I decided to dip my toe in the Mac world and buy a Mac mini. If I decide to make the switch, I will probably end up getting a fully tricked out MacBook Pro, but I'm not ready for that yet and I want to wait for the expected MacBook Pro refresh.
I've been using it for 24 hours.
Likes
- The hardware is beautiful. The attention to detail is fantastic. Somebody has taken the time to think about even something as mundane as the power cord (it's less stiff than normal power cords and curls nicely). The whole package exudes quality.
- It's reassuring to have something Unix-like underneath.
- Mostly things "just work".
- The dock is quite pretty and intuitive.
- Set up was smooth and simple.
Dislikes
- The menu bar is an abomination. When you have a large screen, it makes no sense to have the menus always at the top left of the screen, which may well be far from the application window.
- On screen font rendering seems less good than Windows. I notice this particularly in Safari. It's tolerable, but the Mac is definitely a step down in quality here.
- I was surprised how primitive the application install, update and removal experience was. I miss apt-get. Many updates seem to require a restart.
- I don't like the wired Apple mouse. Although it looks nice, clicking is not as easy as with a cheap, conventional mouse, plus the lead is way too short.
Minor nits
- How is a new user supposed to find the web browser? The icon is a compass (like the iPhone icon that gives a real compass) and the tooltip says "Safari".
- A Safari window with tabs looks ugly to me: there's this big band of gray and black at the top of the window.
- Not convinced DisplayPort has sufficient benefits over HDMI to justify a separate standard.
- I couldn't find a way of playing a VCD using the standard applications. I ended up downloading VLC, which worked fine.
- The Magnification preference on the Dock was not on by default, even though it was enabled in the introductory Apple video.
So far I've installed:
- NeoOffice
- Adium (didn't work well with MSN, which is the dominant chat system in Thailand, so I will probably remove it)
- Microsoft Messenger
- Emacs
- Blogo, which I am using to write this. Is there a better free equivalent to Windows Live Writer?
- VLC
- Skype
I plan to install
- XCode
- iWork
Any other software I should install? Should I be using something other than Safari as my Web browser?
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