Once upon a time, people thought you had to use Windows to be productive. But Apple has put a lot of effort in to ensure that the iPad, along with iOS and the developer ecosystem on which it relies, is robust enough for even the most epic bouts of productivity — and focused enough to avoid distraction. Even Microsoft has gotten in on the act, making tablet-optimized versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more, all for iOS and the iPad.

Why switch from Windows 10 to iPad?

If you're considering a switch to the iPad, chances are you already own an iPhone, but for whatever reason — work, personal, or just plain enjoyment — you still use a Windows laptop. But as capable as Windows 10 is, it lacks the hooks into Apple's ecosystem that work so well with the iPhone, Apple Watch, and the company's other devices.

Moreover, despite improvements in the hybrid laptop space, Windows 10 still works best with a mouse and keyboard. That's not to say there aren't apps that have been optimized for touch, with many more being updated all the time, but iPad developers have had six years to create hundreds of thousands of apps specifically designed for touch.

That means iPad isn't a PC trying to be a tablet; it's a tablet through and through.

What you can bring from Windows 10 to the iPad

When moving between devices, you're likely going to want to bring over your important files, photos, audio, and information.

Luckily, owning a computer these days isn't just a siloed affair: most PC owners connect to the cloud in some way, using services like Dropbox or, at Microsoft's increasingly forceful behest, OneDrive. This allows local folders and the files within them to be mirrored in the cloud, and easily accessed within the iPad ecosystem. You'll also be able to transfer your contacts and email using cloud services.

What you can't bring with you from Windows are your apps themselves. Although many companies, such as Adobe, Microsoft and others, have versions of their apps for both platforms, the app bundles can't run on both platforms — you'll need to download new versions of the programs on iOS to use them.

How to move files, photos and other data from Windows 10 to iOS

Unlike switching from one PC to another, transfering files is a bit more complicated than connecting an Ethernet cable between your devices: While the iPad can connect to USB thumb drives via the Lightning to USB 3 Adapter or connect directly with Lightning-compatible drives, you often need special apps to properly access your files. There are, however, a number of ways to directly bring certain types of content to your iPad.

Lots of Windows users have either Dropbox or OneDrive installed, allowing you to keep local files synchronized with multiple devices. For photos and files, having either of these programs installed on both a Windows PC and an iPad allows easy transfers of your most important documents.

And thanks to the iOS Extensions framework, files stored in either Dropbox or OneDrive can be opened in other iPad apps — a PDF stored in OneDrive, for example, can be annotated in Readdle's excellent PDF Expert 5.

• Download OneDrive for iOS
• Download Dropbox for iOS

It's similarly easy to transfer your email, contacts and calendar appointments to the iPad. By default, you can use iOS's native Mail, Contacts, and Calendars sync to access your email; this will copy over your Outlook accounts as well as any other programs, including Google.

• How to set up email, contacts, and calendars on iOS

Note: If you use two-factor authentication with your Outlook account, you may need to create a one-time password when logging in directly on the iPad.

You also have the option of using the Microsoft Outlook app on your iPad to manage your Outlook email and calendars. To do so, all you need to do is grab the Outlook for iOS app, log in, and away you go!

Download Outlook for iOS

If cloud-syncing hurts your head, you can always get information to your iPad the old fashioned way: through iTunes. While iTunes for Windows isn't a particularly good piece of software, it does the job where it counts — synchronizing photos, contacts, and calendar entries stored on your PC. Be aware, however, that if you're using iCloud Photo Library, local photo sync is not possible.

Download iTunes for Windows

Once you're finished moving all your information over from Windows, you can further customize your iPad to your liking. Check out our getting started guide for more information about setting up your new iPad, and feel free to pop in any questions you're having below or on the forum!

Updated October 2017: Updated to reflect changes in iOS 11.

Happy Saturday, iMore! Because Rich is awesome, he's letting us run some of his Mac-themed comics from the Diesel Sweeties archive on weekends. Bonus comics, woo! We hope you enjoy.

Read more comics from the Pixel Project on iMore.com.

For the most part it's a straightforward experience: VMware Fusion 7 offers a solid, predictable way to run Windows from your Mac safely, in a virtualized environment that's easy to quit out of and suspend when you don't need. Some Fusion 7 users have run into a problem upgrading to Windows 10. The good news is that it's really easy to fix.

Over at his own blog, VMware senior product marketing manager Michael Roy mentions the workaround.

That's right, download the .ISO image of the Windows upgrade: the disk image file Microsoft makes available for download.

Make sure to have your existing Windows product key handy for activation.

Roy offers a bunch of other great advice, like take a Snapshot before installation, so you'll have a rollback point if you run into problems. And if you need to set up more than one virtual machine, Fusion Pro's clone feature can save you time.

