
Ask HN: Is it worth switching to a Mac? - neovive
My current Dell system is in need of replacement and I'm considering switching to a Mac with VMWare.  I am a long time Windows user and my work involves mostly web development, research and technical writing.  I use Eclipse, UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, TortoiseSVN, Adobe CS3, Camtasia Studio, MS Office and a local WAMP server for most of my work.<p>I've done quite a bit of research on hardware/software, but it's been hard to find objective opinions on switching to Mac.  I'm especially interested in experiences from other web developers that recently switched to a Mac -- did you notice an appreciable improvement in workflow to justify the learning curve (OS, keyboard shortcuts, etc.)?  Has your overall experience been positive?<p>Edit: To clarify, I would prefer using native Mac software over the VM wherever possible and have found equivalents to everything except Camtasia Studio.
======
MrFantsyPants
I do a fair bit of coding on Mac, Windows and Linux (usually ubuntu) If you
switch, be prepared that it will take you a bit of an adjustment, as many of
the basic actions that you do without even thinking about it will change.

However, I think over time you'll find that it is not a change you'll regret.
I find that in general, you'll get things done faster, and learn new things
quicker. It's definitely the platform that I have tended to gravitate to for
most of my work.

Plus, the new macbooks are solid.

~~~
bprater
Important point here: you WILL have an adjustment period.

You'll have to learn the quirks of the OS. (Where's the damn menu bar!)

You'll have to find similar apps to the ones you've used in Windows. (Assuming
you don't want to VM everything -- and if you do -- maybe you should question
why you're moving to Mac.)

~~~
neovive
I found equivalent apps for everything except TortoiseSVN (Versions or
SCPlugin seems like a fit). I would only use the VM for testing on IE and a
few Windows-only apps.

Keyboard shortcuts are one of my big concerns -- I'm a big Ctrl key user on
Windows.

~~~
jwilliams
> Keyboard shortcuts are one of my big concerns -- I'm a big Ctrl key user on
> Windows.

You get used to it pretty quickly - and I swap back and forth a fair bit.

OSX will let you remap important keys any way you like - but I think it's
generally easiest just to stick with the native mapping (otherwise you jump on
another machine and get lost).

~~~
mstevens
I found OS X applications generally seem to have slightly fewer keyboard
shortcuts than Linux/Windows.

They're there, but for example I think menus are easier to access on Windows
(still possible on both though!).

------
minalecs
I recently switched from linux to mac, and I would not pay the apple tax
again. I force myself to use the fisher price os they call osx, to justify the
apple tax i payed for the hardware. But being a windows to mac user may be a
better transition. For those that say use Vmware.. why not just buy the
cheaper hardware and run windows. The hardware is all commodity, and you are
not getting any benefits from the hardware, compared to x86 vs ppc days.
Mainly is a software point of view. From what I've found in ubuntu repository
any software I ever wanted or needed I could find for free. To make osx usable
for me, I've had to pay for quite a bit of software. I find it much less
productive.. my best example is .. on standard keyboard layout .. press ctrl +
c , and notice how your hand is shaped. Its already in an extended position
for the next key. Now on mac to copy its command key (apple or win key) + c
... you hand is curled into like a ball.. and no matter how long you use it,
its still awkward, and not as natural when typing. For me I wanted the *nix
environment + the stability, and osx does deliver, but the price is your
computing freedom.

~~~
drwh0
yeah its amazing that apple touts themselves as pro-user but their external
keyboards are without a doubt the most craptastic worthless keyboards on the
market. they look cool but are utterly useless for prolonged use

and yes apple takes your freedom and will slowly turn you into an idiot. we're
software _developers_ damnit, we're supposed to be interested in how the
computer works under the hood, not looking to put a gramma-friendly interface
on everything. i don't understand developers who look for "just works" at the
expense of "show me the code"

~~~
cpr
The latest flat aluminum Apple external keyboards are the best I've ever used,
and I've been a keyboard snob for decades.

~~~
drwh0
ask anyone occupational therapist if the apple keyboard is recommended over,
say, the kinesis advantage pro. if you aren't using a kinesis or one of its
real competitors _right now_ , you are not a "keyboard snob"

the apple keyboard:

\- has no discernable key travel

\- is not split and contoured

\- is too small

its probably the biggest ergonomic nightmare out there. fortunately few people
actually use them after buying the computer

~~~
cpr
But if I can fly on this keyboard (and the ones like it such as the MacBook
Air) with no problems for years, why should I worry about the "ergonomic"
keyboards?

------
bprater
If you want to go native, this list of Mac counterparts might help you:

    
    
      Eclipse - There is a Mac version.
      UltraEdit - Coda or Textmate.
      SQLYog - Sequel Pro.
      WinSCP - Cyberduck, YummyFTP. Tons of clients. Check out ExpanDrive for some real fun. 
      TortoiseSVN - Syncro SVN.
      Adobe CS3 - There is a Mac version.
      Camtasia Studio - Screenflow. 
      MS Office - There is a Mac version.
      WAMP - There is a similar MAMP. Then again, you are running on a platform 
             that has all those goodies pre-installed and ready-to-go!
    

Anyone have some additional suggestions?

PS: Virtualization has a cost associated with it. I only fire mine up for
testing. Make sure you max out the RAM you get on the machine.

~~~
lacker
I'd add Aquamacs if you are an emacs user.

~~~
spydez
Personally, I prefer GNU Emacs (aka Emacs.app) over Aquamacs.

I have a rather large .emacs that's followed me faithfully from Solaris to
Linux to Windows to Linux to Windows, and Aquamacs refused to work with it. I
spent about a week trying to get them to work together, but gave up and
switched to Emacs.app and got everything running in a day.

So, just a warning. Aquamacs is fine for simple .emacs, but might throw a
tantrum if you want to do things like have a non-standard color scheme or keep
your .emacs OS and Emacs version independent.

------
cjoh
For me, I made the switch because I think Macs are cheaper after about one
year of use. If my time equals money, and I value my time at $50/hr (which,
yes, is a bit arbitrary), and I assume that I will spend less time
configuring, defragging, cleaning, or anti-virusing my Mac than my PC, then it
gets to be a real simple equation.

