At work, I’ve been given the opportunity to use an Intel Macbook Pro 16” instead of a Dell.
I’ve got it setup (it has MDM installed too) and I’m ready to go, but using the Mac Microsoft apps for work and Onedrive feels very alien to me as it breaks my routines of the last 20+ years.
I’ve used Mac for very many years to for personal things, but never for.
Has anyone got any tips?
What are the routines you’re talking about? And can you incorporate the Office apps (I guess that’s what you mean with Microsoft apps?) in your routine?
That’s a good question.
I work in compliance, so my day to day can be quite document focused.
I’ve been using Microsoft 365 for the last 4 years (with OneDrive and SharePoint) and before that the various office apps saving files on windows server. Outlook especially has been crucial to my working process.
I’m all for learning though and stretching myself so the opportunity to do my job on a Mac is too good to give up.
I suppose I’m wondering if anyone else has made a similar change and may have any tips for how to manage the transition.
For several years, for various client-driven reasons, I needed to use the Windows versions of the Office products, but I wanted to use my Mac for the rest of my work. So, I ran Windows under Parallels and installed my Office subscription there. Including Outlook for “compatibility” with my clients. It worked out well.
Katie
Thanks, I’m actively looking to acclimatise to macOS for work, so I want to use the Microsoft products.
I switch beween Mac and Windows versions of M365 apps all week - when in the office I use windows versions and then two or three days a week when working from home I use the Mac versions (signed in with my work M365 account) and I can’t say I notice any friction or have to hunt around to find features.
For me the problem is hotkeys. In Excel I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts, and on the Mac they are often different than the PC version so that it messes me up every time I switch (such as autosum, Alt - = vs command - shift - T, which I can never remember). Also for Excel, it’s just not as zippy on a Mac. If I am doing anything more than data entry, I switch to a PC for Excel.
As much as I love Macs, for work, I would rather have a PC since my job is Excel/SAP all day, every day.
Our accounting manager wanted a Mac but had to run an add-on that only worked with MS Excel for Windows. So I took his Dell into our server room, and had him run it remotely with MS Remote Desktop. 
Our users were famous for messing up their virtual machines. And if they didn’t Apple would with some update or new version of OSX.
Since its Intel you could fall back to Bootcamp as a backup if it ends up not working out.
Thanks, but if I’m doing that, I may as well use a Dell (as much as I love Apple Hardware)
Yeah, use a Dell. I’ve been retired nearly 9 years, used personal Macs for about 20 years, but PCs at work going back to the 1980’s. Microsoft products just plain work better on Windows, and that shouldn’t surprise anyone! Not worth the fight. I sneaked in a Mac mini which I used stand-alone for documentation management at work. That was great, but if I needed a Word doc I used the PC.
I want to give it a try though. My understanding is that while there is still a gap, the Mac versions are a lot closer to their Windows bretheren then ever before
Just setting it up this week, I can have Omnifocus on the same device (instead of on my ipad and/or Omnifocus for the web which is a pale reflection of the native version) this is massive for me.
I have been successfully using a Mac computer as a Microsoft SharePoint Consultant for the past 10 years and am never going back …
While there are functions missing in the office apps specifically I never hardly ever experienced that as a real issue.
I collaborate on Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents, share documents with OneDrive, make appointments with Outlook and meetings with Teams. Connecting to Servers via the Windows App (aka Remote Desktop) anyways and scripting (writing Powershell) with VS-Code.
I hardly ever experienced the Mac to be an issue … quite the contrary when colleagues still stressed about hardware issues with their Dells/Lenovos and what not.
Combining that with Keyboard Maestro and shortcuts app I have found my dream setup for work 
.
What are your biggest pain points so far?
I’m not using it yet as my main computer for most work as I’m waiting for a couple of Thunderbolt docks as it doesn’t work with the USB C docks I have.
