Why I'm Returning My iMac

What a terrible article. The author bought a Mac, expected it to work exactly like a Windows PC, and then returned it when it didn't. Somehow this is Apple's fault. Some choice bits:

  TextEdit, essentially a stripped-down version of Notepad.
  The program had an excellent array of font options, like
  "Bigger" and "Smaller."

Does Notepad have fonts at all? And, who uses Textedit as a Word processor? Does he use Notepad as a word processor?

  I began to miss my old, five-button mouse.

So plug it in. OSX supports USB mice just like anything else, out of the box. I've never understood people who complain about this.

  unlike a PC, the Mac wouldn't let me move files to and
  from my external drive, only copy them.

I don't even know where to begin.

  The final straw came when Mac's Firefox took me to my
  website. To my horror, all the spacing was askew, the
  graphics tossed left and right like the wreckage of a
  hurricane.

And this is Apple's fault... How?

I can understand the guy writing this, but I can't understand his boss agreeing to publish it.

Interesting and horrifying read outlining the oft documented reaction of a true luddite to unfamiliar technology. And then I got to this:

I asked myself: As a web designer, how can I design web pages when I can't see what 90 percent of my viewers are seeing?

WTF?

So a guy buys an iMac on a whim, struggles to accommodate, returns it, writes an article complaining, and gets front page HN coverage?

Imagine if people did this with every Windows computer they returned...

Anyway, computers are just another tool, like programming languages and text editors. Sounds like this guy just had some really high expectations for iMacs or something and all of a sudden reality got a hold of him and shattered his dreams. It's just a computer, move on.

The author seems to have bought a Mac without doing any research on how to make the transition. Regrettable, but not exactly a failing of the Mac.

I think this is a really good article for people who don't want to switch from Windows to OS X and still want to be convinced they shouldn't switch.

My personal favorite - "For a second I thought, well, I could load Parallels, the Mac OS program that allows you to run Windows applications on your iMac. But that plan was squashed fast. Before I could complete Parallels' installation, it asked for a copy of the Windows CD. I shook my head in disbelief: where the hell am I going to get a copy of the Windows CD? And if I need Windows to perform basic functions, why don't I just get a PC with Windows already installed?"