I used linux-based computers for many years, but recently switched over to Mac OS X and have come to really like it.
Unix: Mac OS X is built on top of Unix. You can open a terminal window and get a Unix command line. Unix handles multitasking particularly well. I can be running a long numerical job in the background and still type up papers, answer email, surf the web...not always in that order. I've been told that even in current versions of Windows, long jobs in Matlab completely tie up a Windows computer, which is just crazy. Also, it's nice to be able to log in to my computer remotely via ssh.
Security: There are very few Mac-specific viruses, and I've heard of very few other security issues that weren't addressed fairly quickly. Both the software update feature and the built-in firewall in Mac OS X seem to work fine. Occasionally a security update will require rebooting the computer, which is typically not the case in linux.
Peripherals: everything I've plugged in worked immediately; I haven't had to mess around with drivers or do any special configuration.
Consistent Interface: most software in Mac has a consistent menu organization and keyboard shortcuts. This is hugely important for getting things done without lots of mental switching costs.
PDF Support: Mac OS X has PDF built in, so it is easy to create and view PDFs without any special software. Every program that can print, can print PDF files. This apparently is not the case in Windows.
Applescript: Mac OS X has a nice built-in scripting feature that allows you to write simple code to automate repetitive tasks. The language is much easier to read than unix shell scripts (which you can still use, of course).
Expose: suppose you want to select a particular window that's hidden underneath a bunch of other open windows. You can hit a certain key, or mouse over to a particular corner of the screen, and all the windows shrink temporarily, so that all of them are visible. Click on the window you want, and it pops to the top.
People sometimes tell me that they would switch to Mac but it doesn't have the software they need. I haven't really found this to be the case for the kind of work I do. I have Microsoft Office, for opening files other people send me. Standard statistical/mathematical programs like Matlab, Mathematica, Stata, R, and Gauss are available for the Mac. One program NOT available on the Mac is SAS.
One program that is not available for the Mac is Scientific Word. I don't use it myself. I tried it a while back, but found that I preferred using latex. It does seem to be quite popular with economists however. If you absolutely have to have it, you could use Parallels desktop to run a Windows session inside of Mac OS X. There is a neat, free program called TeXMacs on linux and Mac which is like Scientific Word, except that it uses the 'real' latex fonts so that mathematical expressions appear exactly as they will print out. There's also LyX , which is similar to Scientific Word in that it displays equations but not in the same font it uses for printing. I've tried both, but find that I can type latex documents much faster.
LaTeX: TeXshop is a free integrated editor/latex front end. Hitting command-T compiles the latex source and displays the resulting PDF. It has a useful keyword completion feature: type the first few letters of a latex markup, hit ESC, and it will fill in the rest for you.
Darwinports: The Darwinports project provides lots of additional unix utilities and software packages for the Mac. It's a good way to get the free Matlab-like program octave.
Quicksilver: It's hard to describe quicksilver succinctly, but the idea is that it lets you open applications, and do other useful things with a few keystrokes. You type command-space, then start typing the name of the application/file/web bookmark/iTunes song you want to open. Quicksilver narrows down the possibilities with each letter you type; once it's got the right one, you can hit return and off you go. Usually it only takes a few letters to find the right item, so it's very efficient.
For another description of quicksilver see this article.
There is a nice tutorial on quicksilver here.
Text Editors:
There a a number of good text editors for the Mac, including VIM, a really poweful editor based on the classic unix vi editor, and Aquamacs, a nice version of Emacs for the Mac.
Some other good Mac-only text editors include Textwrangler and Textmate.
Mail: Apple's included Mail client works fine for me. I use IMAP, so the mail stays on the main mail server, with cached copies on my local computer so that when I'm off the network I can still read old mail. Mail integrates nicely with the Address Book program.
Web browsers: I like both Safari, which comes with Mac OS X, and Firefox, the free open-source browser that's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox has tabbed browsing, good pop-up blockers, and fine-grained cookie control. The adblock plugin allows you to block banner ads based on rules. Safari is elegant and seems to work better for some web sites, but doesn't have quite the feature set as Firefox. The PithHelmet extension ($10 shareware) provides very convenient ad blocking.
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:: Keisuke Hirano