The Cult of Mac
Somehow, I’ve become a “switcher.” Yup, a pretty little Mac Mini has replaced my old beige PC.
I have been a PC user since I took my first "real" computer with me to college some fourteen years ago. Prior to that day, I had stubbornly (and cheaply) explored the world of computers via my trusty old Commodore 64. The C64 got me all the way from Junior High through High School with only a few minor speed bumps along the way.There was the episode with that pesky disk drive which literally began smoking one day and nearly melted one of my precious 5 1/4" floppy disks and there were numerous episodes of document writing that were some what comical due to the peculiarities of writing on a screen that could only display 40 characters per line. But the trusty C64 was for the most part a faithful partner.
Time has eased the wounds of the learning curve I faced back then in those early days. The memory of the PC learning curve has also faded, but a few small scars still remain. But for the last few years my geek eyes have been wandering to this mystical thing called a Macintosh.
I'm not exactly sure when it started. My only contact with Macs in college was usually quite disastrous and frustrating. When entering the computer lab the worst possible scenario was to find the room packed full of students hovering over computers waiting for an opportunity to pounce on the precious computing resources. Except, for reasons that seemed obvious at the time, the small bank of Macintosh computers which usually sat idle, collecting dust and looking pathetic. I would stand just inside the door to the computer lab looking anxiously at the invaders from Apple, wondering how desperate I was for computer time. Was it worth my time to fumble around on the Mac or just wait for a comfortable PC?
More often than not I choose to wait. But on a few rare occasions I tried to get my work done on one of the pesky Macs and those episodes always drove me back to my PCs. I still remember a particular episode where I was working with a small group of classmates on some sort of group writing assignment and watching the guy at the keyboard reach up and press the 'Eject' button to retrieve his floppy disk and the horror in our eyes as the 'Eject' button turned out to be the power button.
Why on earth the "designers" at Apple thought a power button belonged that close to the disk drive is a question I may take to my grave. Of course, a "Mac" user would have known that you would never do something so archaic as press a button on the actual machine to eject a disk. Obviously, you drag the disk icon from the desktop to the trash-can. Obviously!
Clearly, Macs were stupid and only stupid people used Macs. People who were satisfied with only one mouse button. People who didn't mind playing video games that were over a year old. People who didn't want to learn anything new.
I did encounter a few Mac advocates over the years in person. But they were usually artistic folks who clearly used a different side of their brain thus their testimony did nothing to convince me that the Mac held any use to me. Or they were teachers who only had Macs at their schools thus that was all they knew and they didn't have any time or desire to worry about computers anyway.
These encounters further instilled the notion that Macs were not for me and held no value to me.
But somewhere along the way, my mind opened up to the idea of Macintosh computers. I think perhaps the first breakthrough was the release of Mac OS X. OS X, if you are not familiar with the name, is the latest flavor of the Macintosh operating system. I think officially it is version 10.3 (and counting) of the Macintosh operating system.
OS X caught my attention for several reasons. One, it was built upon Linux (a flavor of Unix) and yet it retained a very sophisticated user interface. Two, the screenshots of the user interface were amazing to see. Three, the reviews and commentary were amazingly positive.
In the years leading up to OS X, I was almost completely unaware of anything Apple was doing. Apple computers were for artists and musicians and held no relevance to my life. Suddenly, I couldn't ignore Apple's existence anymore. They were everywhere.
Then, they started releasing all of these really cool looking computers. Time after time they released designs that could not be ignored. Every time a Mac appeared in a TV show, you knew immediately what it was even if the camera just flashed by it.
I was very interested to learn more but it still didn't cross my mind that I could actually purchase a Mac. I was still stumped with the question of "what would I do with a Mac?"
Then, Apple started opening their Apple stores. Then the iPod came out. Suddenly, I just had to walk into the Apple store whenever I was near by just to gawk at the pretty toys. iPods, iMacs, huge flat panel monitors. My geek senses were overwhelmed.
