How would you convince a PC user to switch?

I switched my friend back when 10.2 was still out. All it took was a virus eating half his Windows HD and the promise of a better life. All I had to do was show him what OS X could do.

I don't have to say anything I just sit next to someone working on their Windows laptop, open up my Powerbook, and do my work. The person usually notices my efficiency thanks to the plethora of keyboard shortcuts and such. Of course once they notice how much more work I can do in the same time, they start asking me questions, I start answering, and baddabing baddaboom, they wish they had a Mac. I have switched at least one person through this method.

I've personally had a lot of luck with pointing to how much more SECURE the System, the internet and the email is with little or no viruses attacking or crippling users experience.
In my experience with windows switchers I have had to emphasize and re-emphasize to new users not to PANIC - nevertheless I even forget this at times. This highlights an interesting problem that I and my switcher friends have difficulty with overcoming and that is the ANXIETY factor of new technology and/or the new user interfacing with the different techno forms and add ons
I wish I had more ability to articulate or at least self reckoning to dialogue the anxiety factor from my psyche - but that might be too late now.

i'd tell them that all mac chicks are as good-looking as the girl in the switcher ad shown above (portia?). man, i loved that ad.

The conversation usually goes like this:

PC User: So how do you like your Mac?

Me: A lot. I've used every version of Windows, several types of Unix, several flavors of Linux, NeXTstep, BeOS, Plan 9 from Outer Space, etc, and this is the best user environment I've found on any platform.

PC User: What do you like so much about it?

Me: More stable, secure, and much greater attention to detail than Windows. Demo Launchbar, iPhoto, Ruby on Rails, OmniOutliner, OmniGaffle, Keynote, Pages, Coverflow, iMovie etc.

PC User: So should my next machine be a Mac?

Me: No. You strike me as a PC kind of person.

When my mom got around to buying her first laptop, I told her that if she bought the mac, she'd never know why she paid more for it, but if she bought the dell she was looking at, she'd quickly see why it was sooo much cheaper. It worked, she got an iBook later that day.

When my dad was asking about a laptop for his new business, I tried the same thing on him. He wasn't such an easy sell, being both broke and very unfamilar with computers in general. These words changed his mind: Buy a Mac, and you've got a chance of being disapointed; buy a pc, and you've got a chance at being satisfied.

He hasn't bought a laptop yet, because he's waiting till he can afford the mac he wants.... Just a few thoughts.

mpeng:

You do know about the MacBook Pro, right? The one with Intel Core Duo processors up to 2.16 GHz? :)

I'm very tired of 'convincing' Windows users to switch.

I have said it all, in the name of a sale, from 'Viruses? There are no viruses on Mac OS X' to 'All of your Office documents will open without an issue in Office Mac and your Outlook will transfer seamlessly to Mail and Address Book.'

For the most part, that's all true, except for the mail part. Usually it takes some comparison with what's available for PC at the time.
"Look, the Mac has longer battery life, built-in everything, etc. etc. and you get to use Mac OS X and all the wonderful tools that come with it."

I now figure, if they're at the point where Windows is an annoyance, they'll find out all they need to know on apple.com.

All in all, I'm sick of telling people about how great the Mac is. Hopefully some of you can pick up the slack.

#15 michael: You're acting like a child. Learn to deal with things in a more mature manner. How the hell did you burn in your screen? I would sure say that's 'customer abuse' and not covered under warranty. Don't blame Apple when the simple fact is that you don't know how to care for your own equipment.
Wahh! I screwed up my computer and now the company that made it is bad! Wahh!

In my wife's case - it's the iPod wot done it!

When we met, she was 100% PC, the Mac was the devil.

She wanted an mp3 player - I had an iPod but gave up trying to convince her to buy one, on being asked 'why?' there's only so many times you can say 'erm, 'cause it just works'. After that I'm stuck. Anyway, she bought a Creative. It stopped after a month. She got another. And another. And another. And then got an iPod. It's worked perfectly ever since.

In Denmark, it's tax-money back time at the moment, and Monday she arrived home with a Dual Core Mac Mini...plugged it in and said 'how do I get on the internet then?' I said 'not sure, maybe call the cable company...oh, hang on, if it's asking you to enrol for .Mac and it's saying your details are logged maybe...oh yes, you're on the Internet'. Then, we took her Windows formatted iPod, took all the files we'd transferred off the PC and put 'em on the Mac. The 'Switch' guide said we should re-format it. But we tried it on the Mac, updated playlists and Podcasts in the Mac iTunes and...

it just works.

Take my Dad for example... He bought an IBM Thinkpad (Pentium 2 400MHz) for $1200 last year after not listening to me about getting an iBook instead. It's now 3 months later and I tell him I will not reformat that freaking HHD full of viruses and spyware again! I bring a 14" iBook home from work to show him the seamless integration between the whole operating system and all the smooth apps, so he finally bought one.

Maybe I shouldn't have converted him.... All he does now is bloody iChat me asking me how to do stuff (he's a retard when it comes to computers...) oh well, at least I can take control of his iBook from Remote Desktop and show him how to do whatever he wants to do.

Ah Mac, where would I be without you???