Mac Switcher

[Tacitus]

I have a friend who is looking at becoming one of those rare people - a Mac to Windows switcher     Mainly for the reason that he finds the Yosemite UI hard on his eyes despite fiddling with contrast settings, system fonts and so on.  Quite why they let Jonathan Ive loose on the UI I'll never know, although I suspect it looks OK on a glossy retina screen but nothing else.  Since Apple don't do a 23/24 inch monitor, I could find myself in a similar situation in a year or two.

The purpose of this post is to enquire what substitutes are available for Mac apps on Windows.  I'm sure there are many but I imagine being a Mac user he's after quality stuff with decent support.   The main ones are Calendar, Contacts, OmniFocus (a GTD type of to-do app, Omnigraffle (Visio but less expensive),  Omni-outliner (a standard type outliner).  There are others such as a decent RSS reader, an app for downloading stuff off iPlayer, plus a similar one for YouTube and a .pdf editor/reader that is not Acrobat.  A lot of other stuff is cross platform so easy to substitute.

I think Outlook would cover the first two but I believe that's only available with an Office 365 subscription which I doubt he'd want to pay.  In any event would it allow him to sync his iPhone?

I'm inclined to think he'll regret moving, but since Apple appear to have no interest in improving the UI other than selling you an expensive monitor, it's probably inevitable.  Any suggestions that I can pass on?

[Ray]

Yes, you can still buy standalone MS Outlook: - http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/cat/Office/categoryID.64542500
and yes, you can synch your Calendar and Contacts with your Iphone/Ipad.

[Gary]

I have a friend who is looking at becoming one of those rare people - a Mac to Windows switcher     Mainly for the reason that he finds the Yosemite UI hard on his eyes despite fiddling with contrast settings,

Did he turn off Transparency and turn on Dark mode. Tbh Yosemite is perfectly legible I think. Maybe your friend needs glasses/better glasses 

[Tacitus]

Did he turn off Transparency and turn on Dark mode. Tbh Yosemite is perfectly legible I think. Maybe your friend needs glasses/better glasses 

Don't know exactly what he did other than what I said, although I do know he had a look at some of the accessibility stuff, but I will suggest he tries Dark mode.  Regarding glasses that is perfectly possible given his age, but I still think that Helvetica Neue as the main font is a bad choice.  To be fair some of it could be a dislike of something different.

Didn't realise you could get Outlook as a standalone purchase.  Is it any more stable than it used to be?  We use it on the work machines and it seems OK, but there's an army of support folks behind it.

Edit:  Just noticed you can only get Outlook on a subscription so I doubt that will go well....  Don't see why they don't give it away.

[Ray]

Didn't realise you could get Outlook as a standalone purchase.  Is it any more stable than it used to be?  We use it on the work machines and it seems OK, but there's an army of support folks behind it.

Edit:  Just noticed you can only get Outlook on a subscription so I doubt that will go well....  Don't see why they don't give it away.

it is still available as a standalone purchase as  are all the other Office programs here:-
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/list/Office-stand-alone-products/categoryID.68284900

I've been using it for several years and not had any particular problems with it

[Tacitus]

it is still available as a standalone purchase as  are all the other Office programs here:-
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/list/Office-stand-alone-products/categoryID.68284900

I've been using it for several years and not had any particular problems with it

Thanks Ray - I must have got the wrong part of the store.  £110 for email/calendar/contacts is a bit steep.  Also I can't see him getting Visio as a replacement for OmniGraffle which cost about £100 

[Tacitus]

Did he turn off Transparency and turn on Dark mode.

Been looking at Yosemite on a MacBook Air, non Retina.  I can find the setting for Transparency in System Prefs -> Accessibility -> Display, but where's the setting for 'Dark Mode'?

[Glenn]

Any help? http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/turn-on-yosemites-dark-mode-on-mac-3534690/

[Tacitus]

Any help? http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/turn-on-yosemites-dark-mode-on-mac-3534690/

Thanks Glenn.  I was looking under the Accessibility options.