I took a look and just sort of estimated how much maintenance time I put into
my PC over the course of a year. I estimated it to be at about 2 hrs per month
(which I think was, actually, not enough to keep it secure), or $1200, so the
total cost to me, of ownership is whatever the price is of a PC plus $1200.

I find that that maintenance time on my mac is significantly less right now
than it was or ever has been on my PC.

So in the end, my answer is: yes-- get a Mac. At the end of the day, they're
cheaper.

~~~
Tichy
What do you do to your PC to "keep it secure"? Windows has automatic updates?

Updating other apps can be a pain (java, Firefox, Flash, etc.), but I don't
think OS X does that automatically? The OS that DOES do that automatically for
a lot more apps than Windows or OS X is Linux (Ubuntu). That for me is reason
enough put Ubunutu on the noobbooks in my family.

------
tortilla
Yes it's worth it to switch. Took me about a month to get completely
comfortable, but a lot of it is trial and error. It's like learning to drive
on the opposite side of the road.

The keyboard commands aren't hard to master but by default, a lot of the
keyboard options are turned off in OS X. System Settings > (Full Keyboard
Access) [x] All controls

I can't live without Quicksilver, but the learning curve for it is pretty
steep (more advanced commands).

<http://osx.iusethis.com/> <\- Good site to browse to discover OS X apps.

Hey if you have specific questions, email me and I'll be happy to answer them.
I've helped a lot of people switch. Lots of times, you just need some tips to
feel comfortable.

------
flashgordon
actually if you are not doing any iphone development (or mac development) i
dont see the point. i am on a dell inspiron (bought early last year) and is
very solid. running fedora 9, only log in to XP if i have to (around once a
month).. cost of hardware is lower (id say atleast 10%-20%) and you have a lot
more freedom with what you can do without running into the JobsWall! plus for
webapps i can get it to mimic the production environment almost as is.

Yes it is not as "cool" as a mac, but hey if I wanted my machine to look hot
Id have gone into fashion design.

~~~
mattmaroon
It's a lot more than 10-20% for a lot of desktop users because Apple doesn't
offer a middle of the road desktop without a monitor built in. Personally I
already own two great LCDs, so when I went to pick one out, my options were
the mini (which has only one video jack and is pretty weak by desktop
standards, though small and silent and therefore great for casual use or
probably as a media hub) or some ridiculously expensive beast of a Mac Pro. So
the price jumped from like $650 to $2,8000.

If I could have gotten something with iMac-like specs but minus the monitor it
still would have cost more than a Dell, I'm sure, but at least only by 10-20%.

~~~
chollida1
> So the price jumped from like $650 to $2,8000.

Wow, what kind of Mac are you buying for that kind of money:)

~~~
mattmaroon
I just looked on Apple.com, that was the starting rate for a Mac Pro. It was a
beast though, with 2 Quad Cores. The rest of the specs were woefully
unimpressive, but I guess it's like a Lexus where they know that if you're
spending that much money, you'll have no problem ordering the upgrades, and
they just put the base price there to lure you in.

~~~
chollida1
> I just looked on Apple.com, that was the starting rate for a Mac Pro.

Sorry, I was making a joke about the extra zero you had in the price. You had
put $28,000 rather than $2,800:)

~~~
mattmaroon
Ha. I guess that's if you get the solid state drive.

------
jmtame
I recently made the switch and my #1 objection to doing it: the keyboard
shortcuts. I've actually mastered most of the shortcuts in about 1-2 days.

The main reason I made the switch is because I am going to do iPhone app
development and that's pretty difficult on a PC.

So far it's been pleasant. I am pretty impressed by OSX, definitely some
advantages over XP and this is pretty much understood and repeated, but Apple
goes out of their way to make everything work nicely. My freakin' keyboard
lights up when the room gets dark. That's pretty cool.

------
zmimon
Since you mention eclipse I would say "proceed with caution". There are two
issues:

a) Eclipse itself is less usable and less stable. I have colleagues who are
unable to debug, experience crashes etc. which I never see on Linux / Windows.

b) probably you are doing java development. Java itself has very weak
commitment on the Mac and often lags years behind the latest releases and even
then may have issues. If you make your bread and butter doing Java stuff, you
should probably run an evironment that natively has first class support for
it.

Of course, if your Eclipse use is just incidental then these may not apply.

~~~
kentosi
I have to agree with this. I do a lot of java development zmimon is correct in
saying that eclipse is less stable, particularly with the UI, which looks
terribly out of place on a mac (you'll see a lot of blogs criticizing this)
because it is essentially a windows application ported across.

MochaCode [<http://syntori.com/mochacode/>] is good but nowhere near the level
of eclipse, but then again I haven't used it in many months.

------
catone
As someone who recently switched from Windows to Mac, the only software I
really miss on my Mac are Word and Excel -- the Mac Office 08 versions are
vastly inferior to the Window Office 07 versions, imho.

I had thought I would miss a lot more, though. So when I first switched I
bought Parallels and installed XP. For awhile I was running XP with FeedDemon
(NetNewsWire has some annoying features I couldn't figure out how to turn
off), Digsby, and a few other Windows-only apps I thought I couldn't find Mac
replacements for. Eventually, though, I found replacements for everything
(save Word and Excel).

Plus, I can now use TextMate, which has made my like a lot easier.

I still own XP and Vista machines and use them fairly regularly as well. But
my main computer has become by MacBook.

I made out a list last month of all the things I love and hate about the Mac
after a couple of months using it. It might be helpful for you:
<http://mockriot.com/post/58997722/my-mac>

~~~
neovive
Great list. Thanks.

------
jaxn
I think I am actually a little less productive on a Mac than I was on Linux.
However, if you are developing web applications that will be hosted on a *nix
server, OS X is much better than Windows.

~~~
teej
I'd only be more efficient on Linux because it doesn't support WoW.

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Except that WoW runs fine on all three platforms...

~~~
lallysingh
A great reason to go OpenSolaris!

And seriously, (IMHO) it's actually pretty good.

------
tdavis
I switched from Windows to Mac about 2 years ago and never looked back. My
main reason for going to OSX instead of Linux at the time was because
Photoshop wasn't available on Linux and GIMP makes me cry. I used Photoshop a
lot. Still, I'd do it again at this point.

