So I am knee-deep in my attempted switch from PC to OS X and after initially thinking it was a no-brainer, I am starting to have second thoughts. That is not to say I’m not totally in love with OS X, I am. There are just some realities that must be faced and some truths that must be accepted before I can truly take the plunge either way. But I really don’t think that will happen any time soon, as I’ll explain here. Please excuse the sort of random nature of this post, it’s somewhat stream-of-consciousness as I posted it in haste very late this morning. And if you visit this blog expecting to see interesting visuals and have been wondering why I keep obsessing over all this technical rubbish, sorry…You won’t be seeing much more of this I’d imagine, I think I’ve finally got it figured out (at least for the next couple years).
The reality is computers as a whole just don’t really work the way we want them too. OS X is very user friendly, but only by comparison. The way we interface with machines in general is sadly an archaic and inefficient affair. Given this fact we must choose the lesser of two evils. The two evils at this moment in time being XP and OS X.
It’s funny how we see them as these parallel universes who’s features are worlds away and differing so greatly. But if I were to try and see them both in a truly objective way it would be pretty clear that they were essentially the same, save for some minor differences. We use the same hardware to interface with both, most gestures are the same, and the core concepts which govern the user interactions with applications are essentially identical. All is based on the same archetype of human / machine interaction developed at Xerox Parc as far as I can tell.
All that said, here are my conclusions after working with both OS’s on the same hardware (thus having no hardware-based performance bias):
1. OS X is a visually superior experience. Things look solid and clean, and so the perceived experience is more enjoyable. Every time I use Windows now I feel disappointed; the beauty and simplicity of the OS X interface is an incredible achievement. The saying "it just works" may not be entirely true, but it sure feels true most of time… Things, for the most part, just work in OS X. And they just work the first time, not the second time after reading 30 posts on some arcane message board about cryptic Windows error codes.
2. OS X is more stable when using Photoshop. This is simply the truth. Perhaps this is only the case with large files, as I almost exclusively deal with. A single night of working with PS in Windows is wrought with errors, bugs, crashes, and lost work. This is not an isolated experience with one machine…This is a constant across years and years of different hardware configurations with the only constant being the OS: Windows XP. In my experience with Photoshop on Mac OS X I have yet to encounter one crash, bug, or hiccup. One time Bridge crashed, but Bridge is a complete mess and everyone knows it, so I don’t expect much from it. And besides, Bridge can’t be considered much more than an Alpha build on Windows, it crashes almost every time I use it, it’s insane it’s actually a public release.
3. Windows XP has better raw performance than OS X. This is a fact. I have benchmarked both OS’s on the exact same hardware. XP wins every time, handily. I don’t know the reason behind this, perhaps OS X has a larger operating overhead, but it’s a reality and you must accept it. I have accepted it and moved on, I realize that the myriad superiorities of the OS X experience far outweigh any performance benefit you might realize within XP. The overall stability of OS X alone is enough to keep me coming back regardless of the speed.
4. It’s a tie. I hate to say that, but I now believe it to be true. This is a sad reality, I would love to know one was best and that it could fulfill all my needs, but this is simply not true. Both OS X and Windows XP have their strengths and weaknesses and both must be loved / loathed accordingly.
5. VISTA SUCKS. Not much more to say, Vista is a complete and utter disaster with no value beyond a stop-gap-eye-candy-hole-filler of an operating system clearly designed just to buy time until Windows inevitable decline as the dominant OS and / or Microsoft’s eventual decision to create a true evolution of XP, which was, at it’s zenith, a solid and quick OS. So here’s to patiently awaiting XP SP3, then probably being totally disappointed.
6. I am getting a Macbook Pro and this will be my default machine. I always have two computers: one tower which I use to create graphics and music (it is the workhorse which has enough power to crank through the big stuff) and a laptop which sits on my desk next to my monitors. I use the laptop for email, internet, chat, music listening, video etc. This machine goes everywhere with me and allows me to get some light work done on the road. This machine will now be a mac, and should have always been. Mac is far superior in this arena and delivers an experience that’s so far advanced compared to Windows, it’s seriously sad. I also use my laptop for playing live shows and for some reason, there seems to be a much better selection of live performance oriented music and video software for OS X. I am basically getting the MBP just to use Modul8 as I am pretty much fed up with Resolume.
