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Ian Charles

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I'm in the market to buy a MacBook Pro. I've been to the Apple shop and had the sales pitch, and I've spoken to a few fellow photographers who use them.

Having used a PC for the best part of eight years, I am only beginning to use Macs as they are now used in the school I work at.

I know most of the pros about having one, but what I need to know is the cons of buying one.
All opinions gratefully received.
Thanks in advance
 
Ian Charles said:
Ian Charles wrote:
I know most of the pros about having one, but what I need to know
is the cons of buying one.
Click to expand...
Switched about a month ago...
I can only report vast improvements in ALL categories.

My "ONLY" micro-con so far, is that when using the finder (Mac's File Explorer of sorts) in "column" view, you can't group the folders together, or "sort by file type" in any way. Everything appears in alphabetical order, whether it's a file or folder. Hopefully, the upcoming OS X update will address this.

But really, that's it...

---------------
DAJr.
http://www.dajphotography.com
 
Been a Mac and PC user for years. Mac for personal & business, PC for required business.
Get what works for your needs.

There is a learning curve, as for any new device and software. What you'll find is that there is a solution with the Mac OS that is much more enjoyable than with the MS OS.

As for the "Finder" and lack of sorting: Try Finder/Flle/Find, then use any of the drop-down search/sort options, and/or the search (magnifying glass symbol).

Enjoy
 
There are no "cons" switching to a MBP. I've been running one now for about 5 months and love it.

Mark
 
The first few days can be very frustrating, and you will be spinning your wheels because of pc commands, and some keystrokes and the window views are different.

But, once you get over that phase, you advance quickly and life becomes much smoother, and trouble free.

I found it a case of just having an open mind and accepting that some things do look and behave differently. And that is the reason to switch to a Mac. If it was exactly the same, why switch?
 
The company I work for switched our software developer machines to Mac about 18 months ago.

I will say the MacBook Pro is the sexiest laptop ever designed. That doesn't make it perfect. Some things actually drive me nuts.

On the Mac, windows can only be resized by dragging the lower right hand corner, not all sides like windows.

The Mac equivalent to file explorer is rather primitive. I'm used to browsing directories and changing file attributes very quickly, it's very easy to understand where your files are with the folder view. On the Mac interface you generally have to use more button clicks, scrolling to achieve the same results. Spotlight isn't the answer.

Until now Photoshop ran much slower on the Mac. CS3 should fix that (finally).

People love to bash MS as being the evil empire but I'd fear the day when Steve Jobs takes over the computing world. Check out Itunes, if you ever want to see an application that attempts to be proprietary and lock you in, this one would be hard to beat. I still haven't sat down to hack the library so my wife and I can share our cd's without the machine that ripped them running and set to share. Want to use a single Ipod between two libraries? Ha!

Anyway, I'll be purchasing my second Mackbook Pro in a few months. Hopefully by then it will support Vista. This is mainly due to the Mac OS being more similar to the platforms on which I install software, development is more predictable. That's pretty much the only reason, besides the fact that the laptop is so slick.

If I were using a machine just for home and mainly used Photoshop I'd be jumping on a PC workstation like my brother built for less than $2k. It screams, it's cheaper. I still might do that too.
Ian Charles said:
I'm in the market to buy a MacBook Pro. I've been to the Apple shop
and had the sales pitch, and I've spoken to a few fellow
photographers who use them.
Having used a PC for the best part of eight years, I am only
beginning to use Macs as they are now used in the school I work at.
I know most of the pros about having one, but what I need to know
is the cons of buying one.
All opinions gratefully received.
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
 
DAJr said:
DAJr said:
Ian Charles wrote:
I know most of the pros about having one, but what I need to know
is the cons of buying one.
Click to expand...
Switched about a month ago...
I can only report vast improvements in ALL categories.

My "ONLY" micro-con so far, is that when using the finder (Mac's
File Explorer of sorts) in "column" view, you can't group the
folders together, or "sort by file type" in any way. Everything
appears in alphabetical order, whether it's a file or folder.
Hopefully, the upcoming OS X update will address this.
Click to expand...
Which do you mean by column view? You certainly can in the one that shows folder/file details.
 
This is what List View is for.
DAJr said:
DAJr said:
Ian Charles wrote:
I know most of the pros about having one, but what I need to know
is the cons of buying one.
Click to expand...
Switched about a month ago...
I can only report vast improvements in ALL categories.

My "ONLY" micro-con so far, is that when using the finder (Mac's
File Explorer of sorts) in "column" view, you can't group the
folders together, or "sort by file type" in any way. Everything
appears in alphabetical order, whether it's a file or folder.
Hopefully, the upcoming OS X update will address this.

But really, that's it...

---------------
DAJr.
http://www.dajphotography.com
Click to expand...
--
Scott
 
Since your specific request was for "cons":

1. Applications: there may be cases where the application you want does not have a Mac version. The first step is to see if there is a Mac equivalent (a different application that does essentially the same thing). If not, this could be a deal breaker. You can always run a Windows O/S on your Mac, either in a VM (Parallels, VMware, VirtualPC) or via dual boot (boot camp). I do this on my Mac Pro. Some examples of applications weaknesses in the Mac world include:
  • Quicken. I use Quicken Home and Business [Windows version] to run my consulting business. The Mac version of Quicken is dreadful and the other options (MYOB, etc) are way too big, complex, and costly for my needs.
  • Scanning/OCR. All the OCR applications for the Mac are poor. My wife has low vision and I routinely scan text from books, boost the type to 28 pt., edit and print. I do this exclusively with Windows.
2. Peer assistance: from your OP I don't think this is an issue for you. However, for some, the circumstance of being the only Mac user in a sea of Windows can be overwhelming. Forums like this and those linked to the Apple web site can help. But, there is no denying that not being able to stick your head over the cubicle wall and ask for help is an issue for some.

3. Cost: while the delta in cost between Windows and Mac systems is not as great as some would have you believe, it is real and is a consideration for some.

4. Mac snobs: there are Mac bigots (I am one) and Mac snobs (I am not one). You will have to learn to tolerate the former (you may become one yourself) and ignore the latter.

While not specifically a "con", I have seen far too many folks attempt to move from Windows to the Mac and make the mistake of learning solely "by comparison". In my experience, the only way to truly understand and make use of the Mac environment is to approach each task with the question, "How do I do 'xyz' on the Mac?" not, "What is the Mac equivalent to 'xyz' on the PC?" This does not mean abandon learning by comparison. This is the only way to learn in the beginning. But try to wean yourself from thinking in PC terms, buy a good book (The Missing Manual series is my favorite), and then just jump in. You will find folks in this forum both generous and helpful if you have questions.

regard
Doug Dickerson
 
Thanks for all the replies so far, almost every photographer i work with uses them and recommend them but rarely tell me of any problems.

I want to bulid up a proper picture before I spend quite a lot on what is best for my fledgling business
 
My issue with my MBP is printing. I switched from a Windows machine to concentrate my photography efforts on the Apple. Using iPhoto or PS CS2... printing on my Canon Selphy CP510 the photos print too dark. Taking the same image to a windows machine and printing from Picasa or CS2 looks the way I would expect. This issue has been frustrating and has gone unaswered as to a solution.
 
Screen Gamma won't nessarily fix the problem. If it looks fine on screen (both mac and PC) but printing diffferently its an issue with output colrspace. You'll have to tweak your output profile in photoshop. Many printers have differnet profiles for different papar types too. Could just be dumb luck that PC is matching the monitor. I'm still have to Tweak my Macbook color space, my G5 has already been tweaked so I usually just print from there.
 
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