I found the adjustment period to be quite short, but then again I had been
working on both Windows and Linux for quite a long time so I was already used
to using multiple platforms and switching between them easily. My Mac
experience has been nothing but positive; no defective hardware, software has
always just worked, etc. From all the detractors, I'd say I might be a
minority. Mac notes:

* There is some seriously great software for OSX. Yeah, you have to pay for it most of the time, but it's well worth it. There are also tons of free apps which are still leagues ahead of their Windows/Linux counterparts.

* The user experience is so much better I actually enjoy using my computer now. No more fighting Windows stupidity or Linux incompatibility / quirks. Well, I still use Linux for all my servers, but that's another story.

* Fusion / Parallels provide very robust and mature virtualization. I use Fusion to run a single Windows app 24/7 and also use it for IE testing. Best of both worlds.

* Specification-wise, stuff is still overpriced. Prices are coming more in line with what you could make yourself, but you're mostly paying for guaranteed compatibility and the OS at this point.

* It seems Apple have had some serious quality control issues recently, especially with laptops. I continue gaining anecdotal evidence that suggests the new laptops are awful. I have an old-ish Macbook Pro which I don't use heavily anymore (though did for about a year) and a Mac Pro; I have never had an issue with either machine.

So there you go. Macs aren't perfect and they aren't for everybody, but I
maintain they are a hell of a lot better than any prefab or hand-rolled
Windows box (except for gaming of course) and still hold advantages over
Linux, at least for those of us who use software not available for that
platform. As far as Linux goes, I like KDE a lot and detest Gnome. Maybe that
will give you some insight into my opinions.

Just remember: The camp that says there's no reason to go Mac over Linux are
just as bad as the one that says there's nothing better than Mac. Choose
whichever one suits your purposes better.

~~~
neovive
Great objective advice. Perhaps, I should also give Linux another try as well
-- it's been almost 3 years since my last Linux desktop experiment.

~~~
tdavis
If you don't do any Mac development, don't use any "rare" apps that have no
Linux counterparts, and don't mind some nagging compatibility issues
(admittedly, driver support gets better every day and Ubuntu is really on top
of this stuff) I highly recommend giving it a try before diving into a much
more costly solution.

Worst case scenario, you still aren't a huge fan of the Linux desktop and you
can give Mac a shot. The Linux desktop has come a LONG way in the past 3
years, though. Just use KDE ;)

Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge Mac fan, just not a traditional fanboy. There
_are_ viable alternatives.

------
bayareaguy
I think the real answer depends on the role you play.

For work I use character terminals, remote screen sessions and web browsers
for everything that matters which leaves me free to use just about any
laptop/desktop/os combination I want. Although in theory I'm free to go with
whatever I like, I find in practice that using the same working environment as
my co-workers helps everyone on the team be more productive because everyone
quickly learns how to help each other solve unanticipated problems. As a
consequence I did the dual-boot windows/linux thing for several years and
later switched to OSX because that's what my fellow developers were doing at
the time.

At home where my role is different (I'm pretty much the sole source of
technical support for my family), we all have Mac laptops running OSX because
our time is important to us and I've found keeping several OSX laptops working
properly is trivial compared to other operating systems.

------
old-gregg
Software aside, when I was looking for a laptop I simply couldn't find
anything even remotely close to Macbook Pro's LCD screen. All PC-based laptops
feature what seems to be an exact copy of some crappy, cheap, glossy 6-bit
panel with low contrast and distorted colors, only sizes and resolutions are
different. Those crappy panels, I suspect, is #1 reason why laptops suddenly
got so much cheaper lately.

Don't get me wrong, new MBP's are also glossy, and their panels aren't 8-bit
(i.e. only 262K colors, just like everybody else), but they still have decent
contrast ratios and reasonably well calibrated.

Keyboards are another matter. Only Lenovo Thinkpads and new generation of Dell
Latitude seem to be well-made, everything else feels like an oversized Texas
Instruments calculator.

With all that said, I find I'm most productive on Gnome-based Linux distros.
PC industry just stopped manufacturing laptops I can put it on. Hopefully,
it's temporary.

------
ibsulon
I just bought one. The lack of home/pgdown/pgup/end is still frustrating. I
must say, it's a great piece of hardware and the double tap/corner "right
click" is a great addition. Frankly, the hardware is wonderful.

The software? Frankly, I'd be happier on a "just works" linux, and I'm tempted
to research reverse engineering the touchpad for linux - it's quite a nice
addition and it would be a best of both worlds scenario.

~~~
tocomment
Yeah, what's the deal with home and end! I just got a mac and I'm still trying
to get to the begining and ends of lines. Any solutions?

Also why does iPhoto open every time I connect my iPhone? That's pretty
annoying.

~~~
jmah
Cmd-Left, Cmd-Right are the traditional Mac keys, or you can use Emacs-style
Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E.

iPhoto preferences, General. "Connecting camera opens: No application"

~~~
jcromartie
> you can use Emacs-style Ctrl-A, Ctrl-E

Most people don't know this, but yes: any Cocoa text view responds to many
Emacs c-key shortcuts.

------
gaius
OSX + VirtualBox + XP is a _far_ better Unix/Windows hybrid than XP + Cygwin.

