Return of the Mac (2005)

A sane OS would let me delete a file with the delete key(!).

I bought a Mac two years ago for iPhone dev (which I ended up not doing), and in my opinion you don't have to switch to a Mac if you are already a Linux user. I still prefer Linux.

The only problem is buying any other notebooks that are good. It is very difficult to find notebooks with acceptable design and specs.

I have to say I am not a Mac power user. I am too lazy to learn gestures (and hence don't want to update to Lion, either). I never use the F3 to show the desktop because I keep forgetting the key (Linux and Windows have clickable icons in the taskbar, much better for me).

One important thing that might be important for a lot of people to ditch their PCs in favour of an iPad is a decent Office app (Word and Excel mainly). It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.

Does anyone here know and use a good iPad Office app, that I can recommend to people? The store reviews of the top apps don't seem too encouraging.

> Every time I get my hands on a Mac, even to simply Google something, I immediately hit issues.

You seem to hit issues because you want to hit them.

> Paste is crazy squiggly hash v (or maybe apple v?)

The key is called "command". Does "Command V" not make more sense than "Control V"? And free up the Control key for more interesting stuff?

> I can't right click

You can, unless it's a 4+ years old machine it's just a preference (if you're using a trackpad). Any 2+ buttons mouse will natively "right click". Even on older machine, Ctrl+click will open a contextual menu.

> I can't win+d to the desktop

"Show Desktop" is natively bound to Command-F3 on modern macs, on older ones it was on F11. It may also be bound to an active corner.

> So, go ahead, someone sell me on Macs.

Don't know if that will sell you. For me it was a combination of several things:

* Unix environment with an actually useable terminal. By default. Even in 10.3/10.4 (and Terminal has come a long way since then). cmd.exe never "felt" right, I never found a windows shell worth using (even Putty is a pain), and if you're going to remote log into a nix machine anyway why not use one in the first place?

Spotlight works much, much better than Windows Search, and dedicated launcher applications (QS, Alfred, QSB, Butler, etc...) take that a step further

* 99% of the time, managing applications is Simply Easier. No fudging around with installer or painfully browsing to your Program Files folder (and wondering if the soft is 32 or 64b and in which program files you should put it and if you should create a shortcut so the bloody windows search can find it and...). Instead, open your archive (zip or dmg), drop the .app bundle in the Applications directory (via the dock or your finder sidebar) and launch it whenever. You can even launch it right there, nothing to do, no time wasted.

* A thriving indie community with loads of good software at fair price. I did buy licenses one Windows, but not many, and I did not find much which made me go "damn I have to give these guys some dough back for their work", even after I stopped being a poor student.

* Package managers. Whichever your pick is between Macports, Fink and Homebrew having one is invaluable.

* The machine is generally useable as is. Even if you don't download anything it can be used, you have a good PDF & image viewer (Preview is fairly amazing), lots of serviceable software, and it does not "feel" as clunky as windows long did.

Only negative I've found is that Finder is not as good as the Windows Explorer. Though with Windows 7, they've become significantly closer in that search has become shit in 7's explorer.

Essentially, OSX is a full unix with a bearable interface, softed by people who care.

Now if you don't do any dev on your box, it might lose some of its appeal.

They care so much they bind execute to cmd-down rather than the completely sensible Enter.