Some of the Joys and Frustrations of Owning a Mac

I never thought that I would become a Mac owner. Between the snarky Apple adds (back when they had their obnoxious Mac versus PC campaign), the cutesy look of the operating system, and the ubiquity and familiarity of Windows, I always assumed that I would stick with Windows systems forever.

But then I started looking for a new laptop. My 2003 Dell had recently turned six years old (it is now nearly eight) and could hardly run basic software anymore. The battery was shot, the components were hopelessly obsolete, and I really wanted to get into Windows 7. So I started looking at what was on the market. All of this coincided with the height of the glossy palmrest craze in laptop computers. As I browsed the offerings at Best Buy, Wal Mart, and anywhere else I could find computer displays, I grew increasingly frustrated with the glossy lids, glossy bezels, glossy palmrests, and, most of all, glossy trackpads. In terms of design and usability, my old Dell blew away anything new I could get.

Then I found the 2009 MacBook Pro. In place of glossy plastic was beautiful aluminum. In place of creaky seams was Apple's seamless unibody construction. In place of a horrible glossy trackpad was the lovely, giant, glass multitouch trackpad that seemed to be an extension of my being rather than an obstacle that came between me and the operating system. The hardware completely won me over.

There was a problem, though: I couldn't get an aluminum MacBook Pro without also getting Apple's OS X and "switching" from PC to Mac. So I started investigating OS X itself and was surprised to find that it was elegant, simple, and a joy to use. Furthermore, for $30 I could get a full copy of Windows 7 from Microsoft with their student deal and run it on a new Mac using Boot Camp. So with Christmas help from family, I got a MacBook Pro in January 2010 and installed Windows 7 on it. Now I really do have the best of both worlds.

Since then I've come to love OS X, but having easy access to Windows 7 also reminds me of what I'm missing. Nothing in Windows compares to the beauty of Apple Mail, which I use all the time for my email. iTunes is much nicer than Windows Media Player as far as the beauty of the user interface goes, and I've really come to like using Safari. iWork Pages, though it has its problems, is far and away the aesthetic superior to Word. There is very little that I can do in Windows 7 that I can't do just as easily, and more beautifully, in OS X. The addition of the Mac App Store only made that even more true than before—I now have serviceable, and free, solitaire and minesweeper games on my Mac. Here's hoping more PC games will become available for Mac.

The only thing that makes me regret not using Windows 7 as my primary OS is Windows Media Center. The Apple equivalent is Front Row, which is a lovely way to enjoy all the media content on my computer. Unfortunately, I need third party software to run Hulu and Netflix on my Mac's desktop, which I need to be able to do to use the Apple Remote to control playback when watching content on our TV. Windows Media Center, on the other hand, seamlessly integrates Netflix into the Windows OS, and all the TV content I need is presented beautifully within the program. I can watch Blue Bloods using the media playback keys on my Mac keyboard, not to mention being able to use the remote!

If Apple can fully integrate Netflix and internet TV into Front Row, perhaps with the release of OS X Lion this summer, then the last reason for me to use Windows 7 (apart from the occasional need for compatibility, or certain PC games) for daily life will have vanished. Much as I respect Windows, I am happy to be a Mac user for the foreseeable future.