~~~
felixmar
That's not a fair comparison. The equivalent would be Windows + VirtualBox +
Linux.

~~~
gaius
Heh, I am comparing the two things I actually have :-)

------
donw
I switched from being a long-time Linux user to a Mac sometime in 2005, and
have been overall satisfied with the results.

Pros: \- Can play well with both Windows and Linux/Unix. \- Things like
printing _do_ 'just work'. \- Ability to test my apps on all platforms via
VMWare. \- Cut and paste works. \- Drag and drop works in a very intelligent
fashion. \- Multilingual interface is a snap. And it works. \- MacPorts works
well enough to not make me pine for apt-get. \- Having a consistent interface
is surprisingly neat. \- Spotlight makes life much easier. \- I have a real
Bash shell, just like under Linux. \- Lots of neat little shell bits are
integrated into the OS; like ssh-agent knowing how to interact with the
Keychain. \- I can no longer live without Expose.

Cons: \- The Finder needs improvement. \- Much slower than Linux. \- Not quite
as stable as Linux. \- Hardware is more expensive, with fewer choices. \-
FileVault and Time Machine don't really play well together.

------
thomasswift
I am a long time mac user, not a new switcher, but I am a web developer on a
mac. If you are going to heavily rely on VMware to run all of you windows apps
you might want to grab a pro or the top of the line macbook, the bare minimum
is to juice up the RAM. I have an older white macbook and I love VMWare, but
just for running on operating system at once, I usually have a ubuntu server
going and when I try using a winxp system it does get a little sluggish on the
computer.

In terms of mac version of the software they are equally good, MS Office for
mac is usually pretty responsive and doesn't crash. In my experience massive
excel files sometime bomb out excel, I'd say the PC version was a little more
stable. People have also said the newer version of Adobe CS seem to run better
on PC then mac. I have not really had a problem, though. I never heard of mac
version of UltraEdit, SQLYog, WinSCP, Camtasia Studio, Although for Camtasia
there are some decent mac screencast recorders, but not to my knowledge ones
as feature rich as camtasia.

I know a few people who have asked for my advice for buying a computer and
being a good apple fanboy, i've recommended macs, once they got the hang of it
and the little differences they've really liked it.

I know for me having access to the unix underpinning/programs is a great thing
that has help me as well as being able to install pure linux programs, pending
dependencies and all that. I've gone the VMWare route for running my windows
things and not using boot camp. If I wanted to use the windows side of things
for longer periods of time I would use that setup.

All that said, with more market share that macs are gaining it's great using
one because most of the system is well thought out and can be pretty powerful
when you need it to be. I can develop sites on my system like I am developing
on the linux box I am going to deploy to, test sites with in safari, firefox,
ie6, ie7 and have a generally secure computer that I can kill any process or
program that is freezing up on me.

Just my thoughts

~~~
neovive
I would definitely like to avoid using the VM wherever possible. Just need to
keep it around for website testing in IE 6/7.

~~~
creativeembassy
You'll love this then:

[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21E...](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en)

Images with pre-installed, pre-activated versions of Windows XP SP2 and SP3,
running Internet Explorer 6, 7, and beta 8. Microsoft has them automatically
expire in January, but they're pretty consistent with making updated images by
then with later time bombs. Keeps you from buying XP for your Mac...

------
Jasber
As a developer I like running software that is similar to my production
environment. OS X is close enough to Linux that most applications work the
same. This makes me more productive and makes development easier.

When I switched it was frustrating. It took me 2 weeks before I felt
comfortable navigating the OS.

After that 2 weeks things began to feel comfortable. I feel much more
productive on my Mac now than I ever did on a Windows box.

~~~
neovive
The OS X UNIX backend is definitely compelling as all of my web apps are
hosted on Linux. I was thinking about just switching to Linux, but the Linux
desktop just doesn't seem as polished as Mac or Windows. Although, I will be
switching my old Dell into a Linux test server running CentOS.

------
zacharydanger
No. Just switch to Linux. At least that way you'll learn something and won't
have to deal with the ctrl/alt dyslexia.

------
icey
Will you be doing ANY mac work?

If you're just going to be running everything in Windows anyways, you can get
more machine for your dollar by buying another Dell or a Thinkpad.

I use Mac, Linux & Windows at home; most of the development I do is Windows
based though, so I use a Vista / Ubuntu dual boot laptop (Thinkpad T61P. I
_LOVE_ it.) for when I need to go on-site.

------
cpr
The best part of Mac OS X? The Cocoa text subsystem has a pretty wide set of
built-in Emacs commands (including even c-U prefix), which you can customize.

See
[http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/Cocoa%20Text%20System....](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/Cocoa%20Text%20System.html)
.

------
creativeembassy
I'm with you. I've been using PC's since we got a single desktop PC in
elementary school. So I'm VERY comfortable using Windows.

I still can't stop feeling that I'm wasting too much time yak-shaving with it
though. And the fact that all of my programmer buddies have switched to
MacBooks (and half of them own iPhones) that I'm missing out on something big.

Being a relatively young entrepreneur, money is still the deciding factor. It
would take quite a bit to convince me to save above and beyond the price of a
PC, and aim for a Mac.

~~~
Jem
I am also a comfortable Windows user. I was 'forced' on to a Mac when I
started my current job and had quite a few difficulties (although some were
related to the fact that, as a UK-er, I'm used to a traditional British
English keyboard layout). Although I stuck it out for several months, I still
found myself LESS productive than I was on Windows (or Linux) and my boss
bought me a new Dell.

Although this was just my experience, and you may very likely differ, I
thought you may benefit from the experience of a fellow Windows user. Don't
believe everything you hear about how working on a Mac will suddenly make you
10 times more efficient.

This old comment of mine on another post expands on the things I found
annoying/difficult: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=337842>

------
BenS
I recently switched, and didn't find it took more than a week to adjust. OSX
is great and the laptop I bought is undoubtedly a beautiful machine. I've
found servicable replacements for all of my favorite software, and have come
to love a few mac only applications. One caveat:

Most people I know agree that hardware reliability is poor. Anecdotally,
everyone I spoke with when deciding strongly recommended getting apple care.
More objectively, friends I know who work in the IT support groups at large
tech companies, said that they see roughly 3-4 times the number of hardware
related problems compared to thinkpads (which run about half the price).

Many people tell glowing stories about the great service and support they
receive. When my new macbook pro shipped with a defective optical drive, I WAS
impressed with how friendly support folks were, but I was NOT unimpressed that
the fix took 9 business days even when at an AppleStore and after paying for
apple care. Note: getting a new machine with upgraded RAM was an estimated 15
day turnaround including shipping the machine back to the factory.

------
philcrissman
I think the only answer anyone can give you is whether or not a switch was
worth it for _them_.

Will a switch be worth it for you? I don't think anyone can answer that. You
seem to have done your homework, so... maybe?

To actually answer the question you asked... I think it was worth it, for me.
As some others said, expect to take a little while to learn new shortcuts/OS
behaviors.

------
raffi
I switched from Linux to OS X several years ago. I tend to live on the command
line so my experience is a bit different.

First, I installed Fink which brings dselect and friends to MacOS X. Fink let
me install all the packages from Linux that I use. For giggles, I installed
the Apple X server and ran KDE from Fink. It worked but felt sluggish. I also
realized this was very pointless and stopped doing it after 5 minutes. Running
X apps with the Apple Window Manager in rootless mode feels fast.

I have Virtual PC on my G4 Powerbook. It isn't fast but lets me test stuff in
Windows when I have to. I used to work off a Macbook Pro in an old job and
found VMWare Fusion and Parallels were fantastic when I needed to do work in
another OS.

Overall I like it because its a UNIX I don't have to spend time administering.

I notice your usage patterns/programs are different than mine. Hopefully the
perspective helps at least. Good luck!