VMware had some other news to share this week. They're offering 10 percent off the price of Fusion 7 ($62.99 for the regular version, $134.99 for the Pro version), and a free upgrade to Fusion 8 when it is released later this summer.

VMware isn't spilling the beans on Fusion 8, but they say it'll be enhanced for use with Windows 10.

If you're interested in running Fusion 8 ahead of time and can take a chance with preview software, check out VMware Fusion Technology Preview. You'll get a look at what's to come in Fusion 8.

For more on Windows 10 itself, check out the in-depth Windows Central review

I must say that I really like what Microsoft is doing with Windows 10. It's already pretty solid, and it gets better with each build. I've been running a virtual machine with Microsoft's Windows 10 Insider Preview for months. By "virtual machine" I mean it's running inside Parallels Desktop.

Parallels and VMware (with its Fusion software) both make commercial software that enables you to run Windows at the same time as you're running OS X, so you don't have to do the reboot and partition-change shuffle forced by Boot Camp, Apple's own method of installing Windows on Macs.

Anyway, Microsoft periodically updates Windows 10 Insider Preview with new builds, and mine weren't coming. I'd check Windows Update in Settings periodically but it didn't find them.

I turned to Twitter for help and a helpful reader pointed out to me that under Advanced options, you can specify fast or slow Insider builds. Turns out I was on the slow track. I changed it to Fast, restarted Windows, and checked for updates. The latest build came through right away!

Running the latest "fast" build means you're opening yourself up to more potential problems because the code hasn't been tested as thoroughly, but if you want to see what everyone else is using, this is the best way.

How to change to the fast track for Windows Insider preview builds

1. Click the Start menu.
2. Click Settings.
   
   

3. Click Updates & Security.
4. With Windows Update selected, click on Advanced options.
   
   

5. Under "Choose how you get Insider builds," change it from "Slow" to "Fast."
6. Click the X in the upper right to close the Settings window after making the change.
   
   

Again, I had to quit Windows and restart my virtual machine in Parallels Desktop before it'd work right, but once I did it was all set.

Because Macs use the same Intel chips that power many PCs, your Mac can run Windows. Apple even gives you the software to do it: It's called Boot Camp.

But putting Boot Camp on your Mac is only the first step.

J.Z. writes:

Boot Camp enables the Mac to install Windows. It repartitions your Mac hard drive or SSD into two separate volumes: One for the Mac and one for Windows. When you boot your Mac and hold down the Option key on the keyboard, you're given the choice of either booting on the Mac or booting on Windows. When you're running Windows on your Mac, your Mac is a Windows PC, for all intents and purposes.

Apple's Boot Camp Assistant software, available inside the Utilities folder, makes it easy to set up and use a Boot Camp partition on your Mac. Once you've installed Windows, though, it still needs to be configured in order to interoperate with your Mac safely and effectively: The Mac's Bluetooth and Wi-Fi hardware, graphics hardware and other features and functionality need to be installed as Windows drivers.

If you've installed Boot Camp and set up Windows only to discover that a lot of things aren't working, visit Apple's web site and download Apple's Boot Camp Support Software. You'll need to do it from your Mac partition, since that's the part that works with the Internet. That software will download as a .ZIP compressed file.

Move that to a USB thumbdrive or hard drive formatted with the FAT file system — a file system Windows can easily recognize. Then just reboot into Windows, open up Windows Explorer, find the thumbdrive and extract the ZIP, then run the installer. Windows and the support software installer will do the rest.

Transitioning from a Windows PC to a Mac can be challenging, especially if you use applications or workflows that are dependent on Windows. Sometimes equivalent software isn't available — and even if it is, files aren't fully compatible with those Mac versions — and sometimes employer IT departments are reluctant to support the Mac. If that's the case for you, installing Windows 10 on your Mac could be your best solution. There are two prominent commercial packages to help you with that: VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop.

Parallels Desktop 10 and VMWare Fusion 7 are virtualization software: They're different from Boot Camp, Apple's method for running Windows on the Mac, because they're virtual machine environments. Using Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion, you can run Windows and Windows apps at the same time as OS X, rather than having to reboot into Windows, as you do with Boot Camp.

First of all, let me say that I think either Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion are excellent choices for virtualizing Windows. What's more, both vendors make trial versions available for download, so I heartily encourage anyone interested in giving them a try to do so. You have nothing to lose.

Bear in mind that you will need a valid Windows 10 license to install any instance of Windows on your Mac; same goes for any Windows apps you want to use. So this isn't an end-run around the cost of getting Windows or Windows software.

If your budget is tight, there's another option too — virtualBox, from Oracle. It's free. Frankly it's not nearly as polished or optimized for speed as either Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion, but free is good, and it's good enough to get by in a pinch.

