We are now using a new old computer, round, beautiful, black, and faster than our current equivalent PC. It offers better image quality and sound output without any noise. That’s the positive side. We also appreciate that Apple has not blocked printing functions for the manufacturer, as they did when your machine was nine or ten years old. Network management has also improved. Over Ethernet, the Mac Pro achieves our actual fiber speed, which was not the case with our Windows PC.

However, the rest of the experience was a 24-hour ordeal of failed application installations and apps that refused to launch due to Mac OS Monterey’s utterly absurd security system. Apple has made things extremely difficult for third-party software developers to force everyone into the Apple ecosystem. In this regard, Apple is worse than Windows, where such security features can be easily disabled.

The first victim was our Microsoft Office suite, which was impossible to install for 24 hours. I had to visit Linux sites to find a workaround that allowed installation. This is not something an average user could do; it requires a high level of expertise. It’s as complicated as using Linux when you step outside the mainstream! The nightmare continued until late this morning, even with our official version of Photoshop, which couldn’t be installed. The only advice from our contacts was to upgrade to the current version, which is too expensive. This situation led us to discover a not-so-bad and free application, Pixelstyle Photo Editor. Similarly, our audio applications, although compatible, could not be installed and were replaced by Ocean Audio.

Another disaster was the replacement of iTunes with “Music,” a complete failure—ugly, complex, and much less practical than iTunes. It took hours of struggle to get it to work. The lack of a DVD burner forced us to invest in a cute pink burner…

In conclusion, unless you are a computer expert, don’t venture into buying very old Apple machines. Apple intentionally limits very good machines like ours to prevent them from upgrading to Sonoma, which would have simplified our lives. Now that almost everything is sorted out, we will resume our album reviews on Monday. We would like to thank OWC for thoroughly checking this machine before shipping it to us in record time, and their professional conscience is commendable at every level.

Our return to Mac is thus very mixed. In many aspects, Windows 11 performs better, except for stability, file copy speed, and network management.

Thierry De Clemensat

Editor in Chief

Bayou Blue RAdio/Bayou Blue News