My first computer was the Mac SE. I switched to the PC because of the software availability issue for Macs. Has this situation changed? If so, I may well switch back.
There is quite a bit more software available now. There is also the ability to run Windows either natively (BootCamp) or through an emulator (Parallels or Fusion) and all the Windows programs you want. Add to that the iLife suite built in which covers photos, video and music (which is what the vast majority of consumers use their computers for) and the simplicity of the Mac OS and there is almost no reason not to switch. I finally switched when the new Mac Pro’s came out in January and have been incredibly happy. Mac’s are just so easy and simple to use. It just works.
I'm a novice in computers that had an Apple II GS and did the same PC switch because of software issues. Last year I got sick of reboots, lost data and the time spent doing "fixes". I went to a MacBook Pro and have been very very happy. It takes some time to figure out the little steps that make things easy but it's very intuitive after awhile. They've got all kinds of input devices that can make the transition easy and there's a guy on this board named Swordmaker that can answer most of your questions.
Now with the new Macs you can run windows programs and mac programs in the same box. That's when I bought stock in the company as well as bought the machine.
The darn thing just works. I plug a camera, ipod, printer, external hard drive, video camera, phone jack.... and the machine just works without all the extra bullsh#t that windows makes you jump through.
their support online and calling is great as well.
my two cents.... sorry if it was long.
You can get a copy of Windows XP, a program called Parallels and run everything you can on a PC on a Mac.
My two cents. If you don't mind.
I love my Mac. I have had dozens. Mac OS X is amazing. More powerful and easier than ever. Great job. The hardware in my opinion is also very, very good and not more expensive unless you want to shop the bottom of the barrel in PC land.
The issues: There is a growing tendency for enterprise and web developers to use the MSFT software development tools. Unless they are disciplined, and careful, it is extremely easy to write Web based apps that REQUIRE one or more Windows components.
Second, The new version of MS-Office for Mac does not support Macros. And old versions of Mac MS-Office do not support the current Windows MS-Office file structures. The result is that more so than ever it is entirely possible to get Powerpoint, Excel and Word docs you cannot access on a Mac.
I was very, very heavily involved in financial markets and up until last year I did use Windows at all. This has change and getting worse. I have lots of problems and now spend about 30% of my time forced to use Windows (I have Windows running on my Mac in VMware AND Parallels it is OK but not perfect)
Funny thing is I bought some land and began growing palm trees as a more or less a hobby. I bought some Case equipment and they have a great website - requires Windows - eeoowwww.
There is no software availability issue with Intel based OS X Macs.
They can run all of the OS X software and all of Windows software as well... natively. In addition, OS X is fully certified UNIX, tapping into the thousands of UNIX applications—and it can run Linux as well. With the use of Parallels Workstation or VMWare's Fusion, all of these can run at the same time within windows in the Mac's OS X environment.