7. Finally, I would have to add that OS X (and the Mac in general) has only recently come of age. Most of my friends who’ve worked with Mac’s for years agree that it has only recently become the grown up, stable OS that we enjoy today. All this while Windows is sliding off the face of the earth…The decision gets easier every day.
So that’s it, my 200 cents. Take it or leave it, your mileage may vary, etc…etc… I know this won’t put anything to rest for anyone, it’s simply the culmination of my experience with one machine and two operating systems.
I completely agree. But know you Can have the best of both worlds with intel macs. bootcamp 😉
I absolutely agree! I work on a g5 dualprocessor g5 at work, and a vista64 dualcore AMD at home. Both process speeds are arond the same (2Ghz) with the same around of ram (4gb).
The mac wins hands down, with often 6 aps open at once and with no slow down. Illustrator and photoshop seem to run MUCH quicker on the mac, and with sexyness and image previews of 10.5 it’s a gutting experience to do work on the PC too.
I’m also planning to sack off the PC and go for a macbook pro to replace it… just need to save the cash now. You’ve defo made the right choice!! My mac’s crashed about 3 times in the last year, in comparison to the PC that’s crashed about 3 times EVERY DAY!
Got afeeling a new updated macbook pro might be announced at the next MWC so it might be worth holding off for a few months though.
Love your work as always 😉
Well I guess I got my answer sooner than I expected. But yeah, as you said, mileage may vary and that’s just the way it is. My good friend was recently stating to me how the two don’t really differ too much in the grand scheme of things.
I wouldn’t be worried too much about the “technical vs design” posts in your blog. I thick it’s pretty interesting and all part of the same whole (well in this case anyways).
– Daniel
As Daniel mentioned, I don’t think you should worry about benchmarks too much. I used to build computers myself and always got hung up with specs and benchmarks. Now my own benchmark now is if it’s really fast and snappy, it’s fast enough for me.
Horrah for Scott. Lets see some new (Mac made.. haha) designs come out. Ffor me and my totally bias opinion, i’m a simple man and i like the simple OSX experience, be it using Mail or searching for files, i just find it a whole lot easier.
I recently switched from an aging PC with Windows2000 to a MacbookPro with Leopard. I’d been dealing with consistent crashes and freezes with the PC that were likely related to hardware or a dying hard drive, so I won’t completely blame the Windows OS. I’m very familiar with XP, using it at work.
I agree that XP and OSX are very similar and that the major benefits to OSX are the cosmetic ones.
One thing that is bugging me, however, since I just got CS3 installed this past week: In Photoshop, I am really missing the ability to see a full grey application background as I can on a Windows version. From what I have read there is not a way to change that, you’ll always see the desktop wallpaper unless you’ve changed the screen mode.
As a solution, I set up Spaces last night and restrict Photoshop to only one space. That helps somewhat; at least I’m not confusing PS files and browser windows, etc.
Things I miss about a PC:
No minimize all button (if there is one, please let me know)
Some Firefox add-ons don’t work (IE view, HTML Tidy tool)
Keep us posted on your progress Scott!
Well, I have a quite different experience with both OS’s. I’m manly a PC user, running on XP and, believe me or not, It’s very rare to crash. Even with large multi-layer Photoshop files.
On the other hand, I saw also incredible crashes with Photoshop on Mac OS X. Even pressing the reset button didn’t seem to work. Go figure.
The OS that I am really happy with is Linux-based ones! Never crashed, no reboots on updates, fast as hell.
If Adobe made software for Linux, I wouldn’t think twice.
Just switched to a Mac myself after nearly 15 years of working on the Windows platform. Like you, I didn’t buy into the hype; I just wanted to try something different. So far, so good. It’s nice to feel like a newbie again, in some regards.
Most importantly: Bless your heart for using “myriad” correctly.
This is a nice post. It’s a good comparison of both systems without degrading to platform evangelism on either side. However, I do have to come to the defense of Vista, in a sense.
