To Mac or Not to Mac

I’ve been a long time Mac user, until I decided to try and then eventually switched over to Windows in 2018. There certainly some push factors to get me off the Mac, but it wasn’t really a terrible platform. I wondered if at some time in the future I would come to regret the switch.

That time seems to have come. This is happening a little bit different from what I expected. Despite all the interesting new developments in the Mac, especially the switch to Apple’s own processors, I wasn’t really that tempted to go back. Sure, these new things were great. No, I didn’t actively look at the Mac and wish to go back to it. Switching from Mac to Windows was hard. I really didn’t want to have to switch back if there was no pressing reason to.

Instead, a situation unfolded before me. My workplace was replacing my old Windows laptop and asked if I would like a Windows or a Mac laptop. Of course, I could say Windows. However, I was told the leadtime for Windows laptop delivery was something like 6 to 9 months, whereas I could get the Mac in under a month. Heck, so, why wait that long, I said I’ll just take the Mac then.

And so, a MacBook Pro 14-inch with Apple’s new M1 Pro processor arrived back in March. I’ve not yet done a whole lot of things with it, which is quite unusual considering my usual excitement with all new gadgets.

I still remember enough about using a Mac. So it isn’t a problem about the lack of familiarity. I think the problem is more of a “fear” about possibly becoming unproductive because of having to deal with switching back and forth between Mac and Windows.

You see, I now have a nice Intel NUC 11 running Windows at home. At work, I have a nice Windows PC too. The Mac certainly will be useful for work when I’m out and around. But, the serious question of whether I could be productive on the Mac remained.

I went to Indonesia last month. I considered which laptop to bring. The new MacBook Pro, or my old Dell XPS 13 2-in-1. The new MacBook Pro is surely very nice, fast, great battery life. That bit about battery life is important on trips like this. However, I considered again, which laptop would I really be productive on if I needed to get work done, and I decided it was the Dell, at least for the time.

A similar situation arose last weekend. I contemplated the new MacBook Pro, or my old Dell, and again the Dell won out. This wasn’t looking good for the Mac.

I expect that I can still get things done on a Mac. The issue is that I’ll likely to be not as productive. And while I still have to mostly use a Windows desktop both at home and at work, I suspect the Mac will continue to serve as a “secondary device”. Windows will always be the fallback. At least for now.

So here I am, a long time Mac user who has since abandoned the Mac and switched to Windows. But now the Mac has found a way to come back into my life.

Has anyone worked with both a Mac and Windows device side-by-side as their equal primary platforms? I’ll no doubt try to give this a shot, and maybe report back at some later time how well this is working out for me.