Season 10, Episode 8 (#332)
On this episode of For Mac Eyes Only: Mike is joined by Dave to discuss seven “fallacies” of Mac: misunderstandings of what the Mac can do or, more importantly, misconceptions about the platform that only we, those who’ve found the Joy of Mac, can squash! Becoming part of the Apple Community through Apple User Groups like SCAU…or by attending Macstock!
EDITORIAL LINKS
> SCAU: Suburban Chicago Apple Users
> Office 2016 for Mac
> PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)
> ESET Cyber Security for Mac
> ClamXav
> ClamXav’s Transition to Commercial Software
> 1Password
> LastPass Security Notice (June 2015)
> LastPass Security Notification (May 2011)
> Hamachi
> Picasa Desktop Retired effective March 15th
> The Print Shop 3 for Mac by Software MacKiev
NEWS
> Sparkle Vulnerability and What it Means to You (via TidBITS)
> What Happened: Adobe Creative Cloud Update Bug (via Backblaze blog)
MACSTOCK 2016! July 16th & 17th, 2016
We’ve got a great lineup of speakers for Macstock this year including: Allison Sheridan, Chuck Joiner, Adam Christianson, Don McAllister, Victor Cajiao, Melissa Davis, Jodi Spangler, Guy Serle, Tim Robertson, Dr. Robert Carter, Allison Hartley, Dave Ginsburg, Kirschen Seah and More!
Learn more at www.macstock2016.com
> Get $50 off your Macstock ticket at: macstock2016.com/fmeo50off (exp. 2/29/16)
CONTACT US
Play Now
Running Time: 1:29:36
Hi Mike and Dave – great podcast (as always) and addressing a really important issue – what it takes to switch from windows. I converted to the mac Jan 3 2005 with my first iMac 21″ purchase to replace my IBM (at the time) Thinkpad & HP PC running whatever Mr. Softy had for us at the time on those machines. The learning curve today in 2016 is a lot less steep to convert (except your friend was running Vista – I think even Google is planning to stop support for that old system) from PC to Mac, I think. Here is what I would add about ease of conversion from my own personal experience including this year where in January we got our first i devices running IOS 9: iPad mini 4 and iPhone 6 plus and never had a tablet or smart phone of any kind before:
1. Not only in the genius bar but I have found in 5 states in the US and also overseas (barcelona), employees in apple stores LIKE THEIR APPLE THINGS and want to help you find joy in using yours. They may not know how to fix thorny issues, but I have found that while waiting for a genius bar reservation to come up for me, I have asked questions and got answers to a host of questions – basics on devices, applications from the app store or apple and general “how do I do this” questions that are easier answered in person rather than on the phone with apple care.
2. Sometimes you get someone who doesn’t know – could be apple care or the person in the apple store, Mike, that you said wasn’t doing the file transfer efficiently. It can happen in any walk of life, so don’t give up is my advice, if you get one bad experience. Try again with someone else.
3. There are countless YOUTUBE videos from apple fans who want to show YOU what they have learned. Some of these are little kids – 11 or 12 years old that know more than I ever will about their apple things. Try a few! From the comments on youtube you can sort of tell if people liked what they tried.
4. PDF’s. That was a huge thing for me – free PDF rendering. And now, somewhere between Lion and El Capitan, the web browser PDF that used to require Adobe reader to print now with safari gets presented in preview. Right on the fly you can add annotations and print the PDF or save it. It asks when you quit in preview El Cap if you want to save or discard any annotations you make. I love this!
5. Ease of moving from iPhone to iPad to iMac with your files. It takes a bit of learning, but it was all of a few weeks of intense playing and I was getting the hang of it, and Mike you helped with this in your emails to me. The “HANDOFF” feature when all your devices are apple, the airdrop and even air print all make it easy to work on things from one device to another. I will say that I like dropbox for the files accessed by all devices a little better than apple’s iCloud because I think in “folders and file” not by application. So, one folder is a whole project with numbers, pages, pdf’s, notes files and maybe even the odd .doc microsoft office file – and dropbox does this very well and apple’s cloud is still organized by application specific categories not project. The learning curve is on IOS – how to use dropbox and get files in and out is different there than on a mac with its wonderful file structure. You guys have covered that file structure on prior “will an iPad work for my business work” podcasts of FMEO.
6. I hope to learn MORE at MACSTOCK 2016. I looked at the line up. I’m a senior on some things and my husband is definitely a card carrying senior and so we will be live test cases for that session about SENIORS in macstock :) Thanks again. Lisa (yes THAT Lisa, readers out there)
HI Mike,
I’m a little late getting around to the February 15 podcast but wanted to comment. I think a good way to look at the costs of a Mac vs a Windows machine has to do with the overall cost of ownership from beginning to end. A Windows PC may be cheaper at first but the additional costs of programs, service and repair may drive the cost above what it would have been to own a Mac. Plus, Macs are much more likely to still be in service 5, 6 or more years down the road.