I’ve been using PC/Windows probably since 1995 when I got my first PC, transitioning through Windows 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, Millennium, 2000, XP, 7, Vista, 8, 8.1 and 10. Slightly less history with Apple and macOS, since I’ve started using it episodically since 2014 when I most probably jumped into macOS Sierra, High Sierra, and now using macOS Mojave.
What have I learned from my experiences with these two different platforms?
Windows & PCs
Operating System
Throughout an entire history of Windows, I remember always struggling with drivers, an enormous amount of updates after installation, security holes, and after a long time I felt like re-installation was the easiest way to make your PC run Microsoft Windows quick again. It is no longer an issue with Windows 10 apparently (and perhaps with a couple of previous versions). Another most annoying thing in the past was Hibernation & Sleep modes which quite frequently made computer dead when trying to bring up from sleep. And since I’m kind of a user who does not like waiting for shutdown and boot-up, I would prefer using sleep / hibernate. Hopefully that is not an issue with the latest version, however, I believe it depends on the hardware/drivers and reliability is still a question.
UI
Windows has progressed miles with their UI since early days, however, their latest direction with metro style UI just moved to the less visually-appealing design language. Huge spacing, big elements – they might make sense on some touch devices, but PC is not anywhere near to what I considered being a decent operating system you can enjoy using. For a person who tends to spend a lot of his time in front of the screen, this does not look very attractive anymore to me. The good bit about the Windows OS is that there are nearly no limitations of what you can do and how you have full control of everything.
PCs & Hardware
Everyone will agree that if you want a gaming machine or a decent hardware spec on paper – PC + Windows is the way to go. You can set up whatever hardware beast you want, get the Windows onto it and roll. This will end up being way cheaper for the same spec of Apple computer you’d be looking at and if you look at Laptop makers – there are quite many decent options to look at… but do they effortlessly work? We can’t blame Microsoft or Windows for the drivers, variety of hardware and compatibility – it’s a massive ecosystem of different hardware and their developers writing drivers for different operating systems, furthermore nobody ever knows what two different bits of hardware will end up in the same PC’s setup, but in my opinion quantity does not necessarily mean quality.
macOS & MacBooks
Operating system
I know I’ve been only enjoying the latest and the greatest versions of macOS, however, my first experiences were not completely positive. I started with an old 13 inch MacBook and used to experience os hang-up occasionally. It’s difficult to guess what was the fault. However, later I’ve got a new MacBook and haven’t experienced any issues ever. Everything was just working, no mysterious CPU loads after bringing the computer back from sleep or any other kind of issue. The operating system was designed and built closely together with MacBooks and naturally, that was where the good experience was coming from. I could close it to sleep and wake it up for months and the operating system will be performing as good as it was performing on day one. Compared to Windows – it may seem a bit more limited, which in my belief might be the way I was used to Windows. After 5 years on Macs – that does not feel an issue anymore.
UI
It looks like Apple is not doing drastic changes to their macOS UI and I think it makes a lot of sense. As Windows has been changing a lot, even in comparison Android was changing quite drastically with almost every version (a little sidetrack topic) – you may get sad when the most liked bits of operating system and graphical representation of things just gone away or changed with an update! Meanwhile, with every last macOS update, I was pleased with the new features and improvements Apple brought.
Hardware
On the spec sheet MacBooks (or any other apple computers) may not look magic, and when you look at the price it does not make things better. But that is only if you look purely at the specs. In reality, hardware was all working well for me, even with the older or slower MacBooks, I haven’t experienced anything close to what you might sometimes get on Windows (freezing, not responding or mouse cursor lagging). The touchpad was superb an all models when compared to any of competing PC at all times and I believe it still is the best you can get in the market. Usable size, responsive. But overall it’s again a good calibration with the software. The price of Apple products is premium, but I’m sure it’s worth it for what you get designed into a well-performing hardware, software and Apple’s ecosystem. At the same time “ecosystem” may feel limiting at times, especially when trying to interact with the world of PCs, however in these days of cloud computing and cloud storage this is a solvable task.
Summary
There used to be times when I was spending time gaming on the PC running Windows, and there are times since the computer became a tool to perform the work and complete different tasks. That is probably a key factor that changed my perception of Apple, macOS and instead of being a fan of Windows, PCs and the freedom of hardware choice I started valuing quality which does not get in your way when you need to complete the work. While with Windows I sometimes felt like I’m working for my PC instead of it working for me, I already forgot about issues I had since my main work tool is now MacBook running macOS. It could become a long discussion if we add topics like security, Apple’s ecosystem, web development, and terminal, not to mention Linux. Without going into it all I will just conclude: my choice is Apple and macOS. Because it just works.
P. S. this entire blog post is my own experiences and opinion. You’re welcome to have yours!
