Sorry, Microsoft: Why I didn't like my MacBook and went back to Windows 8
Regular readers of gg may remember that my search for a new laptop three months ago culminated in the purchase of a 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina screen. In this case, of course, being in a state of euphoria from the purchase of a new expensive toy, I just could not find the courage to write about all the many disadvantages that I have encountered in the transition to the new ecosystem for myself.
The first thing a Windows user encounters when switching to OS X is the schizophrenia-inducing confusion of closing windows. In familiar Windows, in order to close a window with an application, they have to click on the cross in the upper right corner. Mac users are forced to do so by clicking on the cross in the upper-left corner. Which, for the untrained person, can't help but cause a painful sensation first of search, then of hopelessness, then - wasted time once again. The situation is not changed by the fact that the close buttons are always visible on the screen. On Windows, you are constantly dragging your mouse to the upper left corner, while on OS X you are dragging it to the right corner. It's especially difficult for those who, like me, have to use Windows devices regularly due to professional necessity. In three months of constantly "switching" between two such different universes, your brain starts to boil over and you sometimes stop realizing what light you're in.
The second, no less severe misfortune, is the fundamentally different use of the mouse. First, the mouse only understands one key. You're constantly lost with it - which one to press? The regular necessity to press a mouse button brings your body to a state of stress before lunch. As a result, work becomes paralyzed and Procrastination is looming over your shoulder. Those who are used to using scrolling mouse scrolling wheel have in general a hard time. All that pain and unbearable suffering. I heard from a doctor I know that mental hospitals have a separate room with soft mats for such patients.
As it turns out, OS X does not have the usual full screen mode for running applications. This is just awful. Trying to expand an app to full screen, expands it to ALL of the screen. It ends up hiding all the service panels and dock. So, if you need to switch to another app, you have to minimize the screen first and only then the other app becomes available. For those who, like me, are constantly working with multiple applications, it becomes simply unbearable. In this case, all applications have the same menu at the top of the screen. Each window simply has no menu items of its own. When I found this out I could not believe my eyes! It is so inconvenient when all the applications have the same menu. There is a lot of confusion all the time. And the menu doesn't go anywhere even if no app is running at all. In this case we deal with the menu of the operating system itself. How can one put up with this, pray tell?
As a person who writes a lot of texts the keyboard layout gives me some discomfort. The comma which has always been under my right hand and was accessible by pressing the Shift key, is now available only under the number 6 which I have to constantly stretch to. Even fascists didn't treat the users so cruelly. Can you imagine how many commas I have to put on my text? I wouldn't be surprised if my texts now have fewer commas than necessary. Sometimes I just don't have time to reach for it. Or I'm just too lazy to reach across the keyboard. I just don't have enough energy for all the commas. That said, one acquaintance of mine, who ignores any technology except that made by Apple, bragged about how he made fun of his own mother-in-law by sneakily forcing the poor woman to switch to a macbook. She had to get used to the hated layout for months. I wouldn't be surprised if she spent a fortune on psychological help. We all get more conservative as we get older, and it's a lot harder to change.
And, of course, work was simply impossible without a real office suite MS Office, without which today is nowhere. Everyone knows that the capabilities of iWork are very limited. But only Mac users, blinded by their religion, are afraid to admit it. They convince everybody that they don't need MS Office, but in fact they don't. Lack of opportunities for valuable work gradually creates a feeling of inferiority and insufficiency. Which immediately affects the efficiency and productivity of work.
As a result I started sleeping badly, lost a healthy complexion. I started to drink more often (of course, to get rid of stress as I used to talk to myself) and I started to smoke a lot (for the same reason). At night I started dreaming about Windows 8, beckoning with its life-giving tiles, which are updated in real time, which OS X never was and never was. After all, how much fooling around can we do? Only Windows is made for real work. There are hundreds of thousands of programs written for it and used by professionals. Ask any good professional and they'll tell you that they work on Windows. No accountant in their right mind would work on OS X (after all, accounting is a responsible job responsible for finances, no mistakes or delays there, they all cost a lot of money). The only way to avoid all this is on Windows. The main thing is to put a good antivirus. Any school kid knows this nowadays. It's not for nothing that Microsoft spends so much money on social programs telling what the right computer for work should be and what it should have.
It is also worth admitting that in my articles I have repeatedly demonized Windows 8, which, in fact, is a great and very user-friendly operating system. Not to mention that it is the only operating system that allows you to combine the convenience of a tablet and a laptop. After all, it's great: you work on a full-featured laptop, and if necessary, you can disconnect it and it turns into a tablet. At the same time on the tablet you can run real applications for full-fledged, not toy work! That's the way millions of smart people work these days, and not just at Microsoft. So why deny the obvious and stir up panic? The more so that Microsoft is promising another update soon, in which it will show everybody what a pound of raisins it is.
In the dry residue
As always happens in such cases, the euphoria quickly passed, after which the hard work began. The MacBook turned out to be a beautiful (and expensive) toy, but you have to get back to work. Sorry, Microsoft, I was wrong! Blinded by the beautiful tales of the overbitten apple and values that are foreign to me. It's a good thing I didn't get completely bogged down in it all in three months. And I never bought myself an iPad, much less an iPhone, as all the poppy enthusiasts I know predicted. It's not my religion, and I want nothing more to do with it. Tomorrow, no, even today I'm taking my macbook to a pawnshop and start looking for a normal laptop for proper work. Of course, with touch screen! After all, it is so easy to work: when you need to, you can work on the keyboard, help yourself with the mouse, and sometimes touch the magic touch screen, because it's more convenient and faster. And of course, my new laptop will only be on Windows 8. Especially since a free (!) update to Windows 8.1 has already been released, which further improves the operation, and fixes (at the request of working users) a few shortcomings. After all, Microsoft always keeps a close eye on the needs of the market. And it always goes to meet users' needs. And sometimes even ahead of their needs. Because Microsoft is an innovative company, a market maker and creator of the personal computer market. Who knows the market better than Microsoft? That's right, no one. Forgive me, I'm a sinner. I'm so confused.