• How to install Windows 10 on your Mac without spending a dime

Both Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion make it very easy for you to set up a new virtual machine and configure it to run Windows and Windows apps optimally. Both offer advanced integration with the Mac environment. That makes it easy to open apps and documents and launch Windows without creating a lot of disruption (or even a lot of open extra windows) on your Mac.

So in many ways, Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion play an arm-wrestling game with each other. They're always battling for dominance in the Mac virtualization software market.

Having said that, I've found that Parallels Desktop 10 works faster on my Mac (a 2013 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro) than VMWare Fusion 7 does. Boot times are less and 3D graphics run faster. 3D graphics run more slowly than Boot Camp due to virtualization — after all, when your Mac is booted into a Windows Boot Camp partition, it is, for all intents and purposes, a Windows PC. Parallels also offers remote access service called Access (it's subscription-based and optional), which makes it easy to access your virtual machine from anywhere.

The downside is that if you're on a laptop battery, Parallels can drain it pretty quickly. But, if you need a great virtualization option, it's my current pick.

• How to install Parallels Desktop and Windows 10 on your Mac

Flight simulation has been a fascination of computer programmers since the earliest days of graphical user interfaces. Those invested in the hobby get expensive joysticks and throttle rigs — accessories that work just fine on the Mac.

G.H. asks:

Hands On Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) systems help put you in the pilot's seat of a simulator the way nothing else does, giving you an intuitive and realistic way of experiencing the joy of flight from your office desk.

If you're coming from Windows, you might have spent hundreds on USB-based joysticks and other peripherals. USB is the key; it's a universal hardware interface that works great on the Mac. Software is a different story: Microsoft won't ever make a modern OS X version of Flight Simulator for Mac, and a lot of the games and commercial flight sims available don't run on OS X (or if they do, they don't run well).

The Mac does sport some great flight sim software, though. Top of the heap is X-Plane, which has long had integrated HOTAS support.

FlightGear for Mac OS X is a free, open-source flight sim. "AddOns" include multiuser racing tracks over places like Reno, Nevada and Narita, Japan. Lots of fun and challenge.

You can find flight sims and games available in the Mac App Store, too, though support for sticks and other USB-based game controllers vary from app to app. In a rare turnabout from what I've said in the past, I'll actually encourage you to check out Mac App Store user comments, because it often comes up.

If flight sims aren't your bag but instead you have a wheel and pedals you miss from your virtual driving days, make sure to check out Feral Interactive. They've got games like Dirt 3 Complete Edition, and they take game controller support seriously.

Making sure all the other stuff — mice, keyboards, printers, displays, external drives, gamepads, and more — works is important, but Apple makes it pretty easy. Whether it's mice, keyboards, printers, monitors, external drives, or more, that's the switcher concern I'm trying to alleviate this week.

P.K. writes:

"I have an HP I'd like to give up on and use a Mac instead. But I've got a perfectly good Wi-Fi printer and a Logitech keyboard and mouse combination I've spent good money on. Not to mention this external screen. Do I have to buy those again?"

That's one of the great things about the Mac mini: It comes with none of that stuff. Neither does its bookend on the other side of the Mac line, the Mac Pro.

If you're on a budget and you'd like to reuse as much of your PC as possible without, y'know, the actual PC part, swap it out with a Mac mini. They start at $499.

• Mac buyer's guide

Macs are really good at figuring out what kind of devices are attached or available on the network, and they've gotten progressively better about filling in the gaps themselves.

Keyboards and Mice

Any USB keyboard or mouse, unless they're a really funky, unique and non-standard layout, should work without having to install any special driver software.

Some mice manufacturers do offer special driver packages for OS X — consult your mouse maker's web site to see if they do. Even without it, though, Apple's built-in drivers are aware of two-button mouse designs, and lets you manage tracking speed and double-click speed at the bare minimum. Even a wireless mouse that works with a USB dongle should be plug and play.

The first time you plug a new keyboard into the Mac you're sometimes asked to press the keys next to the keyboard shift keys so the Mac can figure out what you're using. But after that it should work.

Again, some keyboard manufacturers offer OS X driver downloads to enable media control keys and other special buttons to function, so check with your manufacturer for sure.

Good news for P.K. — Logitech's one of the companies that is pretty good about OS X support.

Printers, Scanners and Multifunction devices

The Mac can make sense of just about any printer on your Wi-Fi network, and most of the big names support OS X more proactively right out of the box. Even if the printer connects using USB, OS X's printer drivers will try to match it, and if they don't find a match, they'll ask you if it's okay to download drivers to make them work (it's okay).

I generally shy away from the "driver" packages available for download from printer makers' web sites, because they're often bundled with lousy apps that don't work very Mac-like.

