Got my first Mac this week: a refurbished G4 iMac, with a 17″ screen, from Apple.com. Everyone around me seems amazed that I’d buy a Mac, as if I just converted to Catholicism or something, but to me it’s a fairly practical decision, and it’s based entirely on the software available for the Mac platform. As the father of a 2-year-old, I’ve got a boatload of digital photos — and I’m starting to load up on video now too. There just isn’t any software on Windows that can handle these things as easily as iPhoto and iMovie.
It doesn’t hurt that the rest of the computer is a delight, so far. The screen is big, clear, and gorgeous; OS X’s interface is elegant and easy to use (and the designers clearly had a sense of humor, something you never find in Microsoft products); the underlying Unix core is intriguing. And the iMac is quiet: It just sits on the desk, softly doing its thing. When it goes to sleep it’s entirely silent (just a softly pulsing white light in the corner of the screen lets you know it’s alive), and the thing wakes up far faster than any PC. By comparison, my old, pokey HP Pavilion sounded like a hair dryer, all the time, even when it was asleep.
I’ll have complaints about OS X and the Mac soon enough (I’ve already noted a few irritations) but for now, it’s like exploring a new country where the natives are overwhelmingly friendly and good-looking. It’s good to be here.