Calling it a stop-gap OS is true in many senses, but not all. I’ve been working on Vista for about 3 months and have had only minor annoyances with the OS (UAC is definitely one of them). The security model is very much improved over XP. Any problems (hangs, crashes, etc.) have stemmed from other software products or poor driver support. That’s not Microsoft’s fault. The new eye-candy is good, but they’ve definitely dropped the ball on the sly animations and UI feedback that OSX users enjoy.
I see Vista as less of a stop-gap and more of a jumping off point. I’m not ready to hang it out to dry just yet. If Windows 7 comes out and they haven’t learned anything from the follies surrounding Vista then there is a significant problem. But a good question is how far can/will Apple innovate in between now and then?
I bought a new computer, a nice Sony Vaio, in order to run Vista properly.
Sadly, Vista was not compatible with the non-Microsoft software I was using, and even Excel and Outlook locked up. Over the course of 10 days I had 100’s of restarts, so I decided to return the computer. Sad thing is all the lost hours of attempting to get things to just work.
Next time – OSX.
Hasta La VISTA.
mg33, if you hold down the Option key while clicking the yellow minimize button all windows of the current application will be sent to the Dock. You can close all windows of an application using the Option key on the red close button as well.
I’m not a switcher, but I’m here to say how much I value OS X’s Expose (which may be a better solution for you in some scenarios, mg33) and am REALLY benefiting from Quicklook. Expose is really great in that, when showing all open windows, it leverages the entire screen real estate (which Windows Flip does not do), as it tiles instead of stacks windows like Flip 3D, Expose is “non-linear” whereas Flip 3D is a linear “Rolodex” analogy. Great eye-candy… but hardly efficient.
Also, you can also drag-and-drop text or any type of file using Expose (which you cannot do with any Flip mode). This, coupled with triggering Expose modes using a multi-button mouse, can REALLY increase your efficiency.
I refuse to touch vista and have warned friends and family of buying a computer with it installed. The GUI updates to vista are simply not worth the tradeoff of bugs and incompatibility issues.
After having worked in a windows environment all my life I had the opportunity to do design work on a G5 with OSX. Everyday I would come after a long day of working on the G5 only to be met with frustration on my XP machine at home. I don’t know how many times I caught myself trying click the middle mouse button for a zoom-out view of all my windows or trying to view my widgets at a glance. The workflow in OSX is simply superior but I believe that XP (like linux) will always have a strong base of developers and programmers.
I’m more than open to receiving Windows 7 with open arms so long as Microsoft recognizes the importance of innovation, not imitation. Apple’s success is entirely attributed to stripping down everything unnecessary and making the essentials operate seamlessly. Of course, there’s always the usability – functionality trade-off, but I think apple will continue their tradition of focusing on the user experience as the bottom line.
I always had the impression that OSX runs apps smoother when you are running lots of them. From your comparisons on the same hardware, what do you think of it?
I use XP at work, OS X at home, and I like using both of them. You’re right: XP is snappy enough, rarely crashes on me (although it seems to hate EPS files – I’ve seen others have the same problem), and with the Royale/Media Center-style appearance, it looks decent enough.
But it’s my WORK computer. There’s no love there. The love is with my iBook and 10.4. Using CS and CS2 on both, I’ll take either one.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Scott, your conclusion on this matter is fantastic. I appreciate reading your thoughts on the matter because you have a strong computer science background as well as a refined sense of style, two things that often don’t go together.
For me, unless I end up getting into a niche of design that requires super high-end processing power, my Mac will work for me. Reliability and ease of use wins over pure hardware power. But my preference will never lead me to scoff at a PC just because it’s not a MAC. Every tool has its purpose.
So over all, great write up! I think your MAC vs. PC debate has been some of the most interesting reading on your blog.
Dude, That was an amazingly well reasoned argument…at 4 am, no less.
Scotty, you’re going to love Windows 7
I enjoyed your article and can agree with many things.
OS X is pretty and works just fine.
Vista, has many problems with audio production that I faced when I had it. It’s not bad as a general usage machine, but then again, the memory usage is kinda lame.
XP (what I am using now) has worked flawlessly. In audio production or graphic work it goes without any problems. With many programs running at once.