Features like faxing should be pretty well supported using existing driver frameworks, often available as an option when you go to print a document.

The Preview app Apple includes with OS X, already on your Mac, supports scanning itself (go to the File menu, then select Import from Scanner. If you have a Wi-Fi printer with scanner built in, you'll find it there). Many image editing applications like Adobe Photoshop also include scanning ability, so don't jump to put the one that came with your printer on there.

Storage

If you've invested in external hard drives or other external storage devices like USB thumbdrives, they'll all work with the Mac. Though you'll likely have to reformat them using Disk Utility in order to get them to work well on the Mac.

The Mac should, at the very least, be able to read those drives even if they're not formatted with Mac-compatible partitions. Having a good file conversion plan like using Apple's Migration Assistant is important here.

Joysticks and gamepads

Gamepad and joystick support is very hit-or-miss in Mac games, though some companies clearly invest more effort in it than others.

I've had the best luck with games I've downloaded from Steam. Games I've downloaded from Feral Interactive and Aspyr are usually pretty good at supporting mainstream game controllers from Logitech and other makers; you can even get your PlayStation or Xbox controllers to work if you're willing to put in a little effort yourself.

Bottom line: Apple's made it less scary than ever to switch to the Mac. So enjoy your conversion!

Have any questions? Let me know in the comments.

Windows Phone runs a distant third behind iOS and Android in terms of U.S. marketshare, but Windows Phone isn't something to ignore. A lot of Windows Phone handsets are inexpensive and work quite well. The appellation "Windows Phone" may give you a sense that such a device is not to be used with a Mac. But they can coexist quite happily.

W.F. writes:

"I just got my first Mac but I'm still using a Windows phone. Do I have to buy an iPhone if I want to sync data and listen to music from my Mac?"

The short answer is no, you don't need an iPhone. You might need some additional software, but the good news is that it's free.

I'll admit that Apple tries to make it easy to have an iPhone and a Mac together; iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite introduced Continuity, a new set of features that makes it seamless to go from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac, or vice versa.

Having said that, Microsoft has taken steps to make sure that Mac users and users of Apple's iCloud services aren't left out in the cold.

The first thing to know is that you can set up your Windows Phone to access your iCloud account, so you can send emails, access calendars and see contact information that's shared on your Mac, in the cloud.

All you need to do is tap on the Settings app on your Windows phone, go to email accounts and tap add an account. Select iCloud, enter your account information and password, and off you go — your Windows Phone is now synced to your iCloud account. Any changes you make on your phone should be reflected on your Mac, and vice versa, without any manual syncing.

Of course, that's only one piece of the puzzle. W.F. wants music from his iTunes library on his Windows Phone too. Fortunately, Microsoft offers a free Mac app for download that helps. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.

Windows Phone is a free app available for download from the Mac App Store that helps you sync media files from your Mac. It can sync photos and videos you've recorded on the phone back to your Mac, too. It also lets you put movies, TV shows and podcasts in your iTunes library on the phone, and browse media files that are already on your devices.

It's important to note that the Windows Phone app only works with files that are free of DRM, or digital rights management (copy protection) features, so TV shows and movies you've downloaded from the iTunes Store won't work (music should, though — Apple stopped copy-protecting music from iTunes years ago). But if you've "ripped" stuff yourself from DVDs you own using tools like Handbrake on your Mac, they should work just fine.

• Free - Download now

If you're a Windows Phone user and you're looking for the best Windows information, make sure to check out our sister Mobile Nations site Windows Central!

If you have a question or need help with something iOS or Mac related that you just can't figure out, I encourage you to drop a question in our iMore forums, no registration required!

Earlier this week it was discovered that Lenovo, a prominent manufacturer of Windows PCs, had loaded Superfish adware into some of its laptops. In order to insert advertising on websites, the adware broke HTTPS certificate authority — and that leaves these machines open to untold traffic monitoring and manipulation.

The public discovery of this adware made for a very bad day at Lenovo headquarters. But it made for a very bad, no good, downright horrible day — and conceivably, a year or more — for Lenovo's customers.

If you think I'm being sensational or overstating, you're wrong. I'm sensationally understating it.

This is such an egregious assault on customer privacy and data, and in my personal opinion, it should be taken as an opportunity for everyone and anyone to re-consider the benefits of going with an Apple-made computer and switching to the Mac.

It's no secret that in the cut-rate world of ultra-competive, cheap-as-a-feature PCs, manufacturers try to make up for the money they don't make from hardware sales by selling out their customers. These hardware insertions are typically called "crapware" or "adware;" not only does it junk up and slow down Windows PCs the world over, it also hurts the company's customers. They may think that they're getting a deal, but they're really the ones getting dealt.