~~~
drwh0
_I tend to live on the command line so my experience is a bit different._

then why would you go to an OS that _mandates_ the use of the mouse??

~~~
creativeembassy
My last experience with a MacBook Pro, my friend used the keyboard 99% of the
time. The few occasions he used the touchpad, it was almost entirely composed
of 1+2+3+4 finger gestures for switching between programs/tabe, scrolling, and
so on. This actually became a selling point for me, and why I'm considering a
MacBook for my next laptop.

And at this point, I need to learn to stop feeding the trolls. But I thought
my point would contribute to the discussion anyhow. :-)

------
raquo
OS X is great in terms of productivity, I would recommend it highly. There are
a number of limiting factors, though.

1) Not everyone needs this, but you won't get absolute compatibility with MS
Office - MSO'08 for Mac can't read some stuff that MSO'07 for Windows created
- I had severe problems with theme colors, sorting, etc.

2) Out of mine and friends' experience, the hardware sucks in terms of
reliability. It seems like every other logic board or battery fails at some
point. I'm speaking of pre-last generation macbooks and macbook pros.

3) Applications that you need may not be there. You said you can't find a
substitute for Camtasia Studio. I can't find any substitute for Paint.NET
(apart from Photoshop that is comparable to my monthly salary in cost) and
that's very frustrating. GIMP, being non-native (run through X windows
manager), is ten times more unusable than it is on Ubuntu or Windows.

------
drawkbox
Unless you need it for gaming (direct x mainly) then yes, go mac.

I have gone mac for lots of my development but still roll with vista mainly
for games and some development mainly game relates.

With the rise of consoles and even Microsoft's own XBOX 360, it is removing
the "gaming machine" deciding factor as well with lots of games going online,
multiplatform (blizzard), mac ready.

I switched for Unity3D as it was only available as a dev platform on macs and
it is a good thing that happened. Having *nix as the base of your desktop OS
is really nice. Unity3D, XCode, iPhone dev, and all the goodness of language
support like python, ruby, c, etc working as it should is just good.

------
andrewl
Here's Paul Graham on the switch to Mac:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html>

------
ericb
I switched from Windows to a macbook pro about 9 months ago and have mostly
been happy. I'm irritated by the behavior of cut and paste regarding
subfolders and files, and the different hotkeys slow me down. On the plus
side, Terminal and shell scripting make the dos prompt look like a cheap toy.
The hardware itself is beautifully done. There are far fewer instances where
OS X annoys me, and I've yet to have a virus or spyware issue on OS X, and I
haven't had to pay the antivirus "tax" of speed and money.

Overall, I prefer it to Windows, but I'm still thinking of switching to
Ubuntu.

------
davo11
Think about the software too. I see you use Adobe CS3 and MS Office, so you'll
have to buy new licenses of each of these, unless you're running them in a VM.

I looked at moving to a Mac just like you are and after looking at the
hardware and software costs, I could by myself a separate linux server as well
as a new PC for about the same price as a Mac. You're also limiting yourself
in the hardware you can buy by using a mac, no more upgrading the video card
if you feel like it, or getting a $40 digital TV receiver, no more plugging in
a RAID array on the weekend, the number of third party accessories is smaller
and there a lot more expensive. Also the amount of free utilities for the Mac
is a lot less (I use a bunch of little free PC utilities, that have seeped in
over time, and would take a lot of time to replace). I have 2 monitors at the
moment and thinking of getting a third - can the Mac support a third? not
sure. There's a lot you take for granted in the PC world that you give up if
you move to the Mac world. The Mac hardware is a closed proprietry system and
all the negatives that come with that are there, but I do agree it's nice and
shiny and I just want to touch them :-).

So I'm buying a little Mac laptop to play with (officially for the kids) and
keeping my development on PC's. If you want to dip your toes (to see what all
the hoo ha is about) the Mac mini could be an option too. hth.

