Funny, I’ve had the exact opposite experience. In college, I worked for the school of the arts computer lab where we ran both side by side, Macs were always more problematic. I now work in a Mac heavy, design centric industry where I’ve watched my colleagues struggle with issues I never have. Plus PCs generally cost less for the same specs and have many options for Wacom Cintiq style pen input touchscreens which are dreamy for producing any kind of digital art.
Other than those points we’ve almost reached the point where the most commonly used software is at parity and it really comes down to which OS you prefer. Except in the categories of serious 3D modeling or visual effects where the hardware flexibility of Windows PCs still rules.
Nope, it’s a straight download. At least on the Mac. And I believe it has a 30 day trial, maybe 2 weeks. I just use it to make the designs sometimes. It also helped me convert an .svg with a problem that would work.
I believe it’s a fully functioning free trial. But you have to set up a laser. It has all that stuff there and will walk you thru it during the install… just pick one, it doesn’t matter if you are just using it for the design functions.
Thanks everyone for the input! Sorry its been a while. We ended up going with a MacBook Pro, and now we are just trying to figure out what software we want to use. Is there anything we should look into before the glowforge gets here? Its almost time for it to ship, but we want to get a head start. Right now we have Inkscape, and GIMP. Its a ton of information to try and grasp, but were trying haha.
Those two will get you everything you need (and more) to start. Yes, there are lots of other things you can use, but I will suggest that you play with those until you can get comfortable. Follow the instructions at Your First Prints – Glowforge you can do the ones starting at #4 right now (skipping the printing part) - and then once you have your laser in hand, go through all of the steps (and you’ll have the advantage of already being familiar with them)