Like many others I moved to Mac about a year ago after 25 years of Windows era. It was not easy and I think Apple could convert more users with some minor changes. First obvious change is the mouse. Windows users like right/left clicks. But Apple has decided NOT to change their strategy. On the contrary they went to 0 click on their new Mac...Good for some Mac junkies but very bad if you need to convince more Windows users.
On a software level here are 3 plug-ins Apple should bundle in OS X. A must have for ex-Windows_ers.
- Email notification. Native mail app on OSX does not give you any notification of new incoming emails. Unless you check you masked dock every 10 minutes or so - you might not see an important email coming in. I use Mail Appetizer. It's free and does the job amazingly well.
- Quicksilver lets you start applications (and do just about everything) with a few quick taps of your fingers. I really wonder why a company full of cash like Apple would not take their checkbook out and buy this first-class must-have add-on!!
- Wireless panel on OS X is very basic. Too simple for most Windows users. We like to tweak and here we basically have 2 choices. Turn Radio on or off. Well try Air Radar. It has it all. Perfect to find a good hotspot while on the move.
I could have listed many other apps/addons but those are so basic for me I wanted to keep the list short and relevant.
If you have some good tips about things I missed - please feel free to educate me :) I'm a new Mac user.
2 comments:
Florian
The dock works great for me, allows shows email notifications with a little red circle and number of new emails....
Another one is IE4OSX for running apps that are IE specific.
Chris
Florian,
I can sympathize, as I work in both the Mac and Windows worlds daily. I'm sure you realize you can use Windows-compatible mice on your Mac. It's one of the many areas where MS can coexist with Apple. I suspect that Apple engineers have forever been told that Apple customers learn to use keyboard commands to supplement the mouse input. probably quite true for those starting out in computing using a Mac as their first platform.
But you are right, the growing number of converts from Windows machines should compel Apple to add right hemispheres to their basic issue mice. They clearly can do it, and do it with the characteristic Apple panache, as they have with the Mighty Mouse, which incorporates many more programmable functions to physical movements than any other mouse I have seen. (apple.com/mightymouse)
Nice heads up in the other tools.
Stephen Dill
@srdill
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