I’m a fairly recent convert to the Apple religion.
Now, I’ve USED Apple computers for decades. My first computer was an Apple II, and I’ve used almost every iteration since, but until I bought a MacBook Pro a year ago, I haven’t owned an Apple since the II.
I started to get the itch when Apple released OS X. I’ve been a UNIX and Linix geek since ’92 when you had to download Linux on floppy disk images from BBSs. I really liked the idea of Apple’s killer interface on UNIX stability. At the time I was running Linux on a Thinkpad as my main computer, and I always said my next computer would be a Mac with OS X. (I’ve been virtually Windows free since 1999) I didn’t realize my Thinkpad would last for six years.
Finally, about the time Apple announced the switch to Intel, my beloved A20p with the 15 inch 1600×1200 display wasn’t cutting it any more. When the new MacBook Pros arrived I bought one.
Nirvana.
Then I bought Monkey a new 20 inch iMac for her sixth birthday. She loves it, and it’s a credit to Apple’s interface design that a six year old who can barely read has no trouble at all using the iMac. She watches movies, plays games, uses iChat to call me for a video chat and plays music on iTunes. She likes it so much she has to pried away from it.
That led to Wife complaining about her computer.
Now Wife is a technophobe. We’ve owned the same stereo system for 14 years and she still can’t find the power button. My best gift to her was a video iPod – No on/off button. She thinks it’s the greatest thing ever created. Her computer at the time was a craptacular Dell notebook running Fedora Linux. She only used email and Firefox.
But it was old, so I offered to buy her a new computer. As long as it was a Mac.
So now she’s a happy owner of a shiny white MacBook. She’ll never be able to use her Mac as well as Monkey can, but for a technophobe it will do.
Which finally brings me to the iPhone. I want one. Bad.
I don’t care if it’s EDGE only, my current phone is an HTC Apache on Verizon and I hardly ever use the EVDO data. That’s what the EVDO card in my MBP is for.
You see, the one “insanely great” thing Apple has going for it is their shit works. It just works.
It works for a six year old and it works for a technophobe and it works for a computer geek.
