What Operating System do you use when writing?

[brendancody]

I'm curious. I always had it in mind that anyone involved in writing or publishing tends to use a Mac. Perhaps it's just those stereotype creatives I see writing in trendy coffee shops, downing a macchiato, that always seem to be behind a glowing white apple. Is that the case, or am I totally wrong? What's your platform when you are writing?

 

[Emurelda]

The Mac tends to be lighter so that could be the reason for seeing so many mobile with it especially in trendy coffee shops .

I personally use windows. Although I have thought about migrating to mac just for the fun of it.

Haven't used linux since Uni days.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

What's a Mac? ;-)
Actually on rare occasions, the pen and paper does come out. If I could get to a stone circle or a castle without other people around I could get more productive, using either the laptop, or paper.... lol

 

[Marc Joan]

I was once a great Apple Mac fan, but got annoyed several years ago because their system was not compatible with so much of the standard software I needed to use. I gather that has changed now, but I see no need to go back to Apple, I'm fine with what I have & know. But they do look good....

 

[Brian Clegg]

I was a solid PC user for 20 years, but 3 years ago I cut over to Mac and it's just more fun to use - which for something you use every day is not a bad thing.

 

[James Marinero]

Need multiple votes - I use Windows and Android (linux derivative). I don't like Apple gear because it's SO proprietary.

 

[James Marinero]

What's a Mac? ;-)
Actually on rare occasions, the pen and paper does come out. If I could get to a stone circle or a castle without other people around I could get more productive, using either the laptop, or paper.... lol

Wot? No chisels and tablets of stone?

 

[Brian Clegg]

I don't like Apple gear because it's SO proprietary.

Funnily, I see that as one of its big benefits. It means everything just works as you expect it to work. I don't have to work out where every different program developer decides to put their app preferences, because I know it will be in the same place in the same menu, because they have no choice...

 

[brendancody]

Need multiple votes - I use Windows and Android (linux derivative). I don't like Apple gear because it's SO proprietary.

Android - I hadn't thought of that one. I suppose I was thinking of Desktop systems. Do you actually compose on a tablet? I've made notes on phone/tablet now and then, but always find the keyboard too awkward for substantial writing.

 

[Meerkat]

I use Windows. When I worked for a newspaper, we used Macs in the office, and I despised them. Still do.

I also tend to write my first drafts with pen and paper because a professor once told me that the brain fires better when you use a pen and paper. I have found that to be very true for me. Initially it was a way of getting around my self-imposed censor, because for some reason, when I write long-hand I don't preemptively judge the writing. But for self-editing, I have to use my PC.

 

[Karen Gray]

If I'd had the funds for a new mac when my G4 died I would have answered OSX... However... I did not. My i7 laptop is awesome though, happened upon it by pure fluke. Custom built 17" i7 with Bluray + dedicated graphics card... returned (cancelled order), 'factory refurbished' I paid about 1/4 of the original price tag. KACHING! Karen Gray, the queen of eBay strikes again It's great for writing and art stuff. When I was using the G4 it was kind of clunky for writing, but then it was an older model.

 

[Jennifer Stone]

I drafted the rough copy of my manuscript on traditional paper with pen, i got through 3 A4 notebooks (front and back). Got bought a lovely, if tempermental, Asus laptop with Windows 7 to type it up on.

 

[Alistair Roberts]

Wot? No chisels and tablets of stone?

Nar, too heavy, but not impossible ;-)

 

[brendancody]

Thanks everyone for chipping-in. I was definitely wrong on the Mac assumption!

 

[Brian Clegg]

Indeed - I'm feeling very lonely...

 

[James Marinero]

Android - I hadn't thought of that one. I suppose I was thinking of Desktop systems. Do you actually compose on a tablet? I've made notes on phone/tablet now and then, but always find the keyboard too awkward for substantial writing.

I'm just starting with Android on a tablet and phone purely for convenience, now have PC, phone and Nexus all hooked up to Cloud. Suits me because plot ideas and developments tend to come to mind at inconvenient moments and I'm no good with a moleskin notebook.

 

[James Marinero]

Funnily, I see that as one of its big benefits. It means everything just works as you expect it to work. I don't have to work out where every different program developer decides to put their app preferences, because I know it will be in the same place in the same menu, because they have no choice...

Converts to Mac (and I know a few) tend to be like people who have given up smoking - they become its strongest advocates. I just hate being locked in to anything and the Mac's lack of flexibility is anathema to (for?) me. Many years in IT behind me...including selling Apple IIs in the early '80s.

