It’s true. Not all of us are so lucky as to have been using Macs for their entire lives. Technically I used a DEC machine for a little while (yay for DEClander!), but for the most part, I’ve lived my entire computer life on Macs. I’m sure there are a few behaviors I picked up from that I tried on Windows, Linux, and Unix, but none come to mind. However, with Macs becoming more popular every day, switchers and newbies are making mistakes that I would never think of.
Dan Warne documented 30 of these faux pas (archive link because Dan’s site can’t withstand the power of Digg). It’s a pretty good list as far as these “top insert number here” lists go.
These three really struck a chord with me (and some of the others seemed a little contrived).
6. Double-clicking a window thinking it will maximise it, but instead sending it to the dock
18. Thinking the green “+” button maximises a window to full screen (not realising that Apple’s maximise philosophy is to only make a window as big as it needs to be to comfortably fit the width of content currently being displayed)
26. Inability to work with multiple documents on-screen at the same time, because they have only ever learned to use Windows’ maximise mode which always makes everything full-screen
This is probably the biggest thing Windows fans miss. The maximize function is so overused and ingrained into their psyche that the idea of having multiple windows coexisting seems foreign. A surprising number of Windows users use all their programs that way. However, given the design of most Windows apps, it’s unsurprising. Scores of them are designed in such a way that it’s the only usable mode of operation. The biggest cause is that so much gets crammed onto the screen that for most users is completely useless, that a huge canvas is needed.
It’s good to keep these in mind. The next time you visit your friend with their shiny new Mac, you’ll be able to help keep that experience as good as it is for you.
[via the Destroyer of Blogs]
A bigger display helps too. When I switched to Mac I also switched from a measly 15" to a wide 20", which makes a world of difference on how I treat windows.
I switched back to the Mac about a year and a half ago, and I found the dock and the zoom button a relief. It is true that when using windows you tend to use the apps in full screen. This of cousrs makes me wonder why so much effort was put into the frosted glass window borders of Vista. While we're on the subject of other operating systems, in the mid-nineties in grad school I used Next computers. They were awesome, and I wonder if some more of its features will find their way into the Mac OS. It had a great finder for example.