In my opinion, if your corporate Mac is has been “platformed” and includes the usual MDM stuff, MS Office and so on… you are better off with a Windows machine.
May or may be not your case, I see at least you can install your own apps so not everything is lost.
Timely! I was promoted a few months ago to a level at my employer that allows me to request a Mac instead of the default thinkpad laptops they issue. I asked for a MacBook and didn’t specify any requirements. A week later at my doorstep was a beautiful 16” M3 MacBook Pro with way too much memory. And in a dark finish that’s absolutely beautiful, though a fingerprint magnet.
It has MDM (jamf) but my it dept is transparent and documents what they monitor. The only limitation so far for me has been that OneNote on Mac is missing a lot of features. Other than that everything is so much better. I rely heavily on a handful of apps on setapp and unfortunately that required upping my monthly subscription to use it on multiple Macs.
Because this is effectively a trial, I’m having to hedge my bets a little that I may in future be handed a Windows Notebook again.
My trusty Dell K17a USB C dock which I’ve been using since 2020, and running a dual display setup on since earlier this year wouldn’t work with a Macbook (it only mirrored displays, and would flash about once a minute randomly), so it had to be replaced.
To ensure I could use both Mac and Windows in the future, I got a Dell WD22TB Thunderbolt 4 setup. I also needed a USB C to Displayport cable so I could run the dual monitors again (for some reason on a Mac, it won’t recognise two displays using a mixture of Displayport and HDMI, you have to run one via USB C from one of the Thunderbolt ports)
I thought I’d got a refurb Dell Thunderbolt 3 unit for about £97, but predictably that one didn’t work and had to be returned.
Tuesday was my first day going Mac only and there are definitely adjustments to be made around being productive e.g:
But on the whole no major red flags yet.
I have two more working days in 2024 next week, and then I fire into 2025. Fingers crossed.
I customize the word keyboard bindings to fit my needs, that made it easier.
Some light work in Keyboard Maestro for things not builtin to MS word.
I’m moving away from Word to writing mostly in Markdown. Rabbit hole warning.
Drafts and Obsidian have helped become very much used to Markdown. Now I like writing in it over MS Word because I can’t fiddle with the formatting.
I’m going so far as to switch our entire website 150+ articles; 170 glassary entries and a batch of sales pages to Astro and Markdown.
After two full weeks without pulling out the Dell, I’m very productive on Mac, with only two very annoying drawbacks:
I also hate the Touchbar. I don’t use the controls there, and I would regularly press F11 accidentally while typing, so the right 3 or 4 inches of the Touchbar are now permanently empty, and I use Fn to invoke the Function keys. I’d love one with Function keys instead.
The 16” MBP is LARGE, every time I carry it to a meeting room, I’m reminded just how big it is, The thinness is amazing though.
Even though I attach it to a dock at home and in the office, I use the MBP keyboard and trackpad as my daily drivers so I have 3 screens active (2 monitors and the built in display)
MS Office on the Mac is very good, my biggest annoyance is that OneDrive isn’t as integrated into Office on MacOS as it is on Windows, but that’s hardly surprising and it’s more than workable.
I’ve installed 1Password and TextExpander on the Mac (I also had them on Windows) Having OmniFocus on the Device I’m using all day removes so much friction from my life, given that I no longer need to note tasks in Obsidian during the day and transfer them to OF at the end of each day.
I’ve now got to hope that when this machine reaches the end of its workable life, I can persuade the IT team to buy a 13” MBA as a replacement.
Happy for you … it was the same for me when I switched to MacOS at work as well .
Regarding your External display and apps … could the bunch app be a solution for that? To safe „work environments“? I can’t say for myself as I’m not using Bunch but if I remember correctly you should be able to define application work spaces and start/arrange them with a click?
Sorry if I’m wrong about that app. Or could Moom4 be an option for that as well?
Maybe combine that with a KM macro that triggers when connecting to a external display and you might get quite an automatic solution?