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I finally pried myself out of Windows’ clutches and ran into the arms of the Mac ecosystem.
This year, I’ve tested the 15-inch MacBook Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro, with the latter being my daily driver, and you know what? I’m never going back to Windows.
14-inch MacBook Pro
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
It’s Mac’s power efficiency that seduced me into its lair. As a laptop reviewer, I’m acutely aware of the battery runtime differences between Windows PCs and MacBooks — and they are embarrassingly wide.
MacBooks, specifically units with Apple’s in-house M-series chips, typically last between 16 and 20 hours on a single charge. (This is based on a battery test that continuously surfs WiFi until the laptop runs out of juice.) Windows laptops, on the other hand, pfft! You’re lucky if you find one that lasts more than 10 hours.
However, once in a blue moon, I find myself missing some elements of Windows. Take a look at my wishlist for Mac — features I wish Apple would implement.
1. One-key actions
Mac requires an extra key for certain actions. For example, on Windows, with a simple tap of the Delete key, I can trash any files I don’t want. On Mac, it’s the Delete key and the COMMAND key.
On Windows, I can open a folder filled with pictures and hit the right arrow key to scroll through them — like a slideshow.
You can do something similar on Mac, but it requires an extra step — the spacebar — before you can scroll through your folders. Of course, there’s nothing arduous about the addition of the COMMAND and Spacebar keys with these shortcuts, but simple tasks like these felt more seamless on Windows.
2. Snap Layouts
Snap Layouts are arguably the best feature of Windows 11. I love that I can “snap” apps into two-window, three-window, or four-window configurations.
Snap Layouts in a triple-window configuration
Credit: Microsoft
As someone who often works with several different apps simultaneously, having the ability to snap Windows into certain quadrants of the screen is incredibly helpful. I’d love to have Slack snapped to one side of the screen, Gmail attached to the top right, and Google Docs positioned on the bottom right. Sadly, macOS doesn’t have this feature.
3. Gaming
The battery life on Windows gaming laptops are abysmal, even worse than general-purpose consumer PCs, but if you keep your laptop stationed to a desk — and chained to an outlet — having a machine that doubles as a gaming rig is amazeballs.
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
With laptops like the Acer Nitro 5 and the HP Victus 16, packed with dedicated graphics cards that can handle gaming, I can work during the day and play at night with access to all of my Steam games.
I can’t do the same with my MacBook. Sure, my M2 Pro MacBook Pro can run some games natively like Resident Evil Village and No Man’s Sky, but for the most part, access to games are more limited (compared to Windows) due to the small share of macOS-ported triple-A titles.
4. Paint
I’ve taken Paint for granted. It’s a low-brow app that is the McDonald’s of content-creation tools, but as someone who isn’t skilled enough to use the more sophisticated, complex photo-editing apps, I truly feel the pain of Paint’s absence. I once used it to easily remove objects in photos with a uniform background.
Credit: Microsoft
I often find myself looking for the Paint app to make rudimentary, basic photo edits, but then I realize, damnit — it doesn’t exist on macOS.
5. Face unlock
I find it a bit bizarre that my iPhone 15 Pro Max has FaceID support, but not my MacBook.
Credit: Amazon
The conspicuous notch on my 14-inch MacBook Pro greedily takes up screen real estate, so Apple couldn’t squeeze in some FaceID tech inside? Meanwhile, as long as your Windows laptop has an IR camera, you can use facial-recognition tech to unlock your laptop quickly and seamlessly.
Final thoughts
In the end, however, the list of things I don’t miss about Windows trumps the few things I’m wistful about.
For example, I don’t miss the frustrating battery life, the absence of AirDrop, the bloatware, and the traumatic Windows updates. However, I try to give Windows some mercy with the latter. Unlike Apple, Microsoft must deal with rolling out OS updates to systems with an incredibly wide range of internals, so ensuring that updated software is compatible across all Windows-supported PCs is a monumental task.
UPDATE: Dec. 21, 2023, 12:32 p.m. EST Originally, number one stated that Windows provided a more seamless way to scroll through a folder. However, a reader informed me that I can easily scroll through a folder with a spacebar + arrow combo. That’s awesome! Still, I low-key miss not having to take extra steps, or extra keys, for simple tasks.
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