I’ve had my Mac for a few weeks now, giving me a chance to think about what I like and dislike since converting over from my longtime staple, Windows. And although I am overall really happy and excited about the switch, there are still a few things I miss about Windows XP.
- A built-in dual button touchpad – seriously, Mac, why DON’T you do this? It makes life so much easier.
- The Windows Clipboard (Copy / Paste Functionality) – every day at work I take advantage of the ability to simply click the little button and paste as text, paste with formatting, match destination formatting, etc. This truly is fantastic and I haven’t seen it built in to the Mac OS natively, at least not yet.
- Windows Media Player – Quicktime, for actually playing video, is one of the worst out there in my experience. I personally miss VLC player, which is what I used on the PC for most of my video watching, but Quicktime is terrible. No free full screen mode? And why does clicking on the screen cause the video to pause? And the Flip4Mac plugin to stream Windows Media streams is a joke. I’ve tried using it a few times and have given up entirely – I now switch to Parallels and use Windows Media Player through there to watch live streaming video.
I recognize there are those out there who will disagree with my characterizations, but these are the areas where my Mac experience falls down. They seem minor, but they definitely affect my overall experience in a direct, tangible way. And while I am very happy to have my Macbook, even Steve Jobs has some room to improve.