If it sounds like I feel strongly about this, you're damn right. I can't count how many times I've had to help PC-using family and friends de-junk their brand new, sluggish Windows desktops — sometimes having to buy them new copies of the Windows OS to nuke and pave over whatever utterly unremovable adware and crapware the vendor installed.

What Lenovo did was far worse than simple adware or crapware insertion, however. The company didn't just add programs that slowed down your PC or encouraged you to buy antivirus software: Lenovo's Superfish adware hacked into HTTPS security within every web browser installed on an affected machine so that it could inject adware into even supposedly secure web sessions.

Worse, Superfish used an incredibly easy-to-crack password — a common dictionary word guessed in minutes — to "protect" the forged certificate they used for the hack. That password is now common knowledge, and anyone with one of the affected machines is now thoroughly unprotected on the Internet.

The actual danger to any specific customer is hard to assess: It could well be minimal. Your average user may not be a huge target, but a group with the same vulnerability can make a larger, more attractive en-masse target to hackers. Think about the kinds of websites protected by HTTPS security: Banks. Tax services. Healthcare information. Now, think about that information accidentally ending up in unfriendly hands.

Now, all software has bugs, and all bugs can potentially be exploited. That's a risk something everyone — on every platform — has to live with, and something every well-intentioned platform owner and vendor has to be ever-vigilant about discovering and patching.

But this isn't a bug, or a risk. What Lenovo did was deliberate. They didn't fail to find or fix an exploit. They intentionally created one. The company isn't the victim of hackers. They're the perpetrators of a hack.

When first exposed, Lenovo responded by saying it used the adware to try and create a better shopping experience for their customers, which is both disgusting and insulting. The company also said that there was no security risk — which is negligent and malicious. When pressed, a follow up admitted to the security concerns.

This isn't the first time a manufacturer has deliberately sabotaged its products to service its own ends. (Sony, famously, implemented Root Kits on their own customers to try and prevent them from enjoying their own music on their own computers.) And despite the inevitable fallout from Lenovo's massive misstep, it probably won't be the last time, either. Adware and crapware have become increasingly ubiquitous on OEM PCs, and declining industry profits may turn yet more vendors towards their worst angels.

Except Apple.

Apple makes its money up front. The company makes great products that provide far more value than they cost, and enough people feel that to way to have made the Mac the only current desktop and laptop success story in the market. The Mac's share keeps growing even when the PC market as a whole has shrunk. And it's beyond profitable enough that we, as customers, don't have to worry about Apple implementing any adware or crapware schemes anytime soon.

Just like with Apple's services, the company believes in selling the product, not selling out the customer.

Whether anyone chooses to trust in Lenovo's products again makes no difference to me — I'm using a Mac. My interests and Apple's currently align. I'm fine. Not having to wake up one morning to discover the company that made my computer has betrayed me is of enormous comfort and value to me — far beyond the cost of the device itself.

Apple isn't perfect, and there are certainly bugs and features on OS X and iOS that need to be fixed. But they aren't intentional, they aren't malicious, and they aren't out to deceive or trick customers into giving away their personal data. As of right now, today, the company is making privacy, security, and integrity not only a point of pride, but a core feature and value proposition of its product line.

And I bet more and more people take notice of that, and more and more people switch to the Mac.

What to do if you're at risk

If you're afflicted with Superfish, Lenovo has posted resources on how to remove the damage to your system:

• https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish
• https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish_uninstall

You wouldn't be faulted, however, for getting a clean version of Windows and reinstalling from scratch. Better still, if you have to run Windows, get a PC from a Microsoft Store that's adware free. Otherwise, seriously, consider switching to Mac.

• How to switch to the Mac

Windows PC owners are used to downloading an inordinate amount of free — and sometimes suspect — software from the web. One of our readers, and new Mac owner, B.N., writes in to ask if it's possible to do the same thing on OS X.

LibreOffice runs just fine on the Mac, but you may not even need it. New Macs include Apple's iWork suite of applications: Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

With word processing, spreadsheet and presentation capabilities, iWork provides similar functionality to some modules in LibreOffice. There are similar apps included in Microsoft Office, which costs money, or OpenOffice, another free software package available for download. Mac iWork apps sync with iCloud and sport identical functionality on iOS. But if you don't want to work with iWork apps, you don't have to.

You're running into a problem because Apple has employed safeguards to keep you from running malicious software accidentally: LibreOffice won't open because of the Mac's current Security & Privacy settings, which you control.

Apple will let you run the software you need. You just need to tweak the Mac's security settings. I downloaded LibreOffice from its web site, and when I opened it I got this error message:

Mac app security settings should only be changed if you absolutely know and trust the software you've downloaded. I verified that I got LibreOffice from its official web site, so I trust that this app is legitimate.

