Emphasis on the IMO. The experience is unique for every individual.
I switched to a Mac about four years ago, and I can't stand task switching in Windows/GNOME/KDE.
- Menu location: Having the menu at the top of the screen actually makes it easier/quicker to click (see Fitts' Law).
- Context switching: Context switching on OS X has more granularity. The up-sides of this are similar to the up-sides of tabbed browsing. Think about it for a moment. What's so great about tabbed-browsing? You can group windows and switch between tabs with ctrl-tab. On OS X, you have even more granularity:
App switching: cmd+tab
Window switching: cmd+~
Tab switching: app-context dependent cmd+<shift/opt>+arrow or ctrl+tab
My biggest complaint is that there is no consistency to the tab switching shortcut.
When trying to find a window in an environment where there are lots of windows, Expose is one of the rare times I find the mouse faster than the keyboard. I have key bindings for app and system-wide Expose, so depending upon my needs, I'll switch to the app containing the document and app-Expose, or I'll just use system-wide Expose.
It's more complicated, but when I use my computer, I feel like I'm playing an instrument. My muscles know where to go for any given task, and I can move around very quickly.
Menu location: Having the menu at the top of the screen actually makes it easier/quicker to click (see Fitts' Law)
While I see that this is true for smaller monitors, it becomes less true with today's large monitors. When I have a small window on the lower-right part of my large monitor, it becomes a hassle to move the mouse all the way over to the top-left of the screen, select my menu item, and then move it all the way back to the lower-right of the screen to continue working on what I was working on.
A note on tone: I don't mean for this to be a tit-for-tat. Just sharing things that work for me, so hopefully they'll benefit you :)
I work on a 24" display running at 1920 x 1200, so I've definitely experienced that long run to the menu bar. This is compounded by the fact that "Maximum" mouse speed on a Mac is a snail's pace compared to what I used to use on a PC. I grabbed a little utility called MagicPrefs to fix that issue:
Outside of that, I've always been a keyboard junkie. There isn't much you can't do from the keyboard in OS X, and if you discover something you can't OS X has really robust Keyboard Shortcut customization. You can literally create or re-map any shortcut in any application from System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.
- Menu location: Having the menu at the top of the screen actually makes it easier/quicker to click (see Fitts' Law).
I used to keep my Taskbar at the top of the screen in Win XP and Vista. Now, with the ubiquitous widescreen monitors, I keep it on the left-hand side, and wouldn't go back.
I switched to a Mac about four years ago, and I can't stand task switching in Windows/GNOME/KDE.
- Menu location: Having the menu at the top of the screen actually makes it easier/quicker to click (see Fitts' Law).
- Context switching: Context switching on OS X has more granularity. The up-sides of this are similar to the up-sides of tabbed browsing. Think about it for a moment. What's so great about tabbed-browsing? You can group windows and switch between tabs with ctrl-tab. On OS X, you have even more granularity:
App switching: cmd+tab
Window switching: cmd+~
Tab switching: app-context dependent cmd+<shift/opt>+arrow or ctrl+tab
My biggest complaint is that there is no consistency to the tab switching shortcut.
When trying to find a window in an environment where there are lots of windows, Expose is one of the rare times I find the mouse faster than the keyboard. I have key bindings for app and system-wide Expose, so depending upon my needs, I'll switch to the app containing the document and app-Expose, or I'll just use system-wide Expose.
It's more complicated, but when I use my computer, I feel like I'm playing an instrument. My muscles know where to go for any given task, and I can move around very quickly.
Much better, IMO.