Trying a Mac!
This past weekend, Patty convinced me to bite the bullet and, in her words, “put yourself out of your misery.” I have been eyeing the new Powerbooks for some time, watching Apple innovate with AirPort, Bluetooth, digital media, and most recently, iTunes. I finally bit the bullet, and whipped out the credit card two days ago.
Now I’m a happy 17 inch Powerbook G4 (the “Aircraft Carrier”) user. My first two days have been filled with mainly pleasant surprises, along with a few dead-ends. Most of the applications work the way I’d expect, although I still haven’t figured out how apps get installed - and where. I expect all with become clear as I keep using it.
I think the key things that convinced me to go with MacOSX - despite a known shortage of apps - is that most apps - the killer apps - are standards-based, internet-oriented apps like an email client, a web browser, a chat client. The newest apps seem to all be on Mac OSX - iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto - the ones making it significantly easier to create and manipulate digital content. And, at its core, there’s the FreeBSD-based kernel and developer tools.
On the downside, Office files are going to be a challenge, and I’m not sure I want to drop $500 for Office. I’ll try OpenOffice at first to see if I can get by, and maybe I’ll try AppleWorks at $70 if that’s not a viable option. We’ll see. So far, the elegance of the UI, and all of the great little surprises are making me think I didn’t make a mistake.
Go Apple!
John Kusters Said,
June 1, 2003 @ 2:40 pm
Hi, Jim,
Found your website via GeoURL. Congrats on trying out a Mac. I’ve had an iBook for a few months and am quite happy with it.
Most Apps are installed simply dragging the program to your Applications folder. Classic apps usually come with an installer, but if they do not, you can simply copy them to your Applications (Mac OS 9) folder.
OpenOffice might be a way to go, but it runs on the X Windows window manager/windowing system, which means it will behave in un-mac-like ways. There is a Cocoa port underway but I think it’s still a few months off. If you know anyone who works at Microsoft, they can generally get full Office X for $50. Failing that, AppleWorks can read and write Office files to a degree. It came pre-installed on my iBook, I’m surprised you didn’t get it for shelling out for for the “aircraft carrier.”
Best of luck!
JOhn.