Only ever override these settings if you know and trust the software you've downloaded.

Notice at the bottom of the Security & Privacy system preference that there's an option to run software from anywhere. If you consider yourself a power user, you can change this setting by clicking the lock icon in the lower left hand corner. I'd use this with extreme caution, but you know your skill level best, so decide if it's worth the potential risk.

To override Mac app security settings

1. Click on the  menu.
2. Select System Preferences.
3. Click on Security & Privacy.
4. Make sure the General tab is selected.
5. Click on Open Anyway.
6. Enter your administrator password and click Unlock.

Go ahead and launch LibreOffice. It should open now.

Any trouble? Let me know.

When you switch to the Mac, it can feel disorienting at first. That's especially true if you've used Windows PCs for years. Adjusting to the Mac doesn't take long, but if you're used to finding certain applications, files, and system settings on Windows, it helps to quickly pick up their OS X equivalents. Here's a short glossary with all the essentials.

• Alt key: The Mac equivalent is the option key, which may be marked alt as well.
• Close button: The close button on Windows and OS X work very differently. The X, or close button on a Windows app will stop all processes associated with an app. The red close button on the Mac will only close that app's active window. To quit the app out of memory, go to the application menu and select Quit (or type command Q).
• Control Panel: On the Mac, that's System Preferences. Accessible from the  menu, the Dock or the Applications folder.
• Ctrl key: The Mac equivalent is the command key.
• Ctrl+Shift+Esc: This Windows shortcut brings up the Task Manager, which enables you to kill an app that's suddenly hung up or having a problem. We call it force quitting an application on hte Mac. The Mac command to bring up the Force Quit dialogue is command option esc. You can also click on the  menu and select Force Quit.
• File Explorer/Windows explorer: The equivalent is the Mac Finder. It lets you look at all the files on your Macintosh.
• Maximize button: We call it the Zoom button on the Mac. It's the green button on the title bar of many windows in Mac apps.
• Minimize button: The yellow button works the same way on the Mac as it does on the PC. Clicking it causes the window to shrink into the Dock. You can click the window icon in the Dock to restore it.
• My Documents/Documents: The Mac equivalent is the Documents folder. From the Finder, click the Go menu and select Documents (or type command shift O).
• My Music/Music: There's a Music folder in your user directory on the Mac, too. That's where iTunes keeps its library, and where other music apps often put their files too.
• My Pictures/Pictures: Look in the Pictures folder. The Pictures folder should be listed in the Favorites sidebar in any new Finder window.
• Notepad: On the Mac it's called TextEdit. It's a simple text editor that can read Microsoft Word, Open Document, Web archive, HTML, rich text and plain text file formats. Look for it your Applications folder.
• Recycle Bin: On the Mac, that's the Trash. You'll find it in the Dock.
• Shortcut: It's called an alias on the Mac. You create one by selecting an app, folder or file icon and typing command L or clicking the File menu and selecting Make Alias.
• Taskbar: The Mac has the Dock, which by default is on the bottom of your screen. You can change its placement to the left or right side of the screen using the Dock system preference.

If you've recently switched to the Mac, let me know how the transition went for you, and what you had the easiest and the hardest time adjusting to.

Lots of people — about half the folks walking in to Apple retail stores, according to Apple's own estimates — are getting Macs for the first time. Some are switching from Windows PCs, others have been drawn in by their iPhone or iPad. Either way, If you're buying your first Mac, you probably have lots of questions you want answered before dropping a significant sum. We're here to help. Even if you have a lot of experience buying Macs, you can save this link to quickly pass on to friends, colleagues, and family members.

The Apple Store

If you live near an Apple Retail Store, that'd probably be your first choice, and it's not hard to understand why. The stores look great, you can get your hands on the latest models, and innovations like the Apple Store app for the iPhone and Apple Pay make it trivially easy to get in and out quickly.

Unfortunately, not all of us live near an Apple retail store. The closest store to me is almost an hour away. And that's a lot longer than many people are willing to drive, just to buy a computer.

Apple's retail stores have proven to be an enormously popular way for people to get Apple products, but they're certainly not the only place where you can buy a Mac.

Big box stores

If there's a Best Buy at a mall near you, they stock Macs, though their selection won't be as good as the Apple Store. Still, they make for a convenient place to go, especially if you're happy buying a standard model without a lot of bells and whistles.

Best Buy's sport an Apple "store within a store" location where most of the Apple products (and many accessories that work with Apple products) are showcased. So just look around your local Best Buy until you see a glowing Apple logo, and head in that direction.

If you're lucky to live near a Micro Center or Fry's Electronics, those are good places to check too.

