
Why I'm Switching from Mac to Windows (2009-2018) - stargrave
http://xahlee.info/mswin/switch_to_windows.html
======
eksemplar
I’ve made the opposite switch this year, completely abandoning windows for my
personal use. I still use it professionally, being in the European public
sector you’re married to MS and it’s quite honestly a healthy relationship for
a lot of reasons, but boy have I never grown used to Windows 10.

I really love unix, I probably should be using Linux instead of a Mac, and I
did earlier in my life. But with age I’m growing fonder and fonder to things
just working, like when my wife sends me an iMessage and I pops up on my Mac.
We could probably get something similar working with some other setup, but as
long as we stay working the Apple ecosystem, well, it just happens
automatically. Just like popping a thunderbolt cable in hooks me up to my 4K
monitor with no setup required and no problems when I swhixh between different
modes. Something that took ages to get working in Linux and didn’t really work
for all the apps that didn’t support the change of resolution.

It wasn’t always like this, I actually really liked windows especially 2000,
XP and 7, but since then it’s been a struggle to stay with it. So my story is
almost the polar opposite.

Like hardware, where do you find a decent high quality windows laptop with a
trackpad that works for the price tag of a 13” MacBook Pro? Sure the surface
book is a sexy machine, but it’s almost twice as expensive and it can’t
connect to my 4K monitor or an external egpu? Sure the xps13 would make Linux
easier, but it’s trackpad is worse and it’s build quality is risky (coil
whine).

I’m not really a Apple fanboy. I hate the walled garden, as much as I love
what it does, but everything else is just so much worse. What I really can’t
imagine though, living within a windows 10 environment, even with git bash.

~~~
konschubert
Plus, most Apple products are actually great value if you factor in their
lifetime cost. I bought a used iPad two years ago. It must be four or five
years old now.

It just got iOS 12.

~~~
omnimus
Well it is not great at all considering how hard it is to repair current apple
stuff. After 2 years of warranty you are just wishing it doesn't break. Don't
get me wrong i have 6 year old macbook pro and its still a great machine. But
i also know lot of my coworkers with new apple machines that break all the
time. If you bring your machine 3times to repair shop in first year - well you
can be pretty much sure something will happen very soon after machine is out
of warranty period. And then you pay massive amounts.

Apple is basically trying to make subscription hardware with 2 year cycle.
That's not nice value + it is also not ecological at all.

~~~
dogma1138
TBH Apple stuff is about the only thing you can repair as repair shops are
nearly exclusively focused on Apple because of the large volume and long
lifespan of their models.

Good luck getting a Samsung Note 2014 repaired (I tried) or a Lenovo laptop
that needs say a mainboard or some BGA replacement.

While I don’t agree with how Apple restricts 3rd party repairs the reason they
are the only one you hear about is because they are the only one with a 3rd
party repair ecosystem to begin with.

~~~
omnimus
I guess it depends on country. Probably in US. There is only one authorized
service dealer in my country. On the other hand most of the PC market brands
has lots of repair shops. And lot of them will do even old machines, hunt
parts on ebay or china and repair with that. It's actually not that hard (the
parts nofficial apple repair shops use are from china anyway). There are so
many eshops where you just put serial number and get what you need.

There is big reason for this though. I am from quite poor european country
where hourly rate for technicians is much much lower than in US so repairing
lot of things make economical sense. In us this might make sense only for high
end premium machines.

------
thehnguy
Author switched in 2009, then switched back in 2018.

Author believes Apple is becoming evil because they intentionally slow their
devices to force upgrades—not true, or, at the very least, not that simple.

The only thing “evil” about Apple is the pricing. No way around it, it’s
getting expensive. But you also get a transparency and simplicity for your
money (no telemetry, no ads, just dongles :) ).

~~~
karmakaze
I won't buy a Mac because of the hard-wired obsolescence. It doesn't help that
newer models fail more frequently.

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chrisper
The title should have a (2009) in it. Then the website and the article make
more sense.

~~~
saagarjha
There’s an update to the article that is somewhat recent; perhaps that’s what
the poster wanted to showcase?

------
bsg75
> _Linux basically sucks the most. Most difficult to use. You spend several
> hours per week to get things to work. And linux is always some years behind
> in supporting any bleeding edge tech, Such as any hand writing
> recognization, speech recognization, voice to speech, addon devices, display
> port 2 monitors, USB 3.1 (or whatever latest), etc. You always have to spend
> few hours to research everything. Lots problems. But hey its free. What can
> you say._

Except for handwriting and speech recognition, I can't recall having problems
with any mainline Linux DE in some time.

Have a workstation with two monitors on an Nvidia 1050Ti both via displayport,
a Logitech wireless keyboard through Synergy to both a MacBook Pro and Linux,
and the Mac is mostly there for MS Office (which could be the web versions).

Have not had to seek out drivers or do anything onerous config wise, except
for when I went with i3 and wanted a specific look and feel. This is all on
CentOS 7.5. Ubuntu and derivatives make it even easier, and even Arch is
straightforward with Manjaro.

This does not mean that a Linux DE is as convenient to set up as Mac or
Windows, but the author's description of desktop Linux is a bit dated.

------
cgora
He takes time to mention that Apple is bad because it “represents” social
justice warriors? Is this article a joke?