~~~
creativeembassy
Let's be honest, you will NOT want to run CS3 in a VM. Image processing
requires full use of your RAM and CPU.

~~~
davo11
That was probably my point moving to a Mac from a PC is a large investment,
you'd need to have very good reasons to do so. Personally I spend so much time
in applications/ide's that the OS really doesn't matter much.

------
natch
In two years of owning a Mac, I have made more progress in improving my
personal productivity than I made in the ten years prior to owning a Mac. If
that sounds worth it to you, then yes, it's worth it.

But then, I got my Mac for the solid "just works" UNIX implementation, not for
the nice UI. From that standpoint, Windows pushed me onto the Mac platform,
and Mac OS X pulled me. Carrot (Mac UNIX) and stick (Windows, um, Cygwin?
Cough). You didn't mention what your impetus for switching would be, so YMMV.

------
ghshephard
It's really difficult to tell in advance whether a Mac or Windows System will
serve you better, though your list of software is a good start - no AutoCad,
Visio, Outlook or other platforms lockins.

There are three software tools that have kept me chained to Windows XP:

o Visio (Yes, I know OmniGraffle, but it's a Visio world where I work. I have
a reasonably recent MacBook Pro with Maxed out RAM - but it still is a little
laggy - and the controls just don't work the way my finger memory expects them
to on a Mac) - Which is pretty mandatory if you do a lot of network diagrams.

o Outlook Calendar - Entourage / booking resources - just didn't have it
nailed last time I checked it out.

o Lookout - Spotlight/Mail search isn't horrible - but when I need to search
for a keyword or two in 145,000 email and get an answer back in 1/10th of a
second - Nothing beats Lookout. I use it 20 times a day. It truly is the
google of mail searching (Ironically Google's Outlook index isn't that
impressive)

With that said, I absolutely love the MacBookPro - best laptop I've ever
owned. And, I spend my entire day in a terminal - and, you may mock me for
saying this, but I personally have decided the cost of OS X and a good portion
of the Macbook is justified by the terminal client alone. It puts
Putty/SecureCRT to shame.

So - my solution has been to do both - I have the two keyboards (probably
ergonomic nightmare) - one in front of the other, and do all my
visio/lookout/outlook calendar on my five year old Precision 650 (Rock Solid
workstation BTW), while Everything else is done on the MacBook Pro. Two
monitors - a cheap 20" LCD for the Precision 650 and a 30" Dell for the MBPro.

I have zero issue switching back and forth - when I'm on the mac, Command-
Space comes as natural to me as Ctrl-Escape does when I switch back to the
windows system.

------
dotpavan
I recently (<1 month) switched to Mac from Debian. As others have suggested,
the initial comfort period might be lil difficult to cope with, but it wont
feel like a curve. Things are pretty the same (Eclipse, dir structure, shell
etc.), but I havent regretted the "change" yet.. plus the community is good,
with nice treatment for apps as in Ubuntu..

------
siculars
I switched a few years back. first with my laptop via a macbook g4 runnin
tiger. that whetted my appetite for mac and allowed me to realize the
potential of the platform as a development environment. ultimately i moved my
entire development operation over to a mac pro tower loaded up with 16gb ram
and a few tb of space specifically so i could develop on whatever platform i
wanted through the use of virtual machines.

for most of us that are doing web oriented software development, the ability
to run multiple versions of client side browsers not to mention multiple
versions of server installation through a virtualized environment is a major
boon to productivity. if as a developer you are researching a platform to use
as your main development you should really take that into account. if you are
a device driver developer or working closer to the hardware thats another
story.

also, ask yourself: are there any developers contemplating switching to
windows?

------
riobard
I switched from Linux to Mac last month. Definitely love OS X: I spent way
less time tweaking the machine, so more time is put into real work. Everything
works perfect.

P.S. Anyone noticed the trend that apps developed on a Mac tends to be
prettier and less clutter than those dev'ed on a Windows? I think OS X must be
part of the reason for this ...

------
makecheck
The rumor seems to be that Mac hardware runs Windows the best, so if you
intended to change nothing else about your workflow, it still seems like
that's the machine you want.

Having said that, there are some favorites I use, such as "vim" and Xcode, and
SCFinderPlugin (for Subversion integration into the Finder, similar to
TortoiseSVN on Windows).

I've chosen a handful of graphical 3rd party software that has made the Mac
infinitely nicer than its out-of-the-box config. DragThing is probably the
most significant, so I can ignore Apple's horrid Dock and create truly useful
docks.

It is also very important to take OS differences with a side of salt, because
many things that people gripe about simply aren't set in stone (so you can't
discount an entire platform because of them). For instance, who cares if
someone doesn't like "the Mac way" to use the keyboard for X, Y and Z, because
_the OS lets you change key mappings_.

------
mickt
Hey PG, on Firefox on Ubuntu Linux all the text on this page scrolls about 2
page to the left. First time I've this on YC. Obligatory screenshot:
[http://timony.com/mickzblog/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/yc.jp...](http://timony.com/mickzblog/wp-
content/uploads/2008/12/yc.jpg)

~~~
pg
A couple people tried to make bulleted lists (maybe a Windows user thing),
which News interpreted as code.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc>

