Former Windows users, what made you switch to the Mac?

Is it because of brand loyalty? Is it because Macs are simply easier to use overall and practically comes complete out of the box?

Uhh... I can't say I know any Windows users who switched to Mac... Normally it's the other way around.

Now Linux on the other hand! I know lots of former windows users who switched to various distros of Linux!

Linux definitely can be awesome in right hands for sure. And yes, the fact that it was invented by a finn in first place kinda makes me proud.

Yeah I love Linux! I mostly only use Ubuntu now (because it's the farthest away you can get from neckbeard sporting, fedora wearing, mom's basement coder linux look) because it's installed on my Laptop.

Still use Windows more though as its my operating system of choice on my home PC!

I've never seen anyone switch from Windows to Mac because most applications are made for Windows and Wine only goes so far. That being said, macOS is a very heavily modified Linux distro at its core, and I have used both Linux and Windows for both gaming and software development. Most of what I do could probably work on Wine and to a degree macOS, but with the price of Apple hardware, I simply cannot justify purchasing it unless it was given to me at a steep discount.

Well, I live in a country that's strictly PC-land (to the point that I didn't even know you could have a computer without Windows until I was like 16) but I've seen a number of people who use Macs around (mostly in college, and my sister for some weird reason). So they're rare but they do exist.

If I had to guess the reasons I'd say that it's either:

• To better fit the ecossystem. They already had, or recently purchased an iPhone or iPad and using a Mac meant you had a smoother interop between the two - although I'd say that doesn't necessarily mean it's about brand loyalty, it's probably about the experience.
• They're programmers or comp-sci people. Very few comp-sci (and related areas) professors in my university use PCs, and it's probably because there's a whole lot of things that are so much easier to get started in a *nix environment (of which macOs is part). For example, trying to get a C compiler that isn't Visual Studio C++ on Windows can be a giant chore.

As for myself, I don't have the money for buying into the mac hype and Linux is a perfectly acceptable *nix alternative, while Windows suits me just fine for the few things I wanna do that are hard / "impossible" in Linux (namely gaming, and using MS Office).

Digital Waffle said:

Well, I live in a country that's strictly PC-land (to the point that I didn't even know you could have a computer without Windows until I was like 16) but I've seen a number of people who use Macs around (mostly in college, and my sister for some weird reason). So they're rare but they do exist.

If I had to guess the reasons I'd say that it's either:

• To better fit the ecossystem. They already had, or recently purchased an iPhone or iPad and using a Mac meant you had a smoother interop between the two - although I'd say that doesn't necessarily mean it's about brand loyalty, it's probably about the experience.
• They're programmers or comp-sci people. Very few comp-sci (and related areas) professors in my university use PCs, and it's probably because there's a whole lot of things that are so much easier to get started in a *nix environment (of which macOs is part). For example, trying to get a C compiler that isn't Visual Studio C++ on Windows can be a giant chore.

As for myself, I don't have the money for buying into the mac hype and Linux is a perfectly acceptable *nix alternative, while Windows suits me just fine for the few things I wanna do that are hard / "impossible" in Linux (namely gaming, and using MS Office).

Click to expand...

The ecosystem is definitely a huge factor. Apple made all their devices work together surprisingly well, something that MS tried to do but it didn't hit off too well with the Windows Phone. My profs all have Macbooks, but one of them has started using an HP laptop recently, especially now that he can use WSL to run pretty much anything that requires the use of Linux (Such as gcc or MariaDB). Fortunately most of the work we do is platform independent now, so if Linux is absolutely required, we can now use WSL to do the work, otherwise the libraries exist on both Windows and Linux and even macOS (Such as using xampp or the Arduino IDE).

I switched from Windows to Mac in 2009 because I used Macs in my design class and I loved their aesthetic and functionality. Except for my work laptop, which I only use for limited things, I don't use Windows at all and haven't since I switched. I find it very unorganized.

I still have a Windows laptop for gaming. But it's practically used as a stationary computer these days.

I've had iPhones for many years now and loved the ease of use and the fact that everything always worked. That's seldom been the case with Windows or other phones I've tried ._. So when I wanted a new laptop and smallness and portability was a key factor, I saw that I could afford a MacBook, and hoped that it would be as easy to use and well oiled as my iPhones. Plus, the MacBook was better looking than all of the other laptops put together. I never regretted it; the MacBook just works, you just use it and it works. Just like an iPhone.

The only reason I have a Windows computer still is that I already had it lol, although truthfully also because more games work on that than on Mac OS.

Never planning on getting an Android phone. Why would I ._.

I did an internship in a company that uses everything from Apple. So I started to use Macbook and love it! since then I couldn't go back to Windows.

For sure, plus one to aesthetic.

My desktop PC is still windows, since I primarily use it for gaming. I don't use it a lot, though, since I prefer the portability of my Macbook.

I've used Apple laptops exclusively since an old roommate gave me his old Macbook Pro when he got a new one. I LOVE the trackpad to pieces and I just really like how everything works. There are a few features I desperately want from Windows, but most things I've been able to add back in (like window snapping). It was also really nice having a unix-based OS for ssh'ing into the university servers when working on assignments. You need to jump through hoops to do that on Windows.

I don't see myself ever going back to Windows laptops. I don't think I could use a Mac desktop though--I'd just end up booting into Windows anyway so it would be unnecessarily expensive. I also can't deal with iOS and hate iTunes, so Macbooks are just about the only thing from the Apple ecosphere that I can deal with, lol.

Add me as someone who switched from Windows to Mac. =p

Although I don't dislike it I've always had issues with Windows. Streams of viruses (though I made sure to be careful while browsing and obviously not click suspicious links, but that only goes so far), crashes/BSoDs, and a less appealing aesthetic among other things. I hardly play games on my computer so it didn't bother me that there were less game options available. I love the visual appeal of Apple's OS and it has been a lot less cluttered for me. Everything feels sleek and is pleasing to use, plus I'm almost always virus-free. Not to say it has no imperfections but I can't see myself going back to Windows. Having a Windows partition is good enough for me if I ever need it =)

I can't fathom switching from Windows to macOS at all.

While I didn't switch from Windows to MacOS, I do see some who switched to MacOS because one of the softwares that they're using happened to be only on MacOS at that time. Combine it with the lack of viruses and it being pretty stable enough, plus the additions of nice-featured music-making and video-editing softwares provided by Apple itself, makes it understandable for some to switch from Windows to MacOS.