Mac Curious, Revisited

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First, seriously, the MacBook Air design and hardware is unparalleled. You don’t have to triple check whether the case is metal like you would if you’d bought an ultrabook. It just is. Everything feels solid and true, like a really nice car vs. a budget car.  You probably already know this. I know I’m late to the game here.

Second, I’ve grown to love the multitouch trackpad. (I’m guessing this is available now on PCs, too. I’m hoping some people will jump in and tell me in the comments.)

Third, the solid state drive is wicked fast and never locks up when I’m using the machine on a plane or train. (The hard drive lock/stabilization technology on my Toshiba,  which locked down the drive when it detected motion, was nice for protecting the hard drive, but made it impossible to work on a moving train or plane.)

Fourth, Charlene O’Hanlon showed me how these little ears pop up from the power supply and you can wind your cord around that. So neat.

And then I also I feel like I am clicking fewer times to accomplish many tasks, although I haven’t quantified this.

When I first started out I tried to use the Mac native applications. However, I’ve found myself gravitating back towards those I used regularly on the PC. For instance, Outlook for mail (because I can drag emails on top of the calendar folder and create appointments that way), Picassa for simple photo editing (because it was familiar and I’m a beginner at photo editing), Power Point for presentations (because the standard-style font I needed (a Microsoft one) was not available in Keynote). I’m also back to using Chrome instead of Safari because I just like it better.

So my conclusions after three months mostly on Mac? Love the hardware and quality. Not in love with the productivity software that was preinstalled, but then I’m new so there are probably plenty of things I’m missing or haven’t yet discovered. (And, again, I’m hoping you’ll tell me about them in the comments.)

However, I do not miss Windows.

So am I a convert? No. But would I buy a Mac again? I would. The hardware and design are just a better quality and feel like they will last for the long term.

Yet I remain cross platform – a MacBook Air, a Kindle Fire tablet, an Android phone, Microsoft Office, and Google Docs.  Somehow I think I may have made things even more complicated.