“You went ahead and bought that iPod for your daughter’s birthday. You borrowed it while she was at school and got yourself addicted, so you went out and got one for yourself. Now you’re wondering, if the iPod is so well designed, is it time to look at a Mac? Apple’s latest Operation System [sic] – Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger – is out and the best version yet. Apple profits are soaring with a second quarter net profit of $290 million. Apple recently did a 2 for 1 stock split and the Macintosh’s market share is growing. Considering how well things are going for Apple, they must be doing something right,” Jake Fowler writes for infoZine.

“Before you run out and get that iMac G5, you’re going to want to know a few things about compatibility,” Fowler writes. ‘Will I be able to open all my documents and pictures?’ you ask no one in particular. ‘What about email with attachments? Will I be able to open them?’ The truth is, you can open just about anything anyone will ever send your way, and every file on your old PC, including your pictures and the letter written to grandma by your daughter when she was only 4 years old. Microsoft makes a version of Office for Mac, that some consider superior to the PC version. MS Office 2004 for Mac offers full cross platform compatibility for all your Word, Excel, and even PowerPoint presentations. There is even a version of Entourage, Microsoft’s email and calendar client.”

“Would I recommend a Mac for a life long PC User? Most certainly, after having used both platforms for many years, I realized that the main difference between the two was that PC’s make you fight your computer to get anything done. Simply put Macs are a pleasure to use; they get out of the way and let you get your work done. One of the things that Apple care the most about is good design, they pay attention to how people use their systems and design the OS accordingly. One of the hardest things for almost every switcher to get used to was how easy things were, so easy, it was sometimes difficult. PC simply aren’t used to things being designed well; they assume that anything they want to get done will be a time consuming task and contrary to common sense,” Fowler writes.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Excuse us for dreaming, but lately it seems to us that the world might actually be waking up. We’ll take more of these types of articles, please. Perfect for the “Average Joe,” and right in his local paper; this is the kind of article that really can engender switchers.

For our Windows-only friends, there really is a better way, so for more information about smoothly adding a safe, secure, powerful, and fun Mac OS X machine to your computing arsenal, please click here. For inexpensive entry into the Mac platform, you might want to take a look at Apple’s new Mac Mini which starts at just US$499 — it just might be the perfect machine for you. And don’t forget to order it with 512MB RAM, you’ll want it.