I should figure out how to catch these.

~~~
mickt
I was wondering what it was. U could always validate the input and check for
the particular characters in that sequence and remove them? Hmmm, might be a
good question for YC, how do people validate input from users?

------
neovive
Pretty ironic that as soon as I came home after posting this question, my Dell
greeted me with a blue screen.

------
mstevens
I started with Linux and some windows, went to Mac, and have gone back to
Linux (with windows for gaming).

For you I'd recommend it. Everything is just that little bit easier and more
consistent. You do seem to spend more money but I think it's worth it in time
saved.

My main reason to avoid the mac is wanting to avoid lockin - I've decided to
move as much of my computer use as possible over to open software and file
formats with the goal of being able to retain my data for longer and use it in
more ways. You _can_ go a long way towards this goal on a mac, but it's not
quite as natural as doing it on Linux.

For me, I got annoyed with Unix software not having quite as nice an
experience on OS X as it does on Linux, but it doesn't sound like that'll be a
problem for you.

------
scott_s
I went from Windows at home, Linux for work to using my Macbook both at home
and the office. (At the office, it's hooked up to an external keyboard, mouse
and monitor.)

Most of my work involves programming, but I ssh into another machine and do
everything from the command line. My workflow has changed very little - it's
just prettier and behaves much better. I think of OSX as being the prettiest
Unix has ever been; it is everything I wanted Linux to be.

I'm not sure how this maps to you. Eclipse supposedly works on Mac,
<http://developer.apple.com/tools/eclipse.html>, but you might want to look at
Xcode.

------
vegai
DOS/Windows for a long time was a gaming platform. By which I mean that the
only reason to have it installed around was because some very good games
worked only on it.

Suddendly, I noticed that I'm keeping an OSX box around the house for the same
reason. <http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/>

Pointless anecdotes aside: map your requirements. If you absolutely need an
application or a game that works best on platform X, choose platform X.
Otherwise, it's Linux. Then you only have the tiny problem of choosing a
distro :P

(oh and the emulators on Linux are pretty good these days)

------
ashleyw
Made the switch earlier in the year; though I'm a poor student, so ended up
downgrading from a decent Windows machine to a 2006 CoreDuo 1.83Ghz Macbook
Pro — but even then, its defiantly been worth it!

I'd never switch back to Windows, and I prefer to run Adobe products natively,
so I don't want to use Linux (however I like the unix enviroment). So really
its just a good compromise between both — the commercial side from Windows,
and the open source and unix side from Linux. Perfect! :-)

------
boundlessdreamz
For tortoisesvn there is scplugin. Last time I tried it was not as good as
tortoisesvn. I just learned the command line commands and now I don't miss
tortoisesvn. <http://scplugin.tigris.org/>

For SQLog you can run it on OS X using Wine. I have a written a guide on how
to do that <http://www.manu-j.com/blog/run-sqlyog-mac-os-x-wine/148/>

------
guruz
Except some stuff like proper java 1.6 I am very happy with my Mac. Switching
from windows to mac is a good choice. If you would have been a Linux user, I'd
say maybe stick with it :)

Eclipse works like a charm on OS X.

Instead of VmWare you might consider
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels,_Inc>. ... or well, actually you don't
need any virtualization at all for what you are using?

------
ObieJazz
When I went to college a few year ago I got my first Mac -- a Powerbook G4. I
had only owned PCs before then but used Macs in the computer labs at school. I
loved the Powerbook and didn't look back.

Of course, at work I have to use a PC so I can't speak too much to web
development on the Mac. In general, though, I have to deal with a lot less of
"trying to get things to work" on OS X and a lot more "working with things".

------
Jem
When I first started my job (where I am now) they put on a Mac. My biggest pet
peeve as a developer was having to use a keyboard shortcut to get # instead of
being able to press 1 key. (There were other keyboard issues too, but these
were specific to me as a UK-er; can expand if necessary.)

If you're already using the mac os in a VM, I don't see the learning
curve/adjustment period as being THAT big.

------
fuzzy-waffle
Having all the power of unix and a nice interface is great. Its slightly
harder to sell if you are not a command line addict but if you are developer
though you should be one.

My experience has been pretty positive. I can focus on coding and not have to
spend all my time holding my OS's hand or hunting for settings buried in some
maze of dialogs or some undocumented config file.

------
markessien
I use a Mac, and it's quite tough to get used to it. Here is the setup I've
built, so I can keep my development in windows:
[http://www.essien.org/blog/2008/12/02/setting-up-your-
develo...](http://www.essien.org/blog/2008/12/02/setting-up-your-development-
environment-using-virtual-machines/)

------
jodrellblank
Terminal is nice, spaces is nice, expose is great. Having an OS that can
suspend/resume is really nice.

But it's just not Windows. My favourite apps aren't here, I don't know my way
around the filesystem, all the Windows-specific tools I know are meaningless.
When I stray too far outside Safari, it's pretty bleak.

------
neovive
I just wanted to thank everyone for all the great advice. It seems that
everyone's experience varies in some way -- both positive and negative. I'm
going to test drive a friends MacBook for a few days to give it a true test
(keyboard mappings, etc.). I also plan to give Linux a try as well.

------
mdoar
I use similar apps, plus emacs. I switched about a year ago and have been
happy with VMWare, though you do need to max out your RAM. Swapping can take a
few seconds sometimes. I use a Mac Mini plus double-angle keyboard and
external monitors bigger than any laptop screen. I wouldn't go back.

------
jtuyen
By end of the day.. just use whatever your comfortable with. If you want to
experiment with OSX, just spec and build yourself a hackintosh osx86 with an
apple keyboard. Once you get the feel of OSX and you're comfortable with the
dev software, get yourself the real deal.

------
code_devil
I was almost in the same boat as you, but decided to get a MAC so I can do
some iPhone Development as well. If you are not planning to do iPhone or Mac
Development I dont see much benefit in context switching apart from the fact
that it's cool to own one ... my 2 cents.

------
jwr
I switched to a Mac after spending 15+ years mostly on Linux, and haven't
looked back. It really improved my productivity, because most things Just
Work. It isn't perfect, but it is significantly less broken and insane than
either Windows or Linux.

------
wenbert
if you not experiencing any problems with your dell, then i would suggest that
you stick to it. you already have the software needed and it will cost you
when you have to buy everything again for your mac.

i switched to mac because i got tired of using cloned (home-made PCs) that
failed 3 times in a month. i decided to get something more "robust". my
choices were either Thinkpad or Mac. Thinkpad is as expensive as Mac and has
the boring Windows (used Windows for years prior to the switch), so i decided
to get a mac and explore the new OS.

------
brentr
When it comes to programming, I found Xcode to be a much nicer IDE over Visual
Studio. On the downside, I can't find many games for the Mac at my local
stores (*I don't want a dual boot or VM).

------
elai
There's less yak shaving on a mac vs. linux/windows. If linux had minimal yak
shaving and a really good quicksilver replacement, (and a bit more elegance to
their program suites) I'd go there in a heartbeat. But there is always tons
and tons of yak shaving and i've found laptop hardware support to be painful.

You can get a refurb macbook pro with comparable specs to a dell laptop for
the same price right now. And the macbook pro has a better build quality.
Worse comes to worse, you can install windows xp on it and get a better
machine out of it. Macbooks also keep their resell value a lot better than the
typical laptop too, so you can sell them used for alot higher vs. an equally
specced dell.

~~~
minalecs
katapult - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katapult>

------
flashgordon
actually one thing i forgot to ask was, was there anything "bad" about your
Dell system?? If you were satisfied with the Dell, why ceven onsider the Mac?
Dont get me wrong I am not anti mac (you could even say I am jealous of mac
users out there), just asking because i will need to be upgrading my dell in
about 6 months... so seeing if there is a clear pain point that i am in denial
about that could be totally alleviated with a mac replacement..

~~~
neovive
Overall, there really isn't one specific pain point in particular that I have
with Windows. However, OS X seems to offer some enhanced functionality for web
development (e.g. UNIX underpinnings, MAC-only development tools). There also
seems to be a lot of momentum for web development on the Mac these days, but I
didn't want to switch systems based on that alone. I'm looking for gains in
productivity.

My Dell Dimension system is about 4 years old (Pentium 4/3.2Ghz running
Windows XP) and has required a new power supply, RAM and the HD seems to be
next. The power supply failed at around 14 months (I only had a one year
warranty -- bad move in hindsight) and Dell support sent me around in circles
for a month to get a replacement. I ended up finding one on eBay. If I ever
purchase another Dell, it would be from their business division (OptiPlex or
Precision) which seems to offer much better support and use standard parts.

~~~
flashgordon
ah so technically its not a tool (i mean software wise) related issue... again
dont want to start any flameworks... if you are interested in a unix-y
environment you might as well go to the source and use linux (i use fedora but
more hard core users may recommend debian or free bsd, both of which are
exceptional)... point is if you dont mind the non-cool look might as well have
your dev box be as much of a clone of your prod environment, like a couple of
others who mentioned that..

as i was saying if you bring in iphone or mac dev into the scene then you dont
have much of a choice unless you want to play around with installing osx on a
PC and all that headache (which i do plan to do myself in order to avoid
forking out a fortune on a mac)

yeah productivity is very subjective so cant comment on that... for example in
linux i love it that when i do an alt-tab the window currently in the alt-tab
"round" gets a highlight so it is quick and easy to spot. i tried quite a few
task-switching plugins in windows and have still not stumbled on this
feature... silly isnt it? amazing what little things can can do to
productivity...