------
robin_reala
I guess people really plug this much stuff into a computer, but I must be a
low-end exception. Things that gets plugged into my Mac:

1) USB-C to lightning cable to charge headphones and backup phone 2) USB-C to
Displaylink at work for screen and networking 3) TB3 -> TB2 (dongle) to
Thunderbolt display at home 4) USB-C power cable

That’s a total of one dongle for my entire work and home life. Everything else
is wireless by now.

~~~
manicdee
Things that I plug in:

\- headset adapter (no headsets use the Apple TRRS plug) \- scanner \- USB
keyboard \- USB mouse \- foot pedals (designed for transcription tools, I use
for gaming)

I could get wireless mouse and keyboard but my experience has been a never
ending dance of swapping and charging batteries, which is probably why Apple
moved to integrated batteries.

------
yayana
(2009) and back when a 3.5 year old Mac was worse than a current Mac.

------
tangue
FYI it's an old post and there is an update at the bottom of the page where
the author says he is back to Mac...

------
projectramo
These days windows + Ubuntu 18 on a virtual box are a great substitute.

Some might consider it better if you need to use excel (one of the greatest
pieces of software ever)

~~~
vtesucks
And OneNote which was hands down the only thing keeping me on windows until
wsl came along.

~~~
projectramo
I love OneNote too so I have to ask: what is WSL?

~~~
vtesucks
Microsoft if you're reading this this is your fault for not marketing enough.

WSL is windows subsystem for Linux. Think of it like this- say you have an
'ls' binary from UNIX machine. You have WSL enabled on your machine in
Windows. Windows will start the ls process and the UNIX calls will be handles
in windows. (the kernel has mappings).

It's possible, and actually its wonderful experience, to run full "linux"
environment right from windows at native speed.

It's not perfect and one of the biggest issues has been file system speed but
besides that and some other smaller issues its the absolute best of both
worlds- OneNote + excel + outlook + i3

------
saagarjha
This is interesting to look back on from our current perspective. I don’t
think I agree with the author’s recent addendum, though.

~~~
pingec
Which part don't you agree with?

~~~
saagarjha
Most of it.

> Like, never plug in a usb from a stranger.

This will not give you malware unless you actually run something from the USB,
AFAIK.

> And linux is always some years behind in supporting any bleeding edge tech,
> Such as any hand writing recognization, speech recognization, voice to
> speech, addon devices, display port 2 monitors, USB 3.1 (or whatever
> latest), etc.

That’s an interesting definition of “bleeding edge tech”. Usually I treat
Linux a place where operating system experiments are tested first.

> As far as using, now softwrae on Microsoft Windows is as good as Mac.

Disagree strongly, but that is my opinion.

> Apple is now as evil as every one, intentionally make your iphone slow when
> new iphone is out, etc.

Whether Apple is “evil” is a personal opinion, but saying Apple makes iPhones
slow is a gross misrepresentation at best.

> also, new is the sinister social justice warrior. Apple and Google are
> representatives.

What?

~~~
pingec
> This will not give you malware unless you actually run something from the
> USB, AFAIK.

[https://github.com/hak5darren/USB-Rubber-
Ducky/wiki/Payloads](https://github.com/hak5darren/USB-Rubber-
Ducky/wiki/Payloads)

> That’s an interesting definition of “bleeding edge tech”. Usually I treat
> Linux a place where operating system experiments are tested first.

I don't know about bleeding edge but even simple things like mic, camera are a
hassled to get working - a friend has been using his phone for hangouts
meetings for the last month because the mic or the camera would not work on
his zenbook running Ubuntu. Don't get me started on audio on linux :(.

>> As far as using, now softwrae on Microsoft Windows is as good as Mac. >
Disagree strongly, but that is my opinion.

Depends what software you want to use.

------
hugh4life
This is more relevant for people like me that use Linux as their main desktop,
but you don't have to choose just one. Both Mac Minis(and Apple Laptops) and
NUCs have good resale value. Get a monitor that can take multiple inputs and
then get keyboard and mouse sharing software.

------
smileypete
These days consumer Win10 seems to be a data harvesting tool and ongoing beta
test.

This might be controversial but for me personally I switch off updates (and
all the other telemetry), and make sure to have comprehensive backups; so far
so good. Preventing Win10 from installing updates isn't always easy.

I guess these days exploits could come via from 0 day browser vulnerabilities
delivered via '3rd party frames', uBlock origin is your friend here...

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Switching off updates is very insecure.

~~~
smileypete
Sure, so I would strongly recommend against it for everyone else.

That said I feel it gives me a more stable machine, the time between reboots
is typically 3 to 6 months.

I try to use as little software by MS as possible to keep the 'attack surface'
to a minimum, ideally only using the OS itself. Even my home LAN only has IP
enabled these days.

------
ubittibu
Windows 10 can’t sort folders by size.. in 2018. You need a third party
application.

------
cauldron
Still rocking Windows 7, the fonts of Windows 10 just hurt my eyes.

------
jpiabrantes
Windows 10 + Windows Subsystem for Linux did it for me.

------
gronne
TL;DR Switched to Win in 2009. Switched to Linux 2011. 2018 - still don’t like
windows and osx.

------
cyberferret
TL;DR precis - Author switched from Mac to Windows about 9 years ago, but is
now back on Mac.

------
vtesucks
I'm a very satisfied WSL user after having made a switch 3 months back and I
cannot imagine going back.

------
ykevinator
Can't believe this is flagged

~~~
SuperNinKenDo
I'm guessing it was flagged for not having a date. It was indeed a little
confusing to read at first because of that. Also, it's just considered good
practice.

