From OS X hater to OS X admirer

[SnobbyRobby]

Newbie post here. First, I want to say that I feel honored to be in the presence of some really great people at macosxhints that I previously knew from another forum. In addition, I've always had great admiration for Rob Griffiths, all the help and advice he's given countless Mac users and for all he stands for in the Mac community.

I'll try to keep this short while introducing myself through my OS X experiences. I suppose that I was notorious for being what some call an "X-critic." As objective as I always tried to be, OS X just didn't cut it for me.

That all changed with one simple purchase of the new FP iMac (actually for my daughter). I won't go into the particulars and bore those who already know my story, but all I can tell you is that OS X shines on it. The performance of OS X is as good or better than OS 9 on my other 3 Macs. Of course, i also have the added comfort of the stability that UNIX affords me. It's been 3 weeks without a single restart, and when an application does happen to crash, performance remains strong throughout my system, and that particular app is not affected upon re-opening it. Fonts look superb on the beautiful screen, and I do not need TinkerTool to mess up those crisp fonts. What's there to complain about?!

OK. A couple of complaints...no, let's call them minor issues. OS X was awful on my first guinea pig - an iMac 400SE. The hit that the Mac took performance-wise distracted me from all the niceties that I now finally see in X. So, I really cannot argue against those who are dissatisfied on lesser machines. As I've said in another forum, I believe that you truly cannot appreciate OS X to the fullest unless you purchase a new computer that was geared to make OS X shine - like my new FP. At least that was MY experience, and others tend to agree.

Oh how I wish some of those dissenters could see the performance and unlimited promise of X that I now see. Too bad they already have labelled OS X as being doomed without testing it on a more capable computer. Too bad they don't realize that this is the nature of technology, especially with computers - that everything is continually evolving, and one cannot expect their computer to keep up with the latest and greatest and be a perpetual top-performer. Ain't gonna happen. Unfortunate, but true.

So, in closing, yes, I can accept criticism of OS X, for I've been there and witnessed it first hand. But, I will no longer accept anyone telling me that OS X is not a Mac OS, that it is a dog, or that Apple's future is bleak as a result of it. I took the "chance" on a new Mac, considering how unhappy i was, and I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase one. A G5 is next (when they hit the shelves at least). I've seen the light. I'm confident that other dissenters will eventually see it as well. I just hope that they don't lose faith in the platform. Speak to me - an "X-critic" first.

[griffman]

Snobby, nice to see you here, and thanks for the kind words. Although people here do like OS X (as the basic premise of the site is about using OS X!), we are not all mindless Apple drones as we're often portrayed elsewhere :-). There's some good conversation on wishes for new versions and bugs and gotchas in the current one, and I welcome your participation in those (and other) discussions.

It's amazing what a faster processor can do for one's perspective. And astounding (for us long time Mac users) uptimes are very easy to get used to, indeed! Slow window resizing beats fast system crashes any day of the week ;-).

Again, welcome, and enjoy. Looking forward to seeing what you have to say as a recent OS X convert.

-rob.

[SnobbyRobby]

Thanks griffman :). I'll be more than happy to share my experience with OS X and hopefully offer whatever advice that I can.

I do realize that most who participate here are not debating the pros and cons of X, are working with it, and are on a more constructive path. I suppose my original post was for those who might be peeking in and are on the fence.

[mervTormel]

...purchase of the new FP iMac (actually for my daughter)...I believe that you truly cannot appreciate OS X to the fullest unless you purchase a new computer that was geared to make OS X shine - like my new FP...
sounds like your daughter will be relegated to using your deprecated equipment soon, under some flimsy excuse :D

snobby, i welcome your criticisms, as things rarely improve without them being aired somewhere (civilly). which, btw, can also backfire and cause things to worsen (too many features).

there was a good post by user Ahunter3 somewhere about how OSX changed mightily after much feedback from unhappy OS9-ites. i think this mightily indicates how users should criticize the endeavors of developers.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=8684#post8684

[Thundarr]

Hey SnobbyRobby, I saw your last post last night before it was deleted. I even fired off a shot in protest, but I was soon deleted thereafter. Good to see you have found your way over here. Rob, Craig, Phil, and lerkfish/Sparky have it goin' on!:)

Anyway, your experiences may be particularly useful because you come from an initial standpoint of heavily criticizing OSX, but now find many of the redeeming features that we who have cheered OSX loved from the start. My experiences with OSX are only on new machines, a TiBook500, an 800DP Quicksilver, so it may explain why I never saw any of the problems that users of "older" machines were experiencing.


Anyway, good to see ya, welcome and lend your hand.

[SnobbyRobby]

Thanks, Thun!

I did get to see your post today (it's still there I believe) and I'm glad we could hook up so I can thank you for your kind words and support. But that's OK...as you say there are forums like this that "have it going on."

Time to get constructive, and strive to make everyone's experience with OS X a pleasant one. Can't think of a better group of people than this one to help achieve that :)

Glad you're here and that we can still remain in contact - you truly are a gem of a person, and a Mac user to boot! (or is that redundant?) ;)

[Thundarr]

Hey Snobby,

Someone in our lab just bought a new iMac, so I took it for a spin today. I will have to say that, although I didn't like its looks at first, it is a pleasure to work with sitting in front of it with just that screen hovering. And moving the screen feels like silk. OSX does an excellent job completing the experience, although I did recommend a few freeware/shareware items to increase the utility. I couldn't even imagine booting the iMac up in OS9! I can see why the new iMac had such a strong pull to bring you over to the OSX side. OSX is quite fast, very good looking, and the perfect compliment to the iMac.

