In Praise of the Apple Mac - Part 1
For almost twenty years I have earned my living developing software for Microsoft Windows using Microsoft tools. Therefore I arguably have some loyalty to Microsoft. However this doesn’t mean I blindly support every direction Microsoft moves in, or believe that its Windows operating systems are without flaws. I have used every version of Windows since version 3.0 in the early 1990s and every time a new Windows was launched Microsoft would promise that they’d really got it right this time, that this really was the one. Slowly I have become weary of this. Last year, my home PC running Windows XP service pack 2 started crashing for no particular reason. It wasn’t really a huge problem, more irritating than anything else. I could restart the computer and carry on. Then Outlook Express, the built-in email client I used, crashed and its database became corrupt. This was more serious. I had to revert to my last backup and consequently I lost a week’s emails. Not the end of the world, but very annoying. Despite having a powerful CPU and lots of memory the perceived speed of Windows declined. My task manager window showed dozens of processes that I didn’t recognise taking up valuable memory and processor time.
Then in August 2007 Apple launched the new iMac. It was beautiful. The white plastic of its predecessor had been replaced with light grey aluminium. The flat screen contained the complete computer; there was no separate box or even power supply. Everything, even the speakers, a webcam, and a Wi-Fi antenna, were hidden away inside that flat screen. I did a little research and discovered that thanks to Apple’s use of Intel processors it would even run Windows. Although a tiny minority compared with PC users, Apple Mac users seem generally to be fiercely loyal to their chosen computer. It’s almost impossible to find people who say the Mac is rubbish and Windows PCs are better. Sure there are lively debates about the comparative strengths and weaknesses of different features of the Mac operating system (known as OS/X - of which the latest version, 10.5, has been named Leopard) and Windows Vista, and this is healthy. Yet the attraction of buying a computer where the hardware and software were both developed by the same company to work together was compelling.
The iMac is available in two screen sizes: 20 inch and 24 inch. For me the attraction of the larger 24 inch display with a 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution was strong. I like to have several windows open at the same time. I can never have too much screen space available. This leads me to another Mac feature that sounded great and really does work: something called Spaces. This allows you to create a matrix of up to 16 virtual displays, each with different applications running on them, and flick between them with a quick keystroke or mouse click. You can even ‘zoom out’ to see all these virtual screens at once and drag windows between them. Curiously the only program I have experienced that can’t cope with this feature is Microsoft’s Office 2008 for the Mac which sometimes ‘forgets’ which virtual display it’s in and tries to escape to another. The photo on the left shows the zoomed out view of Spaces, and if you look carefully you can see that I’m running Microsoft Windows XP in one of those virtual displays!
In November 2007 I ordered my iMac with a fairly high specification: 24 inch screen, 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 duo CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 500GB serial ATA hard drive, and an 8x dual-layer DVD RW drive. There were no units with this specification in the country so I had to wait a fortnight while one was built and shipped to me from Shanghai, China. Ordering from the online Apple store wasn’t a pleasant experience. They took the money from my card immediately, before I even knew the lead time for delivery (by comparison if I remember correctly Dell don’t debit your card until they are about to ship the computer). Apple say, not unreasonably, that the computer will need to be signed for when it is delivered by the carrier but they cannot indicate the day, or even the week, in which delivery will occur, nor the carrier who will be delivering it. After a week I received a tracking number to trace delivery progress on the ANC website but this only shows historical milestones in the delivery process, not predictions about when delivery will occur. In my case when I consulted this two days before the ‘target’ delivery date I had been given I was shocked to see that the van driver had tried to deliver but had been unable to find our house so had returned the Mac to the depot. A telephone call to the depot encouraged the driver to try to find us again and in fairness to him although I had given Apple my full address when I ordered, the shipping label on the box omitted the first two lines of the address!
Having finally received the Mac I carefully unpacked the gorgeous machine. It is well packaged and even the keyboard, mouse, accessories and discs come in a pleasing carton. Sadly in my case the computer didn’t work. When switched on the screen was filled with shimmering horizontal lines. I repeatedly tried to restart it but to no avail. I phoned the helpline and after waiting in a queue for 45 minutes I was connected to a woman in Greece whose first language wasn’t English. She tried to talk me through a series of steps, including reinstalling the operating system, but the conclusion was that the Mac was dead and would need to be replaced. The Greek lady transferred my call to a man in Austin, Texas, USA who really couldn’t give a shit about the fact that I had paid £1,500 for a Mac that didn’t work. There was no apology or even a hint of regret. I wonder if this happens all the time. They would arrange to collect the useless Mac but wouldn’t even order me a replacement until the faulty Mac had been sent to Ireland for inspection and the nature of the fault had been checked. This might take a month or more he told me with delight.
The faulty Mac was collected within the week, and in due course I received an email that a new unit would be shipped from Shanghai. I was back in the same bind of not knowing when it would be delivered. Eventually it arrived and this time it worked!
The Leopard operating system does take a little getting used to for someone who has used Windows for so many years. Although there are many similarities between the two systems, there are sufficient differences to make every task slower. Personally I dislike the slim, flat keyboard with minimal key travel; I also dislike the so-called Mighty Mouse where the whole top of the mouse rocks to create left and right clicks, and I accidentally click the two buttons on the side of the mouse repeatedly. These can of course be changed, although to do so would slightly compromise the overall appearance of the desk. Worse though, is the different keystrokes for common tasks. Using Windows I frequently use the Ctrl+Z, X, C, and V for undo, cut, copy, and paste respectively. On the Mac these are Cmd+Z, X, C, and V. When editing a document the navigation keys above the arrow keys on the keyboard cause different behaviour from Windows. The keyboard is a U.S. layout so the @ sign is above the 2 while ” is above the ‘. These minor things can be relearnt but when I use a Windows PC at work all day it’s inevitable when I come home to the Mac that I repeatedly mistype.
On a more positive note the screen is an absolute delight. It is bright, crisp, and clear with accurate colour rendition. The sound from the internal stereo speakers set into the bottom edge of the screen is surprisingly good and quite acceptable for everyday personal listening. Of course it lacks bass but overall the quality is similar to separate speakers that we received with a mid-range Dell PC. The iMac is almost silent, the noise from its ventilation fan being a barely audible whisper. The first weeks using the Mac were of course a voyage of discovery. Yes I missed some features I had become used to in Windows, but invariably once I had learnt how to achieve the equivalent with Leopard I would be thinking how much better it was.
Conclusion after a few months of use: The buying experience wasn’t pleasant or professional. The response when I received a faulty Mac was very poor. However I’ve no regrets about switching to the Mac. There are a few niggles, it isn’t perfect, it has even crashed once or twice, but overall I now find myself enjoying using a computer more than I ever did with a Windows PC. It runs Windows when I need it (there are still just a few Windows applications that I use) but most of the time I use Leopard. I hope to post a description of the software I use on the Mac before too long.