Most of the time, I had no idea what to do when I walked into the Apple store. I just stood around and looked. Occasionally, I would grab one of those darn one button mice and click on the fancy Dock and watch the icons flash across the screen. But most of the time I felt like a Chevy Cavalier driver sneaking a few moments in the drivers seat of a Porsche at a car show. Letting out a few oohs and ahhs, delicately touching the steering wheel but afraid of that my hands would somehow soil the delicate machinery.
But then one glorious day, my sweet wife bought me an iPod. It was then that I discovered that Apple had recently released a Windows version of iTunes. At last, I could "experience" Apple software right there on my PC.
I love my iPod, but I think it was iTunes that really pushed me over the edge. iTunes is, in no way, a perfect application. But my experience with music players on the PC up to that time had been basically limited to Microsoft Media Player (gag!) Music Match, and the ever hideous Win Amp.
Win Amp, in particular, had scarred me early on. I'm sure it is a fantastic application, but the UI had always befuddled me. The "skins" were neat, but I could never figure out which button to click to do what I wanted and the playlist management was always challenging just to find much less use. I knew people who loved Win Amp and claimed it was very cool. But it was always so difficult to use that I never could take music on the computer seriously.
But iTunes, for some reason, really clicked with me. Every time I used Win Amp or other applications of that ilk, I usually ended up fiddling with the amplifier settings until I was bored and then turned it off. To this day, I don't know that I've ever messed with any amplifier type settings within iTunes. Actually, I'm not sure there are any such settings. I assume they exist, but I was never inspired to fiddle with the settings.
Why? Because iTunes excels at the one thing no other music player had done well for me: displaying the available song list and finding the music you want.
iTunes was immediately my favorite music application and Apple had my attention for sure. With this successful venture into the Apple world in my pocket, I returned to the Apple.com site and began reading anew about Mac OS X and all of their sparkly computers.
The more I read, the more I was hooked. Every time I had a computer problem at home, I found myself muttering that I should just get a Mac. Every problem that arose I concluded would be easier solved with a Mac. This, of course, is classic geek logic for purchasing new computer toys.
Geeks world wide use this type of reasoning to justify all kinds of purchases. A few years ago this form of logic justified the purchase of a rather expensive PDA that now rests safely in a desk drawer. An array of keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, cameras, software etc. is hidden in the closets of geeks across the world who continue to seek the one piece of technology that will finally work as advertised and solve all of those pesky technology problems.
Then, last year Apple released the iMac G5. My Mac obsession escalated rapidly. Working against me was the still substantial price of the iMac and my relatively recent upgrade of my home PC which continued to function quite well despite my mutterings about it.
Then, early this year Steve Jobs took my last remaining excuse for not trying a Mac and crushed it beneath his feet. Apple announced the Mac Mini. A $499 Macintosh.
My poor wife then endured endless conversations about the Mac Mini. I'm not sure if I actually convinced her that the Mac Mini was a good thing or if she was beaten down and desperate to end my ramblings (I'll choose to believe the former) but a few weeks ago I became the proud owner of a Mac Mini.
In college, everything about a Mac seemed stupid to me. Today, everything my Mac does is worthy of a trip downstairs to report yet another feature that makes the Mac cool, smart and well designed. I'm still not sure how to explain how my bias transferred from one extreme to the other. And I'm not sure if the Mac really is that cool or if I'm just blinded by my love but I find it difficult to restrain myself from telling everybody I meet that the Mac is the greatest thing since Tivo. (Note: Tivo crushed sliced bread as the standard bearer several years ago.)
However I got here, I'm proud to say that my home PC has been retired. The hard drive that once served up Windows XP has been formatted and now resides in an external USB drive which hosts my iTunes library for my Mac. Just in case I have to bring back my PC, I still have a drive with my old installation of Windows 2000. But if all goes well, I'll never need that drive again.
It has only been a few weeks, but so far my life as Mac user is almost all smiles. There are still a few things that puzzle me as I try to learn to think Mac like rather than the old Windows way. But, my opinion of the Mac has increased with use and I see no reason to expect that trend to change any time soon.
Stay tuned as I'll be back with some articles discussing the transition to a Mac and comparing the good and bad of the PC and Mac.
Posted by on 03/06 at 07:06 PM