Some onliners who never have a chance to know me better perceived my self as a long time Apple whiner. Some of them are wondering, who the hell is this guy promoting Mac and on the other hand making a total joke (read: rants) of it. Why the double standard? It has never been a double standard. Trust me, you just have no chance to know me better.
Simply speaking because I love Mac. To be exact I love great technology! I’m a technologist, and I become so upset to see good technology lose the market. And my rants about Mac/Apple simply because I want to see a better Mac (technologically and in term of success in the market). Why so? Because in plain words I’m tired of using Windows… It’s just too cumbersome, nothing to excite about (no great technology) and borrowing Steve Job’s comment: “It doesn’t have taste at all”.
Yes, of course, if I have to use Windows machine for emergency (Thanks God that I don’t have to do it often lately due my attachment with my PowerBook), I rely solely on open source softwares (opensource that make it into Windows, to name a few: Firefox, Thunderbird – great, now it has RSS reader to catch up with it’s cousin Firefox), freeware like Google Desktop and many more (did I mention trusty Calypso Emailer).
Simply put, Windows offers me no incentives in term of innovations, ease-of-use, other than it’s wide hardware availability and more off the shelf commercial softwares written for it.
But once I use Spotlight, experience more of Mac OS X simplicity and ease of use, then I am becoming more attached to it. I wonder how I can’t life without this fascinating technologies. It’s just too awesome.
(Windows XP’s search is the most flop technology in my opinion. Try search *.jpg files and believe me it would render your system unresponsive and hang after finding thousands files. Windows 2000’s search engine is still much more reliable than its Windows XP brother. Ouch).
If I see what I have written in the past, I realise a lot of them no longer reflect what current Apple/Mac OS X hardware software technologies have to offer. Let me check my lists:
1. No built-in Mic for iBook G4?
Hmm last time I ordered an iBook for good new Mac switcher, I’m pretty amazed that his new iBook G4 brings back the famous ultrasensitive PlainTalk Microphone. (sorry PC fans, it’s just plain different, it’s low ambient and can recognise your voice recognition very good, and record your voice for ultra clarity results). Now I wonder when did I get that experience finding out that iBook G4 had no built in Mic. Can anyone suggest? Now I hope Apple will bundle this great technology into
Mac mini lines. Skype for everyone?
2. Browser. Camino or Safari?
My last rant was that I solely using Camino in my PowerBook rather than Safari. Suprisingly with Tiger now I use Safari alot.
Safari now RSS-aware and passed Acid2 compatibility test. My only complain is Safari often opens my disk image (.DMG) and deletes the .DMG source and keeps only the application (sometimes we need the disk image for low bandwidth user like myself).
3. Optimisation.
Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) now runs fast, way faster than Panther (Mac OS X 10.3)! So no more long System Performance Optimisation to wait like on Panther. iPhoto and iLife runs like a Porsche. I’m now pleased with its performance. What’s even better is boot time now only takes 4 seconds on my PowerBook G4 1.67GHz (Sorry Windows folks, Windows upgrade as always would be costing you slower responds to overall system… bloatware everyone? :D) Of course this is hard to believe for Windows fans (as well as newbies who keep asking will Mac OS X new upgrade would cause slower overall systems) Simply put Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) still runs like a charm on a 4 years old iBook G3 500MHz (and definitely way faster if I cook the book to 600MHz using 100MHz bus, which I’ve been doing all the time for my Mac friends).
4. iPhoto replacement. Called it Slideshow.
Since now Tiger comes with built in Slideshow I definitely would say this is the best ever happen to any platform so far. Wanna check out for you Windows fans? Go check your nearest Apple Store to find out. I would say this is coolest technology ever that Microsoft has no idea to create it in the first place. Start your photocopier Redmond?
5. Search instantly!
Damn, Spotlight just plain rocks! Now I wonder how long before I would instantly forget the “locate” command from console. 😀
But all of this lists could be growing even longer, but again I must say that I’d put myself as a technologist which will keep my soul pure. Why? First, because I don’t want to see Apple becoming bighead because of all the credits and then becoming slow in developing more good technologies, and definitely I want keep seeing Mac growing better and better each day, and hopefully I still would see a day when the number of Mac users finally outgrown Windows users.
Now I wonder where the Mac compatible boards or Apple’s own Mac built-your-own box for emerging markets? Still shaky about 1997 clone fiasco Steve?
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