A Big Tech Transition
/My PC has been Intel-based since the 80s…but I transitioned to an Apple MacBook Air 15” last week (after transitioning from an Android-based phone to an iPhone 15 Pro Max earlier in the month). So – April 2024 has been a big tech transition for me. Now that I am through most of the it– I am thinking about my impressions of how it all went.
It was not as traumatic as I thought it would be although I was anticipating that it was going to be harder than a transition to a new Intel-based laptop and it was. But not as hard as I thought it was going to be. That could have been because:
My most active files were already in the cloud (OneDrive) and the huge bulk of my photographs were on an external drive.
I knew all my passwords. I am sometimes anxious about passwords (remembering them and changing them often enough) but I’ve managed to get better at it over the years.
My browser was the latest version.
The docking station I had used with my laptop worked with the new machine too (so the two external monitors were available immediately).
It only took me a day to begin doing some of my normal things on the Mac: writing and posting a blog, browsing some books, checking my news feeds, copying photos from my camera’s SD card to the Mac and tagging the best ones, sending/receiving text messages. Other than installing Microsoft Office and my favorite browser, I found myself minimizing the other apps I installed; I wanted to thoroughly explore the capabilities of the apps that came on the Mac; of course, Finder was a big focus for me since I was looking for ways to tag and resize pictures almost immediately along with moving around files.
On the subsequent days, I made tweaks – changing some settings to be more familiar to me (scrolling…the CTRL key to mimic the CMD key for cut and paste). I also installed the driver for my scanner, and it worked without any issues at all (the scanner was connected via the docking station, so it had been attached physically from almost the beginning). Tweaking will continue until I am thoroughly comfortable with the way the software is configured. Since I feel comfortable now, I suspect further tweaking will be minimal.
What I haven’t done yet is clean up the dock – taking off apps that I am not using and making sure the ones that I use frequently are always there. I will gradually try all the apps that are on the doc now and make the decision.
My overall impression of the transition at this point is positive. I am doing my normal activities – often in a slightly different way but acceptable (often improved). And I have cleaned up my environment considerably.
And – everything works faster! I’m very happy I made this tech transition!
