I hate apple right now…but
I really want to ditch the mac. Really, I do. I’ve spent the last couple of days planning out a windows PC build. I even bought a cheaper Lenovo tower, only to bring it right back.
I like Windows 10. I think it keeps getting better. As a web developer, they made it a lot more appealing by including a linux core in their anniversary update.
Most of what I consider my main software works on windows:
- Sublime Text (I write and sometimes code in this.)
- Visual Studio Code (This is a code editor made by Microsoft)
- Photoshop
- Affinity Designer (An illustrator alternative I use often.)
- Reaper (What I use to record and edit radio broadcasts.)
- Amazon Music
- Google Chrome
But here is the thing: most is not all. I was looking over the list of other software I use often I’d have to replace and it’s pretty long:
- Alfred — application and utility launcher.
- Kitematic — graphical utility for running docker containers.
- Sip — menu bar color picker and manager.
- Transmit — FTP client.
- Dropzone — I have no idea how to explain this but I use it about 100 times a day.
- Marked — Swiss army knife for markdown exporting.
- Sketch — UI and Vector design tool.
- Screenflow — App for creating screencasts.
- Noteplan — markdown todo and calendar app
- Create booklet — turns long PDFs into neatly folded booklets. I use this for my sermon manuscripts.
Then there are built in utilities that I use all the time:
- Preview — I use preview literally all the time. You don’t realize how powerful and useful preview is until you have to print, open a photo, or read a PDF on windows or linux. I’ve even started using preview for marking up screenshots, something I do almost every day. I would go so far to say that more than pages, keynote, safari, itunes, etc. Preview is the killer built in mac os app.
- Messages — I hate texting on my phone and respond to most text messages on my mac.
- Automator — Automator is the easiest way to build custom apps to do stuff on my computer. I use it all the time to do things like clean up my desktop and archive my photos.
I actually really don’t like Apple Computer Inc. right now. I was waiting for years for the new Macbook Pro and was absolutely gobsmacked by the price increase, lack of regular USB ports, etc.. A razor blade stealth or Dell XPS 13 looks awful good right now.
But Apple has me. They know they have me. They have me because somehow, over the last 10 years, almost every useful productivity utility has been Mac only. They have me because the amount of frustration it would take to replace all of that software is huge. They have me because for a decade, the Mac is where I’ve gotten things done.
