Made the switch

So here’s a couple of things to share with you about my new Macbook Pro:

1. It’s simply stunning where it comes to hardware and OS design. Before this I already loved the way Apple does product design, it actually helped me inspire the product design process at the company I work for. This here laptop is a good example, it feels incredibly lush, with neat details and killer quality allover. I am a convert: this switch is here to stay, most def. Best hardware features apart from design and form factor: the power cord that is magnetically connected; the remote; the two-finger recognition for scrolling on the touchpad.

2. Killer apps: QuickSilver — every mac user will tell you to use it, for good reason. Parallels (to run XP in) — it’s stable, fast, and best of all, surprisingly easy on system resources, so you can actually keep it running (I use it only for Visual Studio). I’ve been trialing Modo by Luxology — from what I’ve seen easily the best 3D modeler I’ve ever used, very ‘2007′, unlike Autodesk products like Maya and 3dsmax which, although good, all feel like a 1970s program ported to at least run on modern hardware. Modo doesn’t support my SpaceNavigator though, I’m hoping they will soon.

3. Keynote is a breathe of fresh air after Powerpoint — less features / more control and style. One warning to potential switchers that mostly use MS Office: consider waiting to switch until Office 2008 for Mac comes out. The current version, 2004, is better than it’s PC sibling (2003) but it’s incredibly slow and errorprone on Intel macs (it’s written for the old CPUs and therefore runs in an emulation mode known as Rosetta). And speaking of presentations, the way OSX handles projectors is super — instantly switched on when you plug it in, and you can select modes from a dropdown that’s always in sight.

4. The default volume change sound is surprisingly dumb. I hacked one up which I believe is more stylish and also slighly quieter so it doesn’t come on too strong. Download it here, put it in /System/Library/LoginPlugins/BezelServices.loginPlugin/Contents/Resources and reboot (backup the old aiff first).