Well, I’ve had what can be best described as a bit of a geek out this weekend. You see, on Saturday I went to the Palo Alto store and picked up my shiny new Powerbook G4. I’ve been using it all weekend, and all I can say right now is: Aww Yeahhh!
For those interested in specs: it has a 1ghz G4 processor with 1gig RAM, a 60GB hard drive, an ATI Radeon 9000 video card with 64 megs of RAM and a Superdrive which is capable of reading and writing CD-R/Ws as well as reading and writing DVDs, which is a first for any laptop currently. This machine in my mind deserves the moniker of “sweet”.
The strongest impression I have about the experience of owning a Mac again after all these years is how elegant everything has been. The hardware and software are in such strong harmony with each other and is something I’ve never experienced before. This includes my previous experience with Apple. The design cues and construction in this current Powerbook are of reference quality and easily the best I have ever seen in a computer. For work, I use a Thinkpad which I like relatively well compared with the other laptops we have to use within the company. The TiBook opens up a can and whoops its big blue ass and takes names.
The crown for Apple in all of this is OS X, which is really an amazing operating system. I say this both as a power user in tune with usability and also as a Unix Geek: Mac OS X completely blows me away. I’m running Photoshop and Microsoft Word alongside XWindows and Windowmaker and they are all running fast and native. Not in my wildest Linux wet dreams did I imagine this was possible in a mainstream OS.
Windows XP, which is an even more egregious ripoff of OS X now that I can say that I’ve used both, is very hard pressed to compete with it technically and aesthetically. They of course outcompete in terms of marketshare, but that’s has more to do with Microsoft’s monopoly in my opinion. I do believe that XP is the best Windows Redmond has ever produced: it’s been nothing but stable for me and I genuinely like most of the new GUI enhancements they’ve incorporated. I’m also not what you could consider a normal switcher because I have had macs before. My previous mac was in fact a powerbook, which I sold back in 1995 because I was getting into Linux (it’s ironic that I’m switching back because of it). But not in their wildest dreams could Microsoft produce something like OS X because it’s not in their corporate culture to do so. Apple has a design vision and Microsoft simply does not.
The final thing I wanted to add for now about all of this is that I really love using this machine. This has been a complete gushfest about Apple, and I could certainly write more about the virtues of OS X, but I think what it all comes down to is that using this machine brings back the joy in computing. That’s not a phrase you hear too often, if at all. Count me in as one of the converted.