 

[Brian Clegg]

Many years of IT behind me too, James - I ran the British Airways PC department and I've used IBM PCs since 1984 - but Apple is so much better at interface, integrates far better with iPhones and iPad (both of which I also use) and, as I say, for a user as opposed to a programmer that closed garden is a good thing.

P.S. I have never smoked. ;-)

 

[Richard Sutton]

I don't like Apple gear because it's so infernally expensive! I also don't need to lovingly touch and stroke my workhorse office equipment. My PCs -- all of which have been built by me since the 286 processor -- are not "design statements". They work at my beck and call, give few headaches, and I always know who to blame if anything goes wrong.

 

[Brian Clegg]

That's the point, you see. These things are workhorses, things I use a huge amount - and I'd much rather the experience was uplifting rather than utilitarian.

 

[Richard Sutton]

To each his own, of course, but a great mind can render miracles from utilitarian tools... ahem... you. Not me.

 

[Brian Clegg]

Richard, the point is that if you are doing something day in, day out, you might as well do it the most enjoyable way. I just get a lift out of using the Mac that I never got from any of my many PCs.

 

[Stephen Drake]

As a programmer, I used PC's. And it gets to be a habit. You know where things are, or should be, and you kinda know what to expect. Last time I looked at a Mac, I had no idea how to get it to do anything. I do have an I-Pod (that took me a number of years to figure that out) and the wife has an I-Pad (which I find difficult at times). Everything has it uses, and I'm content with my PC.

 

[Diamond]

I hear ya, MontanaMan65. I'm a creature of habit. I basically learned how to use a computer on a PC. When I have to use a laptop, the different feel of the keyboard drives me crazy. And don't get me started on the mouse! I need the old-fashioned kind, separate from the computer, that you move around on a mouse pad, or I get all frustrated. Also, touchscreens pretty much suck. They get all smudgy and who wants to look at that all day?

 

[Stephen Drake]

I've used my wife's laptop a few times and got all screwed around with the keyboard and the mouse. Luckily, I had extras that I could plug in. The two times I tried reading a book on my wife's I-Pad, I noticed the screen being all smudged...gave me a headache trying to read through the smudges (I wasn't the one leaving smudges. I used the stylus).

 

[Karen Gray]

I hear ya, MontanaMan65. I'm a creature of habit. I basically learned how to use a computer on a PC. When I have to use a laptop, the different feel of the keyboard drives me crazy. And don't get me started on the mouse! I need the old-fashioned kind, separate from the computer, that you move around on a mouse pad, or I get all frustrated. Also, touchscreens pretty much suck. They get all smudgy and who wants to look at that all day?

You can still get that from a laptop. I use wireless mouse and wireless keyboard with mines plus a tablet for the graphic stuff I only really properly use it like a laptop when I take it to my mum's on the hop.

 

[Carol Rose]

I've had both Windows and Mac computers and prefer my Macbook. As for what I use to write, I have Word for Mac. Pages, Mac's word processing program, ends up creating formatting issues on the other end, even when the document is saved as a Word doc. And since Word is the industry standard… Haven't had a stitch of trouble using Word for Mac, and I write over 150,000 words a month now. My first Macbook lasted almost six years and I'm just over a year on my second one. Love it.

 

[Matnov]

The main drafts are on word which runs on Windows. Never quite understood why there is this whole Apple/Microsoft ding-dong and go for windows just because that is what I used first of all and it is what I feel comfortable with.

In terms of what I use when I am out and about well its a mix of Google Docs or Evernote. Evernote in particular has proven to be incredibly useful and I run it on my phone and tablet and its ideal for getting anything down quickly. You can use it with some fancy pants 'real' writing option on the screen but never been comfortable with that so if I want to get some ideas or notes down electronically then I go with Evernote and just type away. The free to use version serves me more than well and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

 

[Meerkat]

I agree about not being able to get used to Macs when you use a PC. A young relative of mine asked me to try to help him download something or other for his Minecraft game. I got so frustrated because I couldn't find anything on his Mac. We ended up googling and finding the answer, but it still didn't work.

I don't really care what my PC looks like or what have you -- my ex-boyfriend built mine, and it's pretty ugly, but I'm looking at the screen, not the tower. I've never even bothered to personalise the color theme or put a wallpaper on it, now that I think about it.

 

[Brian Clegg]

One way I do differ significantly as a Mac user compared with the stereotype coffee shop user is that I do almost all my writing on a desktop - as a non-fiction writer I need plenty of screen space to have several windows open at once, so I work on two 27" screens. In fact I don't have a laptop at all. If I need to do writing on the move, I find that an iPad (which now has Word etc) is perfectly good for any basic text entering/editing.