I’ve decided to give my reasons for liking the Macintosh. I have been a Macintosh lover since 1985. Aside from a brief stint of needing and using Windows machines, I am back now and loving it. But Why? I answer that question after the Break.
The first reason for liking the Macintosh is that it is built well. All of my Macs have lasted a long time. My Original 512 KE Mac still runs. My MacBook Pro is on year 3. The new Macs have lost none of that feeling of quality; aluminum unibody construction; very good lcd screens, and the new keyboards all give the impression of quality.
A second reason for liking the Macintosh is the developer community. The bar to development on a Macintosh is to own one, because Apple ships the development environment with the OS. This allows people to become developers with not much of an outlay of cash. This results in a plethora of programs that satisfy most people’s needs. This also leads to these programs being relatively inexpensive. EagleFiler, cornerstone of my work life now, is $40.
The third reason is that Apple has now filled out quite a large area of price points. You can have a full scale Mac for $600(Mac Mini), or a big honking workstation that could probably solve for the Unified Theory(Mac Pro.) I understand what people are saying when they speak about Mac’s being expensive, but I am buying quality and the whole Mac Experience. When I buy a Windows machine, I am buying a computer.
The fourth reason is the OS itself. I have yet to see a commercial operating system that seems as rock solid as the Mac OSX. Yes, I know that the underpinning of the OS is Unix, but it does not feel like Unix. It feels like a Macintosh. The Unix does contribute to the rock solid aspect of the OS, but I do like Apple’s veneer.
The last reason is a combo. The combination of the OS and the Closed System produces a computer that just seems to work. A friend of mine has kept his Mac on for over a year now without turning it off. He gleefully calls me up to tell me what thing he has done, that he never would have attempted with a Windows Machine. As he says “It just freakin’ works.”
These are the 5 reasons that I like the Macintosh. While I do not hate Microsoft, or Windows, I do think that Microsoft has lost it’s way. Apple seems to have found their way, again.
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