About six months ago, I taught a class and one of my students wanted to make sure that it was okay for him to use his Mac laptop instead of the PCs in the room. I told him that it was no big deal since the software we were talking about is cross-platform and I have used Macs at various times off and on since 1985. (In fact, I’m the only person I know who used the original 128K Macintosh!)
Suffice it to say, Macs aren’t new news to me. The Mac vs. PC debate is a really old one and I’m not here to make a judgment. People ask me all the time which is "better" and I have no answer. Obviously, I’ve used PCs for a long time too, but I’ve always been "platform agnostic." A computer is just a tool in my opinion. Recently, I bought a Macintosh so I can write a Mac version of some training materials I’m working on. It is being integrated into our network along with our cadre of PCs.
Today I installed some software on the Mac. The differences between Macs and PCs have become so minimal that the tired old debate has become virtually obsolete. Here is how you install software on either a Mac or a PC:
1. Put the CD in the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double click the Install icon when it appears on your desktop.
3. Follow the steps outlined in the wizard.
4. Watch the computer reboot itself.
5. See what happened and try out the software.
At this point, keyboard shortcuts are the main difference between Mac and PC versions of software like Photoshop or Quark XPress that are cross-platform. Mac keyboards have different keys and right-click commands are accessed using a key combination and clicking because Mac mice have only one button. The Mac also has an Apple menu instead of a Start menu.
My point is that the differences are minimal. If you need to share a lot of files with other people, you probably will buy a computer that runs the same operating system as theirs just for simplicity’s sake. But if your computer is just for you, my advice is to buy the computer you like best.