Experiences of moving to a Mac from a PC over the past year

1. A Mac Baker’s Dozen:
13 Things I Wish I’d known
before I bought my Mac
Adrian Nixon January 2014

2. 1. It is a lovely piece of kit.
!
In January 2013 my Vaio Laptop died.
I took this opportunity to move from a PC to a Mac.
I bought a Mac Book Pro with a retina screen.
It boots up (and shuts down) in seconds.
The battery lasts for 7 hours.
I still think it’s a lovely piece of kit, now in 2014.
If you can use a PC you’ll find Mac OS easy.
The Mac is nicely designed and built.
Works well with iPhone and iPad, but…

3. 2. …I had to transfer my files manually
My first problem was to transfer my files.
!
Fortunately Apple has a Migration Assistant.
Unfortunately, It doesn’t transfer all files.
!
If you use it, check its results carefully.
I ended up copying all my files to a 1Tb flash drive.
Then pasting some to my mac hard drive.
Read on to find out why I had a spare drive…

4. 3. …It cannot be upgraded
!
I use my Mac for all my work.
It filled rapidly with my files.
So I bought a new hard drive for a Mac book pro.
Sadly it wouldn’t fit.
Actually, I couldn’t even open the back.
It is sealed with non-standard screws.
So I asked the Apple shop for help.
They were very nice.
And nicely told me I should have paid
more attention when buying it.
A Mac book pro can be upgraded.
But not if it has a retina screen.
Yes, it is my fault for not checking - Boo.

5. 4. There are Apps - and Apps
Apps on
a Mac
Apps on
iPhone
and iPad
Same logo, completely different things.
I’d expected Mac OS and IOS to be integrated.
Silly me.

6. 5. There is no Delete key
You have to press the ‘fn’ and
‘backspace’ keys to delete.
!
There is no print screen button either.
Press ‘cmd’ and ‘shift’ and ‘4’ keys
OK, hardly life changing.
Though I did spend ages trying to sort this.

7. 6. Yes, you can right click
For some reason people think this is not
possible on a Mac
!
Press with two fingers on the trackpad to right
click.
!
Right click works with the the rather swish
apple mouse, it is lovely.
Works like a charm.
I wish MS Office did…

8. 7. There is Microsoft Office for Mac
Apple has its own version of MS office; Pages,
Numbers & Keynote.
!
These equivalents are stylish, I like them.
!
This presentation was created using Keynote.
!
However my clients in the corporate world all
use MS office. So I must too.
So, how has it been with MS-Office-for-Mac?…

9. 8. There is no MS Access for Mac
Some of you will not care about this.
!
If you have to work with Access
databases there is no Apple equivalent
!
Could there be more MS-Office-for-Mac woes?…

10. 9. I had to stop using MS Outlook
OK, it’s not as bad as it sounds.
It was annoying to find out that my email
provider didn't have the right version of MS
Exchange to support Outlook for Mac, grrrr.
In the end I dumped MS Outlook for Mac.
And now use Apple mail, contacts and calendar.
These all work fine across my various devices.
(Still looking for a better email provider)

11. 10. Word for Mac is not the same
The Mac version (Word 2011) has flaws that the
PC version does not have e.g.:
•
•
Very difficult to create automatic table of contents
Creating Pdf documents expands the file size
when graphics are present.
Word for Mac works for every day uses.
I still have to use Word on a PC to create Pdf files

12. 11. Excel for Mac seems ok
Excel is the only bit of Office-for-Mac
that I’ve not had problems with.
I’m probably not using excel as deeply as the others

13. 12. I can’t rely on Powerpoint for Mac
Deep problems here.
Especially using hyperlinked presentations.
They work fine when testing.
Then grind to a halt when I present live.
This has happened so many times.
Apple and Microsoft cannot solve this reliably.
This is so serious I had to partition my Mac.
I now have Windows 8 with another copy of office for PC
All important presentations run in PC mode.

14. 13. What is the source of these woes?
All things Apple work well on a Mac.
MS products have problems on Mac OS.
I had to buy:
• Copy of Windows 8
• Extra copy of MS Office for PC
• Ouch.
Who benefits?
Apple tried hard to resolve my problems.
Their customer service is great but could not help me.
In the end I spent more money on Microsoft products.
You decide…