SP3, don’t expect anything special from that. I looked into it and I highly doubt anyone really will see any new features, it looks to be fixing only networking issues.
I would like a MBP but I doubt I will ever save enough for one, because OS X for a desktop is not an option.
I grew up totally believing that Windows was the ultimate OS. I was anti Mac for a very, very long time. Then one day… I was putzing with a 24″ iMac at the mac store… fell in love. Now I’ll never go back to PC. In fact, I have forgotten what it’s like to use a PC. The Mac is just so much more efficient and editing photos is so much easier. I love the expose feature. There hasn’t been any major problems with it as of yet and I’ve had it for a year. PS does some goofy things occasionally but it’s never crashed on me while working.
I’d love to have a mac book pro but on my salary… that’ll have to wait. 😀
I don’t understand, you say it is a tie for you and that you will stay with a PC for work, but the only positive PC feature you really mention is performance. That surprises me. I bought a little Macbook during my exams with 1GB memory and only had the old non-universal CS2. I thought I just use that for entertainment for the moment and wait until CS3 is out … although the performance obviously was a shocker I switched the same night only for the stability and never touched a PC again.
Max-
Performance is a big issue for me, I work with large files and I don’t like to wait around much while I’m working. That said, the main reason I am sticking with XP for the time being is because of music…I don’t really like the workflow of Logic (mac only) and I’ve been using, and enjoying, Sonar for years now (PC only). So right now I have a dual boot, I boot into windows to work on music and into mac to work on graphics. but that’s sort of annoying, I play guitar alot to take a break and sometimes want to quickly record or work on a song in my spare time…when you have to reboot just to do that , it starts to be a pain. not a huge deal, but definitely prohibitive when you’re dealing with quick 10 minute breaks etc… Anyways, I hope to get Logic figured out so I can just use OS X all the time, but a lot of my existing material was written in Sonar so I need to continue using that until all the new songs are done.
So,para mim este blog esta sendo um grande crescimento pessoal.Nao entendo muito de tecnologia,but a forma com que e’ demonstrada aqui,me fez ter visoes diferentes de um conceito anterior. Para mim e’ sempre surpreendente os diversos assuntos e pensamentos.But, o principal motivo de estar sempre acompanhado seu bolg,sao os videos musicais que sao postados aqui.Isso realmente me encanta…E claro, de carona acompanho outros visuais!
Em relacao ao debate acima,siga o seu coracao.
Obrigado por esse espaco e sucesso!
An awesome post like usual Scott. At the beginning of it I was hoping you’d come to the same conclusion I did, but unfortunately you didn’t. I was born sucking the keyboard of an Apple IIe, and switched to windows in the mid 90’s as Windows was what all the cool kids were using, and lets be honest the mac at that time was utter junk. So I progressed using Windows until this year when I gave in and got a MacBook Pro, thinking it’d be the most amazing OS ever. Was I already under the XP hypnosis? I doubt it…I didn’t like XP very much either, but was comfortable with it.
XP doesn’t crash for me like a lot of people; however, I’ve had my fair share of problems with it like most. Then when I tried OSX I was happy with it, but found the OS so limiting it was frustrating. SIMPLE things like say deleting an old file from an ‘open’ dialog in PS I found…oh I couldn’t do practically anything and had to use the Finder to manage my files. And on that note, since switching to Leopard I’ve had PS crash so many times I’m looking at a rebuild. I don’t know what Leopards problem is, but it’s buggy on my machine.
Anyway I’m not happy with XP or OSX, and quite frankly I’d love to see something new. Some fancy new way of using a computer. I’m tired of typing on a keyboard and pointing our cursors on a screen. I want B&O to design a computer or some futuristic Minority Report type of computer to finally come of age. I’m tired of clicky clicky computers.
For an old Mac user who once programmed on Windows 3.1 and walked away and never looked back, this is a lot deja vu. Of course, Windows has always been a necessary evil, largely because of MS’s control of the developers and IT. You HAD to have access to Windows to solve certain problems. Otherwise it was generally the tool of most bad to mediocre graphics designers and the home of awkwardly interfaced business app makers, and I believe it was the OS that made them bad to mediocre.
