Why I Switched (Back) to Mac
Saturday, October 23, 2010
In 1987 I bought my first computer, a Macintosh 512Ke, from my friend John McGuinness. I remember telling him that I had read in the paper about some new presentation software for the Mac, which interested me because I thought I could use it to make really nice transparencies for the overhead projector. He happened to have a demo copy, and so he tossed it in for me. The publisher was a company called Foresight; the program was called PowerPoint.But I digress.
I bought, I think, 2 more Macs; I was a Mac user through 1997. Then, because it seemed the whole world was on Windows, and because I needed Windows to use my work applications, I made the switch.
I never fully abandoned the Apple ethos though; my iPhone, iPod, and iPad bear witness to that fact.
The last computer I bought with my own money was a Dell desktop, back in 2004. So I was due for a new home machine. As I got closer to making a purchase decision-- having built several different alternatives online at dell.com-- I started to wonder if it wasn't time to switch back to a Mac.
Everyone I know who has made the move reports that they've never looked back. My wife has been a Mac user all along and continues to impress upon me that, well, they just work.
I started thinking about what I was going to be using my new computer for. Most of my work for, well, work, I do on my company-issued laptop (a mediocre Dell.) When I bought my last computer, in 2004, I was self-employed, so I had to consider both professional and personal use. But now, really, I just had to focus on personal use. So what did I need?
Well, sure, I would be doing some work on it, so I'd need Office. And Office 2011 is just out for the Mac, rendering cross-platform issues with office productivity moot.
Then, I figured most of what I would be using the machine for was music-- managing a large library on iTunes, downloading music, burning to CD, editing MP3 and Wave files, and so on. I use a pretty broad and esoteric battery of music tools on Windows (CD Wave, EAC, FLAC Front End, Feurio!, Nero, Bittorrent etc.) But I asked my music junkie friends online if rthere were functional equivilents for all this stuff on the Mac platform, and of course the answer was yes.
So now I had a decision to make: Mac or Windows 7.
Well, I was pretty comfortable with Windows XP; I think the consensus is, it was the best, most stable version of Windows since they went point-and-click. In fact I avoided getting a new machine after Vista came out, because I didn't want to deal with it. But the key thing about windows 7 in my purchase decision was, it is sufficiently different from XP (and sufficiently imitative of the Mac OS) that my familiarity with Windows wasn't going to be a deciding factor. i figured dealing with the Mac OS or with Windows 7 would be equally discontinuous, so Windows had lost it's advantage of inertia with me.
Then I started thinking about the last straw.
My Dell computer has two internal CD drives. All of a sudden, Windows stopped seeing them. I scoured the web, looking for advice. I tried this, messing with settings in the registry. No dice. I tried updating my drivers here. Nope. Nothing worked.
And really, that was it for me. I finally got fed up with all the continuous hassles you have to deal with if you use Windows. Things just don't work like they should. (By the way-- I got a new laptop from work last week. I've had it 9 days. Three times already it has wanted to start up in safe mode, and it still won't dock with my docking station, and no one can seem to figure out why.)
With Apple technology, you just hook it up, and it works. This piece of hardware sees that piece of hardware. You don't have to worry about some nefarious virus screwing up your entire system. You don't have to worry that, 6 years into owning you computer, the CD drives will become invisible and essentially lost to you.And of course, I can't wait to sync my Apple mobile devices (Pod, Pad, Phone) with the Mac desktop.
So I got the 27-inch iMac; it's scheduled to arrive Tuesday. I'll put up baby pictures when it's all settled in. Two Terabyte hard drive, to which I added an external 2 Terabyte drive for back-up (and have you heard about Time Machine-- the technology that automatically backs your Mac hard drive up onto your external hard drive ?)
Sure, I spent more than I would have for the same amount of computer running Windows. But really, so what? I'll keep this sucker a good 5 years, and it will work, and I will have less aggravation in my life.
I'm Josh, and ditching Windows 7 was my idea.
Labels: Apple, Apple customer service
Posted by: --josh-- @ 4:32 PM 1 comments
No One is Paying Me to Write This
Thursday, April 24, 2008
My regular readers (Yo! Shout out to my home girls!) know that I'm something of a music obsessive. I'm the guy who has the biggest iPod, because when I buy an MP3 player, I'm not looking to have something I can tuck snugly behind my ear for a workout; no, I want the 160-gig mofo (and indeed that's what I named it when I first synched it to iTunes; "My 160 gig mofo") so I can carry around 2,000 or sthereabouts of my favorite albums in my pocket. Because at any given moment I don't know which summer 2007 Ryan Adams concert I might want to hear, or whether I want to hear an obscure '70s Paul McCartney B-side or the new She and He record, or which live version of "Dreams" by the Allman Brothers will really hit the spot (which is why my iPod has 37 different versions.)
But the iPods with the big hard drives-- the "mofo" line, if you will-- have the kind of hard drives that spin, which is to say, the kind that crash with a lot of use. In fact the genius (not a sarcastic term-- that was the guy's title) at the Apple store said that for a heavy music user like myself, the mofo drives are probably not practical. The little iPods (e.g. the 4-gig models) have solid state hard drive technology, which is far more stable and thus durable to the kind of wear and tear to which I put an iPod. Not a week goes by that I don't add soemthing new, or create a new playlist; I listen during my commute; through a speaker dock in the office; going to sleep many nights; and on business trips.
Basically, the logic here seems to be, "Here's the iPod with the 160 gig drive, for music nuts like you. Using it, though, is ill-advised."
So this week, 8 months into ownership, mine crashed. It is my third crashed iPod.
But it turns out, this story has a happy ending. Because my wife took it to the Apple Store for me (she insists on doing these kinds of errands because she harbors the crazy notion that she is far less likely than I am to get frustrated, haul off, and slug someone) and the guy at the Genius Bar (see? I said he was a genius) said, well, it might well be crashed, and it is under warranty. So here is a brand new replacement, thank you, come again.
To quote my wife, when it is your turn at the Genius Bar, you get a highly skilled customer service interaction with someone who (here comes the quote part) "treats you like you are the only person in the world." How often can you say that these days about your interactions with customer service providers? (Are you listening, population of Bangaloor?) And this genius replaced my mofo, no quarrels, no muss, no fuss. He even wrote out for my wife how to deinstall and reinstall iTunes without risking losing my library or playlists, even after giving us the new mofo, in case the problem was actually with iTunes and not the hardware.
This, my friends, is great customer service. The kind you never get anywhere anymore. The kind they write those predictable inspirational business books about.
So thank you, genius. Thank you Apple. It's why we love you.
I'll be back for my iPhone in June, when they sync with Outlook (or more likely, my wife will be.)
Labels: Apple, Apple customer service, customer service, iPod, the missus
Posted by: --josh-- @ 3:57 PM 2 comments
