I've Given in...
I've surrendered... This long time Windows user has decided to submit to the "light side of computing" and bought a 14in Apple iBook. I think it was the purty user interface on OS-X Panther that finally did me in... Plus the display on the iBook is quite possibly one of the best laptop display's I've ever used.
I've been using the iBook a little for the last day, and so far... While I don't hate it, I'm not a disciple of the cult of Steve Jobs yet... I've also started to question just what "more intuitive" actually means.
Out of the box the setup wasn't too painful. It did take a whole lot less time to setup than any Windows PC I've gotten straight out of the box... Of course not having to deal with the stupid Windows registration wizards significantly streamlines the process. I didn't need to install AIM since iChat is already installed. Like WinXP Service Pack 2, joining a wireless network was painless as well and I'm guessing that joining a wired network will be simple too...
On the other hand I'm running a lot less software on the Mac. In particular I'm not running any firewall on the Mac, a situation I'm not particularly sure I like. Not having the firewall there definately speeds up the networking process (don't have to deal with a bazillion security alerts etc) and it's one less thing clogging up system RAM. Also the Mac users I know claim that there just isn't enough malicious software (aka malware) out there to be concerned....
On the other hand all it takes is one piece of malware to find my machine and I'm screwed. Keep in mind I'm not completely unprotected, I do have a hardware firewall that every connection to the internet in the house has to pass through.
As for the "more intuitive" line that I hear a lot of Mac people claim, that I just don't buy. Maybe it's more intuitive once you're familiar with Mac interface standards, or if you're just a novice computer user. But if you're a long time Windows user I don't think OS-X is more intuitive, actually I think it's just different enough from Windows to be frustrating. There's definately a learning curve for Windows users making the jump to OS-X. For something to truely be "more intuitive" there shouldn't be any learning curve, you should just be able to sit in front of it and know how do use it.
This won't be a total Mac conversion either.... The PC's will still be here for many years to come, I won't ever go back to a Palm PDA and Windows Mobile PDA's don't play well with Macs so I'll need the PC for that. Plus my navigation software is PC only, and there are other applications that I use that just aren't available for the Mac...
However, I'll continue to play with the iBook, I look forward to seeing all it can do...
I've been using the iBook a little for the last day, and so far... While I don't hate it, I'm not a disciple of the cult of Steve Jobs yet... I've also started to question just what "more intuitive" actually means.
Out of the box the setup wasn't too painful. It did take a whole lot less time to setup than any Windows PC I've gotten straight out of the box... Of course not having to deal with the stupid Windows registration wizards significantly streamlines the process. I didn't need to install AIM since iChat is already installed. Like WinXP Service Pack 2, joining a wireless network was painless as well and I'm guessing that joining a wired network will be simple too...
On the other hand I'm running a lot less software on the Mac. In particular I'm not running any firewall on the Mac, a situation I'm not particularly sure I like. Not having the firewall there definately speeds up the networking process (don't have to deal with a bazillion security alerts etc) and it's one less thing clogging up system RAM. Also the Mac users I know claim that there just isn't enough malicious software (aka malware) out there to be concerned....
On the other hand all it takes is one piece of malware to find my machine and I'm screwed. Keep in mind I'm not completely unprotected, I do have a hardware firewall that every connection to the internet in the house has to pass through.
As for the "more intuitive" line that I hear a lot of Mac people claim, that I just don't buy. Maybe it's more intuitive once you're familiar with Mac interface standards, or if you're just a novice computer user. But if you're a long time Windows user I don't think OS-X is more intuitive, actually I think it's just different enough from Windows to be frustrating. There's definately a learning curve for Windows users making the jump to OS-X. For something to truely be "more intuitive" there shouldn't be any learning curve, you should just be able to sit in front of it and know how do use it.
This won't be a total Mac conversion either.... The PC's will still be here for many years to come, I won't ever go back to a Palm PDA and Windows Mobile PDA's don't play well with Macs so I'll need the PC for that. Plus my navigation software is PC only, and there are other applications that I use that just aren't available for the Mac...
However, I'll continue to play with the iBook, I look forward to seeing all it can do...
posted by Michael @ 8:35 PM
1 Comments:
At 4:23 AM,
Anonymous said…
You do have a firewall and by default it is on. Go to System Preferences and click on "Sharing."
You've got a lot of stuff "under the hood" and that's the thing about Apple, you don't even have to know it's there, but it is.
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