Old habits die hard. Once you truly leave Windows habits behind, you will find you cannot go back without trepidation.
In the mean time, you will find the transition difficult not because of the Mac OS, but because you’ve acquired a lot of awkward ways of doing things on the PC.
One more comment. For many of the best professional graphics designers, the Mac was always the superior working environment, going back to OS 7.
And back then the slogan was –” if you want to be productive, do it on a Mac. But if you want to consult, better do it on a PC.”
Hi to all!
Scott have you tried the ableton live?
(regarding the music production issues you ‘re dealing with the switch)
Thanx for posting this. My PC is now 5 years old. With all the bad press on Vista I have decided to move over to Apple and the Mac OS. I just don’t think the future of creative computing lies with Windows any longer.
Nice general post. Doing something new and different is hard and many people resist. Once you’ve been with the Mac for a while, going back seems awkward and you realize the genius of OSX.
For those people that claim their Macs crash all the time, there is something wrong with your OS install. Re-install it or have your hardware checked (esp. memory). OSX is based on Unix and rarely, if ever, crashes. This is NOT normal behavior. Learn the basic maintenance habits for OSX and you’ll be fine.
Nice general post. Doing something new and different is hard and many people resist. Once you’ve been with the Mac for a while, going back seems awkward and you realize the genius of OSX.
For those people that claim their Macs crash all the time, there is something wrong with your OS install. Re-install it or have your hardware checked (esp. memory). OSX is based on Unix and rarely, if ever, crashes. This is NOT normal behavior. Learn the basic maintenance habits for OSX and you’ll be fine.
Damn Scott!!
Honestly, your not just a good artist & musician, your a good analyzer/writer as well. I hate to give you a big head but you hit things in the right spot. I’m not one to post comments, but I just curiously bought my girlfriend a Mac to see what its all about and as a nice gesture. I totally feel you on your comparison between the xp system and the mac. I however, will always have a love for windows/pc. IMO good for Microsoft having such a large array of hardware to support with there OS and doing it half way successful. It’s no wonder that Mac pimps there shit. Imagine if Microsoft only had to support Microsoft based hardware. The better half of the pc IMO is the that you get to put into it what you like. Unlike a mac where you dunno if the shit was made in China just branded in the US.
Nuff said… Mac yes, prettier, a couple less bugs for now. And def a much simpler/gotoanddo type interface as far as basic functionality. But if you want to get advanced then forget it. It’s more crippling. I’d still like to see Mac support the power users a little more than they do. 🙂
Enough drunk shit.
You’ll see me around btw.
-R
I use a Mac at work and a PC at home. I actually switched over to Windows about 10 years ago and haven’t looked back. The Mac Pro Quad Xeon machine I have at work has needed a video card firmware update and a motherboard firmware update. Before the video card one, it was horribly unstable. Even with a quad core and 4gb of RAM, I’ve managed to lock it up in Illustrator.
Ultimately for me there wasn’t anything compelling enough about the Mac to make me want to switch, having worked on a top end one for two months now I just wasn’t impressed enough two switch over. At the same time if someone gave me my work machine, I would keep it.
Two points I wanted to make though. There are a lot of ways to get a slicker interface in XP, lots of third party stuff like Samurize and ObjectDock. Second is that Microsoft isn’t fading away anytime.
I use a PC at work to run Photoshop in a desktop publishing environment & XP Pro sucks for air. I’m not sure what performance advantages your are talking about. The interface is sluggish & gets slower as the day goes on. Every so often the task bar just disappears or the start menu turns black. The icons disappear off of the desktop & launching/quitting PS or Illy takes forever as I watch the interface fall apart in front of my eyes. Leaving artifacts behind of the previous window, that slowly disappear. A tie? I don’t think so. Multi-tasking on XP is lousy. Without the use of short cuts & copy & paste it would be unusable. The system takes a long time to boot & to shut down. Don’t get me started on color accuracy & management. To type a bullet in windows the the key command is 0149 only from the keypad, with numlock turned on. A bullet will show up on the screen when you press 01 but will look like the Japanese yen symbol when it goes to print. Great! On the Mac just press option 8. Works every time. Windows does not even know when a document has been closed in an application. Our work is downloaded from a server using a numbering system for folder & file names. The file downloads to a specific folder which is the inbox. If I work on a job & upload the file to the server & then realize that I have to tweak it it will need to be downloaded again. The problem is that when the file is uploaded it sometimes leaves the original folder & files behind. No biggy, just delete the appropriate folder in the inbox, right? Well windows will not let me, because it says that one of the files within that folder is in use. So, I have to quit every application that the offending file was open in, delete the folder & relaunch the applications. Which as I said earlier takes a long time. In open & save dialogue boxes XP can’t seem to keep the file system in any kind of alphabetical order when dealing with a mixture of files, folders & shortcuts.
