with VLC.

I find the Windows approach of giving you fairly direct access to files comforting. OS X generally likes to keep you away from your files, working more inside programs, against abstractions. On a related note, Windows Explorer trumps the Finder. It's got a tree view for folders The Finder has improved greatly from Tiger to Leopard, thankfully. It used to be much worse.

It's harder to quickly switch between windows in OS X. You have Expose, but you need Expose, and it takes longer to quickly switch between individual windows, vs Windows, which sports Alt+tab and the taskbar.

The Dock is a mess. It functions to list open programs, provide some menu functionality, serves as an app launcher, and stores minimized windows and misc files and folders. It's generally unwieldy.

I don't think it's fair to call this one a critique, but coming into OS X from Windows, the cursor speed curve is horrible and bad and evil. I refuse to get used to it.

other critiques: You necessarily associate yourself with other Mac fans by purchasing a Mac. (*whisper* They are all completely insane.)

 

l33t c0w, I like your points (I hate cursor speed curve as well) and would like to go a step further asking the most experienced users (yes, Sam, I am talking about you, too) to extend Switch to Mac thread by adding things that are much different in OSX comparing to Windows.

The thing is, when switching people gets really emotional (I know it from autopsy) and this whole Apple hype/marketing/religion does not help when building expectations. I remember guy complaining about Preview/iPhoto. He didn't expect things to work in a different way.

What I think it is worth to mention:

- think different - golden rule, even if you thing something is wrong... it is just different

- with Macs it just works but... not everything works like you think it does

- Mac OSX does freeze/crash - expect it and don't be disappointed

- all the small habits - switching between screens, minimising/maximising, full screen option, ejecting DVDs, deleting files (delete), right click (including things like two fingers tap that does not work in Boot Camp) etc.; for example I think that Expose/Dashboard is better than Windows+M but not everybody does

- many OSX apps organise files in their own way - using folders is a bit archaic because it does not give you all the options you have when manipulating photos in iPhoto

- when you are a PRO photographer - don't expect iPhoto/Preview to work for you perfectly (it is more for families etc.); so iLife has many strengths and weaknesses people should be aware of

This is just my short list. I believe we are obliged to give people clear picture because too many people say Macs are AWESOME. They are but there things you won't be able to do the same way as on PCs.

 

Thanks ANTDOD

I think we're pretty on the same page. I just want to temper expectations a little bit.

Things like the "blurry fonts" are really just different, and depend on what you're used to. (they don't even look blurry to me at this point.)

Macs have a lot to offer, and there are a lot of "differences" that aren't "worse", but there are a few things that are worse, too (For the record, I like Expose a lot -- F11 for desktop access is really handy -- but still very much miss the simple window-based (vs application-based cmd-tab) alt-tab, which I use heavily whenever I'm on Windows. There isn't anything quite equivalent in OS X.)

Macs do have some issues, and you're more likely to experience them the further off the beaten path you go. (fiddling with stuff like Internet sharing, heterogenous environments with Windows and Linux... playing the more esoteric video formats..)

 

My father has a MacBook Pro, but the problems with that are also on the MacBook. I leave here his criticism (note: my father is quite computer-savvy: I'd consider him a very experienced user). Also, he's not new to the Mac, he's had it for a few months now.

He says that the major bad thing about the Mac is the user interface. Some examples:

- There is no way to maximize a window. There is a "zoom" button where you'd find a "maximize" button in Windows, but that button does what each application decides it does. In some it increases the size (but not to a full window), in some it does nothing.
- There is no right button on the touchpad. Instead, whenever you need to right-click, you have to "Mac-click" (using a special key, near the CTRL and ALT keys). This obviously makes for a more cumbersome interface.
- Speaking of which, the menu bar of a window (where you have "File", "Edit", etc), is always at the top of the screen, NOT at the top of the window. This means that if you have one window active and want something on another window's menu, you have to FIRST click on that other window and THEN go to the top of the screen to the menu.
- This problem gets even more serious if you, like him (and me) sometimes use another monitor at work to be able to have more screen real estate. Then, the window's menu will always be at your Mac's monitor, even if the window is in another monitor. This is very awkward and really breaks your momentum.
- The Dock (similar to the Windows Taskbar) is a mess. Instead of listing only open programs, it lists those on the bottom right corner (think of Windows Tray) and the main part of the Dock lists programs you can open, like a massive Quick Launch toolbar (with all the programs you have). Also, it has no names, only icons which are mini versions of the open windows. If you have a Web browser, a text editor and a spreadsheet, they will all look the same.
- To sum up these considerations on interface, my father estimates that the number of clicks/keystrokes you need to do pretty much anything will be about double of the equivalent in Windows.
- Mac also has a sort of BSOD, which you can call BROD (Black Rectangle of Death), which will force you to reboot. In my father's case, his Mac crashes more than his last Windows laptop, about twice more. And it's not only on Microsoft applications (those work quite well with him actually).
- His computer cannot stay in sleep mode if it has any USB devices plugged. It will always keep turning on and sleeping. He has talked to a friend of him which is a Mac guru and this is apparently a hardware flaw, not a OS flaw.
- There are a lot of other turndowns, but those are mostly a matter of habit (keys in different positions, different mouse pointer speed, etc).

To sum it up: Apple used the iPod principle of "minimum buttons" to try to achieve a sleek design. The Mac is too white and shiny for my taste, but I can understand that it appeals for some people. But the result is an interface which is a lot less intuitive and takes more of your time.

Hope this helps.

 

There are many ways to solve some of the issues your father lists.

First of all, yes, the maximize button does not always maximize the window to full screen. What you can do instead if drag the lower right corner to fill up the screen.

Secondly, if your dad connects a mouse to the Mac, you already have a right-click there. If he has an Intel Mac notebook, then he can also set the trackpad to understand two-finger clicks as right-click. Just as you scroll with two fingers, when you want to do a right-click, you can just hold down two fingers and press the mouse button, or even just tap the trackpad with two fingers.

A lot of the things you mention about how having a Dock and stationary Menu Bar making you need to constantly move around your cursor and such can be solved by using Expose more often. Expose will let you switch between open windows (and also shows you what the window looks like) quickly and easily. You will save a lot of time using Expose.

The "BROD" you note is a kernel panic, and if your father's Mac crashes that often, I'd suggest he do a reinstall or at least repair disk permissions. That is not normal.

And I don't know why the Mac won't go to sleep with USB devices plugged in. I constantly leave my flash drive and mouse connected, and I never have issues. Has your dad tried a reinstall?

 

Yeah, I agree with Sam. That many kernel panics isn't normal.