Is it easy to switch from Logos 4 from PC to Mac?

Having a reasonably sized Logos 4 Collection in PC format, I'm toying with the idea of changing my PC for a Mac but am not clear how easy (or not!) it is to switch to the Mac version of Logos. Is it easy, advisable and cost effective or should I just update my PC? All advice much appreciated! Geeked

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Ben

Pc to Mac switch on Logos? Very easy. I go back and forth between my Macbook and my old Dell desktop with few problems (all of which are a function of my network and the Alpha nature of L4Mac at this point.)

General PC to Mac switch? A little more work, but very worth it in my opinion. Not too difficult at all, depending on your age and familiarity with computers.

Cost? The only cost is that of buying a Mac. All your Logos books will transfer and the program itself is free.

TCBlack

Stephen,

Right now that is not as clear an answer as it should be later. [:^)]

Right now, the Mac is on Alpha 23 or something like that. There is speculation that this will change to beta's pretty soon now that feature parity is almost achieved. Once the Mac has run the course of beta's and has a gold release, it should be relatively straightforward and virtually seamless to switch back and forth between PC and MAC as far as Logos 4 is concerned.

At the moment however, the Alpha of the Mac presents some issues which are not in the PC version. (I do not know what those are, I'm just banking on the Alpha tag meaning something.)

That said, the physical act of switching should be as simple as installing the Mac version on your Mac, logging in and letting it download and index your books.

J.R. Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146115#Comment_146115

Right now, the Mac is on Alpha 23 or something like that.

Alpha 24 dropped yesterday [H]

Alan Macgregor

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146165#Comment_146165

Stephen

I made the switch (after 16 years of Windows) from PC to Mac in late October last year. The Mac takes a little getting used to but I found the Apple website videos helpful. If you live near an Apple store you can book tuition either group or one-to-one (I think you've got to purchase one-to-one when you buy the computer).

I have been using Logos 4 Mac for all my sermon preparation work since about Easter. Now I can safely do, even academic Biblical Studies work on Logos 4 Mac.

Alpha 24 really rocks – and there is even a Help screen now, accessed by typing Show Help in the Command Bar. It is pretty feature complete, with the exception of Notes and Handouts, and it is really stable in my experience. I reckon it will probably go Beta before the autumn (Fall).

If you switch to Mac you won't regret it. The Mac just works!

Every blessing

Alan

Stephen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146185#Comment_146185

Stephen,

The switch is actually easy for Logos 4. All you have to do is go your account and on the order page you should see the link to download the mac version (dmg file). Once you install Logos on the Mac it will download all your resources and index your library (it will take a while to index the first time, probably several hours if you have a large library). All you notes and everything else that the windows version synced with the Logos server will be synced with your Mac.

While the Mac version is still technically in Alpha version it does everything I need and should be in Beta relatively soon. The hardest part will be switching from windows to Mac as it takes a while to get used to doing things differently on a Mac (I actually find that almost everything on a Mac is easier than doing it in windows), but Logos is basically the same either windows or Mac.

God bless

Stephen

Stephen Thorp

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146219#Comment_146219

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I didn't realise that the migration from PC to Mac was so easy and straight forward, so now its just a case of saving up for the Mac! Thanks.

Donovan R. Palmer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146345#Comment_146345

Thanks to everyone for their comments. I didn't realise that the migration from PC to Mac was so easy and straight forward, so now its just a case of saving up for the Mac! Thanks.

I have over 18 friends who were long term Windows users that switched to OSX and not one of them has regretted it. After a disastrous experience with Vista, me and my whole family gradually switched over a year and a half ago and have never regretted it. In many ways OSX is more intuitive and it certainly is extremely stable, lean and mean.

Now as far as Logos 4 goes, I primarily use the Windows version under VMware Fusion on my Mac because the Mac version has not been feature complete. That said, Logos 4 Mac is making good strides and I anticipate this autumn that I will switch fully over. In my use of both though, I have had no trouble switching back and forth.

Matthew C Jones

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146111#Comment_146111

Pc to Mac switch on Logos? Very easy. I go back and forth between my Macbook and my old Dell desktop with few problems

Does the Logos 4 program sync bi-directionally across both paltforms without a glitch? I am slightly aware of the Mac Alpha issues in some of the features I take for granted in my Windows based L4. If I were to move to the Mac based Logos I would only go with a Macbook and "NEVER" abandon my stationary PCs.

Cost? The only cost is that of buying a Mac. All your Logos books will transfer and the program itself is free.

"Only"? I wonder what is really required for a happy experience. I don't want to ask the salesman in the Apple Store for obvious reasons but I would want to get hardware that wasn't over-taxed running Logos and needing upgrading next year. Macs are so expensive. I would rather order more Pre-Pubs than have a pretty laprtop.

I also have a concern the user experience won't be as interesting with everything hidden from view. (Have you ever seen those see-through TV sets they have in prison cells? You can see all the electronics inside. I like those!) When you drive across the country on the Interstate highways it is smooth but boring. If you ever crossed the USA on the back roads you will have an unforgettable journey. There is so much to see, it gives deeper meaning to the "You are 40 miles of bad road" saying by Judge Mills Lane. ............. I do still have the original Logos for Mac CD. It might be interesting to start with that first

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146485#Comment_146485

"Only"? I wonder what is really required for a happy experience.

My MBP worked flawlessly out-of-the-box.

I don't want to ask the salesman in the Apple Store for obvious reasons but I would want to get hardware that wasn't over-taxed running Logos and needing upgrading next year.

Why? I don't think Apple Store employees work on commission. They are there to help customers select the best resource for the money. I have a Mac Book Pro 15" with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 4 GB RAM that gives very good performance with L4 Mac and Windows under Parallels 5.

Macs are so expensive.

That myth has frequently been refuted.

Donovan R. Palmer

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/146485#Comment_146485

I also have a concern the user experience won't be as interesting with everything hidden from view.

L4 is designed on the premise of not giving users the ability to tweak the programme. Bob P. has mentioned this in several threads. If I recall correctly the reasons were:

1. Supporting this from a technical perspective is intensive. For example, for this reason Logos has not allowed "selective downloads" or updates. L4 just downloads everything that it needs behind the scenes. Another example would be that you cannot change where L4 stores resources like you could with L3.

2. There is some movement in the computer market whereby people just want a computer to work like an appliance. You turn it on and you just go to work with no fuss. It used to be that the computer market was dominated by geeks who made their own circuit boards, hacked code, etc.

I don't want to ask the salesman in the Apple Store for obvious reasons but I would want to get hardware that wasn't over-taxed running Logos and needing upgrading next year.

I bought my wife a quad core PC with all the bells and whistles expecting it would be our fastest computer yet. Unfortunately, Vista was a resource hog and to be quite honest XP would have been much more lean and mean. To add insult, my Macbook Pro which was not as powerful benchmarked faster on many activities. Her machine was as if we had bought a really nice pickup and put a motorcycle engine in it. Interestingly enough even though she does not usually care about her computing platform, within a few months she was insisting I go out and buy her a Mac. Had Windows 7 been out at the time, she might have wanted to say Windows based.

So whatever your preference is, look at how the operating system performs on the hardware and then look at how the specific software apps that you need will benchmark. My experience with L4 Mac and L4 Windows (using a virtual machine) on OSX is very, very good.