------
wastedbrains
I switched to mac and couldn't have been happier, but admittedly I was a Ruby
programmer on windows, which Ruby on windows has always kind of sucked, so I
left.

------
Poleris
I was in your position recently and decided to switch. 3 months later and I'm
back with Windows - it is simply more efficient _for me_. I'm really big on
productivity, so I really tried to customize every tool I've listed below. To
give some background, the main programs I use are:

1\.
([http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/04/09/launchers.h...](http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/04/09/launchers.html?page=1)
"Launchers - SlickRun vs QuickSilver + Butler/Launchbar")

a) Ported all current bangs from SlickRun to QuickSilver.

b) Tried Butler, Launchbar to quickly launch artists, songs. Ended up sticking
with Launchbar.

* SlickRun is marginally faster, minimalistic. Support different use cases.

* Felt frustrated in QuickSilver's scripting language trying to do simple stuff like "Open new Window (not tab), ssh to this hostname."

* Tie as I'm prejudiced.

2\. Terminals - PuTTy + cygwin vs Visor + Terminal, iTerm, x11... + Gnu-
darwin, fink

* I heavily abuse remote (Ubuntu) session screens to do all my work. (I'm usually a Rails dev using VIM.)

* Needed 256 colors, package manager, bright (as opposed to bold) colors. Prefer no tabs.

* I have no idea why the native Terminal program doesn't support 256 colors. Entirely silly.

* Package management is a pain. Ended up doing all my work on my remote Linux box.

* I really prefer PuTTy. Every single terminal program I used on OSX either didn't fit in visually or were missing some feature that was provided in PuTTy.

* Spent way too much time frustrated while trying out everything. At then end, still frustrated.

* I understand this might just be due to my prejudices, so tie.

3\. Virtual desktops - VirtuaWin vs Spaces, Witch

* Spaces has huge numbers of problems. Especially when combined with CMD-TAB. Spent way too much time frustrated. Gonna give this one to Windows.

4\. Browsers - Firefox vs Firefox.

* Lack of right click drag mouse gestures. Large drop in productivity I never managed to replace. Windows wins.

5\. Music - Winamp vs iTunes.

* I really learned to hate iTunes. A lot. Ended up bugging out on my giant music library and crashing a ton for no reason. ... Spent even more time debugging/Googling. Frustrating.

* Tie, lots of people like iTunes. I prefer my Winamp + Python script to update m3us.

Every other program had a relatively easy replacement. Here are my other
gripes:

6\. Hardware - Right click.

* 'nuff said. Everyone trying to justify this design decision is probably a fanboy.

7\. Keyboard shortcuts.

* Three months later, I'm completely used to the keyboard shortcuts and hate them passionately. Does anyone _honestly_ like the Apple bindings better?

* They lie! Changing bindings for applications like Firefox in the "control panel" does not work at all. Another frustrated day.

Conclusion:

* If you spent a lot of time becoming proficient on your platform of choice, you probably can only lose on OS X.

* It is incredibly frustrating trying to make "minor" tweaks. They turn into massive battles that remind me of my days trying to tweak my Linux desktop box.

* If you aren't an efficiency freak like me, you might gain by switching.

~~~
asmosoinio
Did not read you comment yet, but does this markup have to break the layout of
the page? Makes the discussion not so nice to follow with too long rows.

I remember someone else also complaining about this lately... Why is the PRE-
tag used here and how can I get around this?

~~~
gojomo
Upvote this thread on the feature-requests perma-article:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229095>

------
dilanj
You can also use Crossover to use many windows apps on Mac without a VM.
Performance is very good in my experience.

------
liangzan
How about the linux to mac switch? Has anyone tried that before?

~~~
jonhohle
I switched from Linux to Mac in 2003. I had a laptop stolen, and really liked
the idea of a slick PowerPC laptop running Unix. I figured if I didn't like OS
X, there were several PPC linux distributions I could choose from. It turns
out, I liked Unix, and OS X served my needs better than Linux (all of the Unix
utils plus significant commercial application support. Three more Macs later,
I don't even think about it when buying a laptop.

I've seen fink mentioned above, but I prefer MacPorts.

Its great to see where things have come in the last few years.

------
inklesspen
I highly recommend Screenflow as a replacement for Camtasia.

------
ontilt
iShowU HD might be a suitable replacement for Camtasia.

------
jemmons
Yes.

------
rrhyne
YES

------
giles_bowkett
I've used both and find OS X preferable. For me it's really OS X vs. Linux,
and I like OS X because you get so much shiny stuff, you can run consumer
software on it, and it's not really that much work to make OS X really really
hacker-centric.

YMMV.

Anyway, in terms of the question, workflow, yes, overwhelming improvements in
workflow. You get all the shiny goodies of a consumer GUI OS and all the
power-user magic of Unix. I'm much, much faster writing code on my Mac than I
was on Windows - better editors, imho, and a much better command line.

~~~
beta
hacker-centric?

------
ddemchuk
Why doesn't anyone ever mention andLinux as an option? I have it installed on
my over-a-year-old vista laptop with 2 gigs of ram and it runs great (I have a
bash terminal window, photoshop cs3, dreamweaver, intype, and firefox open
right now). I program with Rails nearly every day on this machine, using the
terminal for all of my scripting needs and have never run into a problem. All
I really need from Linux is the command line anyways...

~~~
neovive
Are you running Linux in a VM or dual-boot?

------
alnayyir
In short, no.

------
drwh0
no, you are just trading an "uncool" closed platform that bends you over for
an apparently "cool" one. their hardware is unimpressive commodity stuff, and
i don't even think osx is interesting. if you can't figure out ubuntu, maybe
developing software isn't for you. the day is coming when people will reject
steve jobs psyco-level control freak pointless upgrade cycle and macs will be
uncool again...just get out ahead of the trend now and look that much hipper
later.

