I have always been very interested in computers usability (yes, you can say always when you have had a computer since '88 or so). I have never really dealt with Apple since I played shuffle puck with my childhood friend on a black and white Macintosh. They were the ones, that often forced you to find a bended paperclip, to retain your floppy disk from the drive, because they always insisted, that Mac was stable and to many buttons could confuse you (like two on a mouse!). I have heard though, that Mac has become synonymous with usability and that they really are frontiers in making your computer look less like bits and bytes and more like... a Mac!
I haven't really tried Linux yet either. I'm stuck in the middle with my Vista pc (no, I've rolled back to XP), that really wants a lot of the same as Macs, but still lets you press alt+r and type "cmd" to solve real problems. Also, I love the flexibility and all the open source nerdy software for pc's.
But right now! I am tired of my muscle less pc and I'm tired of trying to make Microsoft, Firefox and Sony Ericsson work together to keep me connected, having the latest feeds, synced documents, emails, calendars and tasks - and a reasonable file backup solution for all. Will Mac do this for me - and make me a member of the Creative Class?
The answer to the last part of the question is definitely yes. I do know, that Florida's creative class covers about two third of the Danish population, but I mean black long sleeve t-shirts, designer glasses, California healthy look, a taste for latte/chino/espressos - and a Mac+iPhone! So it seems, there are sure pros of switching to a Mac. If Mac will sort my problems, I am still not sure. But, if adaption of new (or other) technologies always should be about certainty not much new would come about. So, I went to apple.com to check out a QuickTime (that's what they call their media player) movie demonstrating a brand new and said to be revolutionary operating system (by the way, it seem to me that they make 4-5 new OS's in the time it takes Microsoft to make one). The new Mac OS (X?) is a Leopard.
In the QuickTime movie a real creative class looking guy Steve (not Steve Jobs, but "just some guy from one of you Apple Stores") demonstrates the - and this is not new - elegantly looking OS with all the slide/fade/swoosh and capow you could imagine, on an overwhelmingly stylish iMac with just one cord! The new to me, was Time Machine, new iMail features and .mac accessibility.
Time Machine is a piece of backup software, that lets you start from where you thought that missing file should be, push a button and enter a warp space and then scroll trough time until you find the date and time (by the hour), when your file was still there. If you're in your mail or your photo collection it does the same, and of course you can search by text, if you don't remember which folder it ought to be in.
iMail had a new feature, where you could type in a memo, make part of it a to-do list and part of is a calendar item. When the calendar item was changed, so would the part of the memo. This really looked elegant, though Steve didn't tell me about the possibilities of sharing and inviting in on these items, which is a must for me.
Finally .mac was explained to me by Steve, as an account that lets you connect from anywhere in the world (via internet of course) to your Mac and all its content. This seems so much easier than remote desktop for XP!
Well, it's not easy to be too critical about the features, when I have only seen this film (was it a commercial?). What I am critical about is all this slide/fade/swoosh and capow. Will I get nausea or feel dizzy from using it?
I think, all the flashy features will once again keep me from switching to Mac, even though Apple succeeded with iPods an iTunes in making the giant leap for pc users a bit smaller. I know, that's not really well-founded reason for not trying the new, but conservatism seldom is.
To see Steve and the Leopard go here: http://www.apple.com/macosx/guidedtour/
Maybe we should go and check it out in one of the Apple Stores, maybe we'll meet Steve.
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