I keep coming back to Macs. Surely, there is enough pain and sorrow
associated with these Jobsian things, I say to myself, but a voice
inside always overrides in the end.
I got my first Mac in 1998 when I started my masters program in
microbiology. They were selling shiny new space-cadet-helmet-shaped
iMacs at the school
bookstore. I must admit that it wasn't Apple or the iMac itself that
attracted me, but rather my growing distaste for Microsoft. I had
gotten tired of the constant crashes, blue screens of death, "kernel
error blah blah blah," the bland graphics, the horrid driver conflicts,
the IRQ shuffle, the jumper plays, and so on. But given the complete
dominance that the PC had over the personal computing world, I had no
idea then that many other people had become just as fed up as I
had.
In all honesty, my relationship with the iMac was bittersweet. First
of all, everything was "backwards." I mean, the Start Bar that resided
at the bottom of a Windows screen was replaced by a Menu Bar at the top
of the screen; application switching was from top to bottom instead of
left to right; icons were placed on the desktop from the right instead
of from the left (later I would learn that Microsoft had simply adapted
Apple's ideas, and not the other way around). But there were more
serious problems. The USB system constantly crashed, my hard drives
would spin forever without the Mac OS giving me control of the desktop,
and applications would freeze suddenly and for no reason (later I would
discover that a USB patch and an extra 32 Mb of RAM solved 90% of the
problems). Most problematic of all, my iMac could not read and write to
the latest .doc and .xls files sent to me by professors, fellow
students, etc.
I came close to simply tossing the Bondi blue out the window. But I
stuck through, committed to finding a workable path around the ogre
that was Microsoft. With the exception of IE and the terrible Umax
1220U extensions, crashes are now minimal (I've tested this by turning
these extensions off - unfortunately, I need them on). This is not to
say that all is rosy with my iMac. I've still got a problem with a
strange, incompatible line level mic-in jack that is infuriating; MS
Office documents occasionally don't translate properly (even with
MacLink Deluxe); games are always half a year away; I often can't use
services like Dialpad to make free or low-cost voice calls; many
Internet sites don't render properly, even on IE for Mac!
So why do I keep coming back to Macs? I guess I like the look, the
feel, the concept of Macs. The clean, uncluttered, elegant, Zen-like
process that permeates Mac usage. Beautiful curves, soothing colors,
and steady performance (with a few exceptions). I like the fact that
Macs are not something everybody uses. I like the fact that Macs
are not produced by Microsoft.
Need there be more reasons?
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
