Cool Apples

Beside a big "The WOW starts NOW" Windows Vista ad, I found a story by Leander Kahney of Wired.com that he wrote on the 20th of this month titled Apple of Our Eye:Macs Save Money. He says that a lot of people are now having a serious look at Macs in the face of Vista. He attributes this new interest, not only to the iPod, but to the new iPhone and finishes up to say that Apple hasn't changed, only peoples perception of Apple has changed because of these products. Well I say there has been quite a few factors that are making people look to Apple for their next PC.

High on the list is Windows Vista. Sure, it's pretty and all, but the security - like Product Activation - gets in the way of the user experience. That, and even Microsoft admit that 1 out of 10 of your hardware devices aren't supported by Vista.

Then there is, as our Wired.com writer point out, the iPod and the iPhone, both of which are the pinnacle of user-friendliness for mp3 players and mobile phones respectively.

The ads have given people a laugh which helps get people to look out of their Windows and check out they Macs. And while the ads lay a lot of shit on the Windows PC's, they wouldn't be funny if they weren't true.

There are a lot of people who use iTunes on Windows now. This is mostly due to the fact that it gets bundled with Quicktime, which is one of those third-party software packages that Windows users must have like Adobe Reader, RealPlayer or Antivirus software. MacOS X is like iTunes. If you can use iTunes you can already use a Mac.

Then there is the Mac hardware. Not only is it all made Intel processors like the PC, the more powerful iMacs and Mac Pros have ATI or nVidia graphics in them. SATA hard drives, USB, Firewire... under the bonnet, they have almost identical parts to a PC. It's no wonder that all the new Macs can actually run Windows natively now (without emulation). Update your new Mac, install the Bootcamp software (which will also come with every new Mac soon), and then install your WindowsXP or Vista on it as you would on a PC... if you must.

So I think Apple have changed. A lot. They still have a closed system that is not upgradable (unless you get a Mac Pro, but they are very expensive), but it's easy to use and just works.