I want one now!

Any interesting baseball teams that you played for?

[SnobbyRobby]

That's pretty much my impression of the new iMac. At first, when I saw pictures of it I thought it looked ridiculous; sort of like a make-up mirror. When we saw it in person, I was blown away by the effect of the screen just hanging or floating in front of me. You hardly notice the base at all, And yes, positioning it is as smooth as silk and amazingly precise.

Aesthetically, OS X truly compliments the iMac. OS 9 looks sadly washed out and dead on this lively screen. Though I have to tell you, 9 IS blazingly fast on it. Nevertheless, when on her (hehe, well I DO let her borrow it whenever she wants) iMac, I only go into 9 when absolutely needed.

To answer your question, I had a brief stint in the Twins farm system. A knee injury helped shorten my career, plus, i wasn't exactly cutting it up prior to the injury. It was a great experience though, one I'll always treasure even if that dream didn't last as long as I had hoped.

If ya want an iMac go for it! It'll probably be a toy (a very attractive one I might add) in comparison to your monster puter!

[Thundarr]

Yeah, it probably would be a toy. But the DP's are at work and are primarily data crunchers. At home, I only have my TiBook, which is still quite nice. But my wife will be entering med school in the fall, so another computer will be needed. I thought the iMac might be a nice addition for her. Plus, she has become comfortable with OSX, so I might as well get something that lets OSX shine.

I understand the knee dilemma. An early injury kept me from seriously pursuing football in college. Probably a good thing or I never would have had the grades for grad school. Now I just power lift like crazy. Not too great for the knees, but not too bad either. I'll bet you have some great baseball stories to tell the kids! One of these days in the coat room I will see if I can get you to regale us with some Bull Durham tale of adventure.:D

[SnobbyRobby]

I'd love to swap tales with you. I'm not sure if some of my stories would be appropriate to tell my lil one though...:p Actually, she's quite proud of the fact, and I've developed a little fan club at her school. I'ts an advantage of sorts when communicating with her schoolmates, and aids when trying to get through to them. They're very impressionable at that age, and it makes me feel good that I could possibly have a positive affect on some child's life.

I think that the iMac would be a great addition for your wife's use. In all honesty, this toy IS a powerful machine, and aside from the bus speed, I'd put it against many Wintel machines and some G4's. I'm sure that she'd love it.

Please tell her that this guy named Snobby wishes her all the best of luck at med school. :)

Sorry griffman...I'll take it to the coat room in the future.

[griffman]

No problem! It's still vaguely related to OS Xperiences :-).

Just to help keep it that way, here's my on topic contribution: I'd love to get a new iMac at work to replace my aging G4/350. The only thing holding me back (and I know Apple did this to prevent cannibalizing tower sales) is that the screen won't do 1280x1024. I need higher res.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to get the I/S department to buy me a dual 1ghz machine instead. It's a tough sell, given that I'm one of ten Mac users, and the other nine are all in Marketing!

-rob.

[Phil St. Romain]

Hi SR,

Welcome to the forum.

Yes, there's something to be said for a faster processor. Things go OK on my G3 500 machines, but when I go to our Apple retail store and play around with a dp 800, it's a whole new ballgame.

Hey, how about some of you readers coming over to the Coat Room and casting a vote for your NCAA tourney picks, men and women. Should be a good weekend for basketball!

Phil

[Craig R. Arko]

Geez, if I like it on my B&W G3/350, does that mean I'll think it's too fast on a G4? :D

Throttle back...

[jporter]

I purchased an iMac with OSX.
I am still confused as to its operations as compared to my old mac 8.1. It has to much stuff on it, most which I don't use, never will use. It works very differentlly from the old systems, but I do like the idea that when something goes wrong, the whole system is not effected. Still I can whizz through my old mac, while I have to sit and wait for my X to be ready to do anything. I'm still not too friendlly with it. Some times is sits for days without a startup, while I work on a mac that I know. :confused:

[Phil St. Romain]

Jimmy, I think a lot of us had that reaction about how different OS X is. As you note, it's because you got used to how OS 9 worked; if X had come out first and 9 would be the new OS, we'd have the same reaction.

One thing I suggested to my wife and kids when they were first struggling with X was to use it exclusively for a week to learn the basics and become more accustomed to it. After that, if they want to bounce back and forth between 9 and X, OK. They gave it a try and have never looked back, even going so far as to avoid Classic if possible. Maybe that same approach would work for you. Just a suggestion.

[etaoin]

I just bought a new iMac for home use -- the 800Mhz top-end one. Also got Roadrunner modem service, too. Boy, I'm living in fat city now!

I've experimented with OSX at work on a G4/400 w/ 512Mb RAM. Pretty herky-jerky and flaky. Not something I'd want to deploy to our team of ad designers. But I believe in the future of OSX and wanted to work more in that environment, albeit for home use.

I'm keeping the faith, but boy, Apple really does need to address the performance drag OSX has on even a relatively snappy machine is the FP iMac. I am also running a H-P Vectra VL400 1.0 Ghz Pentium III machine for my wife and running Windows 98. In almost every respect, the PC seems faster -- web surfing, opening Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, printing to a shared printer, etc.

I guess that puts me in the middle-of-the-road. And THAT can be dangerous!

[edlake]

I've experimented with OSX at work on a G4/400 w/ 512Mb RAM. Pretty herky-jerky and flaky.

I've got a 450 G4 with 1 Gig of ram. It's not herky-jerky at all. It's quite smooth in fact. I don't remember how fast 9 should run on it because I haven't booted in 9 since Toast 5 Titanium for OS X came out.