Independent resellers

Of course, Apple Retail Stores and Best Buy aren't the only places where you can buy a Mac. I'd also recommend consulting your friendly neighborhood Apple reseller. Apple works with a worldwide network of local resellers that are independently owned and operated, and these are often some of the best places to get really customized help and support after the fact.

Disclaimer: I work at one of these on the weekends, so my perspective isn't entirely objective. But if I do say so, we're a great resource for people who don't want to have to drive the hour or so to the closest Apple-owned retail store. We have a lot of really loyal customers that love having someone local, and appreciate our ability to help them and tailor support to their needs.

If you come in expecting to haggle over the price of the Mac, expect to walk away disappointed — local resellers won't be able to match the occasional discount on specific models you see online and in big box stores. They don't deal in the sort of volume that make those deals possible. What's more, Apple maintains a very tight yoke over its distributor network. So retail margins on Apple hardware are typically very small.

But local Apple-authorized resellers can and often do make deals to get your business with discounts on accessories or services that you can't match anywhere else, even at big box stores like Best Buy.

So if you're prepared to buy a package that includes the computer, accessories like a printer, external hard drive or networking gear, and AppleCare, you can often score a significantly better deal than you'll get either through the Apple Store or big-box retailers. Plus you'll be supporting a locally-owned business that put money back into the local tax base, so pat yourself on the back for being a good citizen.

Online

Millions of Macs are sold online every year through the Apple Online Store and through other mail-order catalog web sites.

Some of the businesses were around back before there really was a World Wide Web: Companies like MacConnection and J&R Computerworld, for example.

It's very important to check the credentials of wherever you're buying the computer from to make sure they're an Apple-authorized reseller, or you may have trouble getting warranty coverage after the fact. In fact, Apple actually maintains a list of authorized Apple catalog resellers{.nofollow}. Stick to the list to be safe.

If you're looking for a bargain, the Refurbished Mac section of Apple's own online store is the best place to start. Apple repackages (in white boxes) and resells Macs that have been returned, right from their web site. I've bought a couple this way and saved hundreds of dollars. What's more, the ones I've bought have been in pristine condition — you wouldn't know to look at them (except for the fact that they ship in white boxes instead of Apple's typical retail trim) that they're open box returns. And they come with full warranties and are eligible for AppleCare coverage, too. The only downside is that Apple doesn't have the latest selection and configure-to-order options, so you're limited to what's actually in stock.

Finally, if you're affiliated with an educational institution, either as a student or as faculty or staff, you can often score an educational discount via Apple's Store for Education.

Any questions?

Hopefully this will give you a leg up on your hunt for the right Mac and the right price, from the right retailer. I welcome any questions, comments or observations, so please let me know if you have anything you'd like to add.

A lot of the customers I help at the store I work at on the weekends are new to the Mac platform. There are three main reasons they switch: They are tired of the problems they're having with Windows PCs, they have an iPhone or another Apple device that they're happy with, and they have friends, family or other trusted people who tell them about their own experience. They also have a lot of questions. Here are some of the basics I cover with them.

It's worth understanding that about half the people who walk into an Apple retail store to buy a Macintosh are new to the platform. So you're not unique. Apple's invested a lot of time and effort to make the transition as painless as possible.

Don't Macs cost a lot of money?

Not really. You certainly can spend a lot of money on the Mac, but a basic Mac mini will only set you back $499. And that Mac model is more than enough for a lot of people. The Mac mini will let you re-use your existing PC monitor, keyboard and mouse, too.

Sure, you can pick up a cheaper PC, but I'd challenge you to find one in that price range that comes nearly as well-equipped as the Mac mini does — it includes the exact same suite of software included on every other Mac. What's more, the Mac mini doesn't include a lot of trial software or adware that's going to get in your way.

Isn't using the Mac more difficult than a PC?

There are a few things you're going to need to relearn, of course: The command key is like the control key on a PC. The option key works like the alt key. And the absence of a lot of mouse or trackpad buttons sometimes confuses PC users (more on that later).

But Apple knows that, so they've included help to guide your transition right into the operating system. If you click on the Help menu in the Finder, you'll see Get to know your Mac. Select it and you'll be brought to an Apple web page where you can learn more about how the Mac works. Clicking on the Help menu again, click on Mac Help then select New to the Mac? and see even more info that will be helpful to you. It's all there, built right in.

Do I have to use a special mouse/keyboard/hard drive/printer?

No. Apple's really good about making sure that commodity peripherals designed to work with PCs will work with the Mac too. External mice will be recognized as soon as they're plugged in, and contrary to the belief of some, the Mac does just fine recognizing more than one mouse button (it should recognize the right button as a "secondary click" right away, and many mouse makers these days also offer Mac drivers if you want to customize how it works). PC Keyboards are also work fine — the Mac recognizes them and asks you to type a couple of keys to make sure it knows where everything is.