I grew up on a mac then switched to pc in 1996 (which I hated at the time) then went back and forth for the next ten years. Each time I swapped OS’s (mainly due to work reasons) it was the flip/flop again… you get used to one then you get used to the other…
I have a Desktop running XP and a Macbook Pro with Bootcamp running Vista. (Vista sux I wonnt go there) Im not going to bang on about there differences, but I mainly use adobe products, and they seem to be stable on both my machines running at simialr speeds. I get the Colour wheel of death more than the blue screen of death these days!
They both have their interfaces we have fun adapting to but that’s why you need XP in your right hand and OS X in the left….. and a fat hard drive in the middle!
Personally I think the future is going to be interesting, as Scott says, with ‘Windows sliding off the face of the earth’, and Apple creating a beast of a monopoly, what would happen if there wasn’t a choice to make?
Just a heads up with Photoshop CS4, the development team has said that we will see a 64 bit native Photoshop on Windows only, and not to expect native 64 bit on OSX until CS5, maybe.
Reason being is that Apple dropped 64 bit for Carbon framework and moved completely to Cocoa.
You can read about it on John Nack’s, Project Manager for Photoshop, blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_64.html
Not sure if that’ll play into your decision to hold of jumping ship, but it’s food for thought.
If they are essentially the same, but one looks much better and crashes much less often, I will pick that one. That one being OSX. Especially from a designer’s point of view. I work on a G5 with 10.4 and have a macpro with 10.5 at home and love it. Just switched about a year and a half ago, and would never turn back.
And for those people who recently switched and have trouble managing windows from open applications, the way I have mine setup is using a hot corner for expose. So I just throw the pointer over to the corner, then pick any open window from expose. It really works great!
Scott, coming from someone in experimental computer science, I think you’ll like where computers are in ten years. The whole interaction model is going to go through a sea change unlike anything since the Xerox PARC days.
What kind of benchmark you use? Can you post your Photoshop benchmark results on both OS?
http://www.retouchartists.com/pages/speedtest.html here the test
I agree with you totally.
I use Vista, and I have to say I haven’t had a bad experience with it at all. Though I see it more of as an add on than a completely new OS.
I have to say that is the most honest write up of OSX vs Windows ever created. Typically it is the PC guys bashing macs (many have shut up since vista) or the mac guys bashing PCs (no comment, vista sucks and i am sorry that they are discontinuing xp next year.) This article says it all.
i’m still a mac guy though 🙂
Very objective and well-balanced assessment, which I found to be a good read. But my question is: “Where did you find that ‘Darth Vader-esque’ black Windows logo that sits beside the Tiger one at the beginning of this post?” I’d really be interested to know.
and what about the new Snow Leopard? Would love hear your words on it.
Don’t work your macbook so hard. I’ve never had a hard drive failure until I got a macbook. Mac “changed’ it for free but they wouldn’t give me back my old HD.. which i thought was kind of weird. i don’t trust 🙂 but i love it.
I also use it for the same thing, Music, chat, light aperture work.
Hi Scott,
By now I expect you to be pretty happy on the Mac. I’ve been a convert for 2 years now and rather perversely run windows on my iMac. This is only because I have every piece of music software in PC format. I’ve found no issues at all with processing particularly as I havn’t hooked up the internet to the windows side of the mac. What was running at 70% capacity on my PC is now less than 10% on the Mac.
Still agree with what you say regarding lesser of two evils.
Regards,
crash
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