Two years of Mac

Today (August First) marks the second anniversary of my first, and to this day, only, mac. In those two years I have become what some would call an ‘avid user’ and others would call a ‘lunatic obsessive fanboy’. I have gone from not knowing who Steve Jobs is, to believing he is the supreme ruler of all things worth having (To prevent an onslaught of angry comments, I would like to take this time to mention that that was a joke, and that I am fully aware that Steve Jobs is no more than a visionary CEO). In these past two years, I’ve started writing software, making videos, blogging, 3D animating, and designing, not to mention becoming a part of the mac community. Regardless of how very geeky is sounds, I admit that the mac has changed my life.

There is a never-ending battle between Mac enthusiasts and Windows enthusiasts on the Internet (Which, for some strange reason, occupies about 99.748% of comments on digg*). This battle will never end, there will never be a definite winner, and nobody will ever switch platforms because of it. Honestly, Windows is great for a certain type of person, and Mac is great for a different type of person. People who game a lot, or who only use their computers to surf the internet, will be just fine with Windows. People who want to be more creative, or want an elegant, pretty (let’s not forget shiny) computer, will want a Mac. Oh, and let’s not leave Linux out of this, Linux is for people who believe technology should be completely open, or who just want to show off their geekiness (Again, to prevent an onslaught of angry comments, I would like to take this time to point out that these days linux is actually no more geeky than Windows or Mac, distros like Ubuntu and Suse are very polished and starting to become mainstream). So, why do I bring all of this up? To show that Apple fanboyism is, in fact, deeper than just a love of all things shiny. It’s about who you are and what you want to do with your computer. So why does mac have such a community of fanboys while windows really doesn’t? It’s because, for the most part, the people who use Windows use it because, well, that’s what everybody uses. Most people who use Macs had to make a decision to switch from Windows to Mac, so Mac users chose to use a Mac while most Windows users just sort of have to use Windows.

So why do I bring this up? Really I’ve just been thinking about it a lot. All of the bad press that Apple has received about Microsoft-esque screw ups, DRM, and closed environments have forced me to step back and consider why I like them so much while loathing Microsoft. Maybe the answer is best summed up in Apples motto: “Think Different”. They “Think Different” and create innovations, the key to their success, they tend to be the leader, while others follow. They “Think Different” about how a computer should look and work, and what it should do, and so their users are the ones who “Think Different” from normal users. Maybe this is all over-analyzing, but I figured on the second anniversary of my fanboy-ship, I’d share some of my thoughts.

Now to be kind of hypocritical. I’d like to share some of the great things I’ve noticed about mac, aside from the general look and feel of it (which could be seen as trying to convert Windows users to Mac, which would pretty much go against what I just got through saying, also it goes against my theory that I just like it because it does the stuff I want it to do, I would like to point out that A: I am not trying to convert a Windows fanboy into a mac fanboy, I’m trying to convert people who are thinking of switching to a mac but aren’t quite sure and B: These are not the reasons I switched to mac, or why I love it, just some nice things I noticed. In other news, this has been this biggest statement I’ve ever put in parenthesis on my blog. Yay for me. Now for the reasons:).

1. In this entire 2 year period, there has only been one occasion where I had to use a Windows computer, and that was to program my old Lego Mindstorms set. That problem has since been fixed with Lego Mindstorms NXT, who’s software supports Mac.
2. This sounds obvious, but in this entire 2 year period I have never gotten a virus of any sort.
3. I have never had to contact Apple support about anything, the transition was incredibly easy and I picked up the basics of the OS in minutes.
4. I have never had to have my machine repaired in any way, it’s been running perfectly smoothly for 2 years.
5. I have only re-installed my Operating system twice, and one was to upgrade to Leopard, I re-installed Windows about once every 3-6 months.
6. My mac has run smoothly for almost a month without re-starting, not all that impressive until you consider that I pretty much never actually close programs once their open, by the end of a month I might have as many as 60 apps running.
7. This is more an observation than a fact, but I’ve noticed far more free Mac apps than free Windows apps.

*Statistics are completely made up.