External hard disk drives should be reformatted for the Mac using the Disk Utility found in the Utilities folder. And if the Mac doesn't have driver software for your printer already included with it, it can usually download the software from Apple's servers without any hassle.

But does Office work on the Mac?

Yep, Microsoft has made Mac versions of Office for many years. You can buy it outright, or if you prefer, subscribing to Microsoft's Office 365 program (for about $10 per month) will let you install it too. And Office is even available for iOS.

For casual users, there's less need for Microsoft Office now than there used to be, because Apple includes a very competent set of productivity apps that mimic some of the capabilities of Office — Pages is Apple's word processor; Numbers is Apple's spreadsheet app; and Keynote is Apple's presentation software (analogous to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, respectively). And all those apps can import and export their Office document counterparts. Up until 2013, Apple charged extra for those apps, but they're included with new Macs now.

Having said that, some people prefer to use Office because it's what they're used to. And that's fine. The choice is yours.

Do Macs get viruses?

Macs aren't as nearly susceptible as most PCs are to getting malware infections like viruses, trojan horses, keyloggers and other nefarious software. Most of that software is aimed squarely at security exploits that exist in Windows.

Apple has its own countermeasures for dealing with this sort of problem: anti-malware software called Gatekeeper, built into the Security & Privacy settings in the Mac's system preferences. Ordinarily, software can only be installed on your Mac if it's been downloaded from the Mac App Store, and Apple checks all that software to make sure it doesn't have these sort of problems.

You can override those preferences if you want, and that's how people with Macs typically get problems with "adware" — software that hijacks the web browser and redirects searches. So my recommendation is to not override the system preferences unless you really have to, and then, be very careful about where you download software from.

Some third-party companies make anti-malware software for the Mac. Ordinarily you don't need to run it, but it's there if you want to be extra careful.

I have an app that only runs on Windows. What do I do?

Although there are some apps that only run on Windows, there usually is an equivalent that runs on the Mac, so I'd shop around a bit to see if you can find an app (or ask here or in iMore's Mac Apps & Games forum).

The Mac runs OS X — a different operating system from Windows, so the same apps that run on your PC won't run on your Mac under ordinary conditions. But the Mac is quite flexible, and can be configured with software that will let your Windows apps run. In fact, Apple makes software called Boot Camp that will let you partition part of your Mac's hard drive for Windows, and use it accordingly. When your Mac is running Windows, it is a Windows PC, for all intents and purposes.

One downside to Boot Camp is that it requires you to restart your Mac each time you want to use Windows or OS X. To get around that, you can install virtual machine apps that will let you run Windows apps at the same time as you're running OS X. There's a free one called VirtualBox; there are commercial products including Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion. You can download the commercial ones and try them out before you buy them. Bear in mind that you will need a copy of Windows (and whatever Windows-specific apps you'll need) to install on your Mac, too.

Can I bring my data files over from my PC?

Yep. Easiest way to do it is simply to copy them onto a USB thumdrive or another device, then move that device over to the Mac and copy the files. Apple also includes an app in the Mac's Utilities folder called Migration Assistant which can copy the contents of your PC's user directory on the Mac; it works in conjunction with a Windows utility you can download from Apple's web site. (Migration Assistant works between Macs too.)

More questions?

I know I'm only scratching the surface here, so if you have other questions about switching to the Mac from Windows, let me know.

Switching from an AT&T iPhone to a Verizon iPhone and curious how to transfer all your information, apps, and data over? Luckily Apple makes this process almost painless thanks to iTunes iTunes. Click through for a couple easy steps that will ensure all your AT&T iPhone data and settings get transferred over to your new Verizon iPhone smoothly.

If you've ever had to swap an iPhone out at an Apple store, you're probably already familiar with this process. If not, follow these easy steps to copy data to your new phone. This process will save all your contacts, camera roll photos, apps, and settings into an iTunes backup for you.

1. Plug your current iPhone into your computer and open iTunes.

2. If it doesn't start to sync automatically, click the Sync button. (You can alternately right click your device name in the navigation bar and click back up as well. Either way will work just fine.)

3. Unplug your current iPhone and plug in your new iPhone.
4. You'll be asked to register your iPhone if you haven't already.
5. iTunes should prompt you to do one of two things, set up as a new iPhone or restore from a backup. Choose to restore from a backup and select the backup you just made.

6. Once the restore is done your iPhone will reboot. When iTunes detects it again it will start to sync back any apps and games your old iPhone had installed.
7. Let iTunes do its thing. When you come back, your new phone should have all the same settings and data as your old one!

If you guys are switching, let us know how transferring your data worked out! Any issues with things transferring or did everything go smoothly?

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