Warning – Apple Fan boyz may not like what I am about to write – or perhaps they will I don’t know.
Anyway it is that time of year – the time when I have one of those uncontrollable urges to switch to Apple. Perhaps it is the intoxicating atmosphere that surrounds all of Apple products. Their beautiful design and apparent simple design concepts. Perhaps it is the the undeniable smugness that some Fan Boyz have about their Apples. Perhaps I am sick of the average Windows machine being hard work from time to time or perhaps it is just the lighter nights. Who knows but I had one of my fleeting flirtations with moving to Apple.
I say fleeting because it doesn’t take long to realise that what you are buying something that is, and I know the Fan Boyz will not like this, but it is a computer. It is not an Apple nor a Windows machine but a computer. Something that adds and takes away 1 and 0 and that is all. I suspect I have been at this game for much longer than most people who might actually read this but the truth is that there is no real difference between the Apple and any other computer.
The Apple is a wonderful package when viewed on its own but when compared to other machines well it starts to look like, well a computer. What is the killer app for the Apple? It’s operating system by all accounts and the fact that it has a relatively closed environment so only certain things work with an Apple. The most extreme example of this is the iPhone/iPod/iPad world. You can only use apps that Apple approve of, this doesn’t matter if there are better products out there – you can use Apple approved products. You have freedom so long as it is Apple’s approved freedom. Now I love my iPhone, I think it is one of the greatest steps forward in computing for some time, but it is controlled by Apple.
So what would I use my Apple for should I change? Well Photoshop is the key to what I use computers for. Now I have used Photoshop on both Apple and Windows computers and guess what I have found no difference. One or two different keystrokes but that is it. I am writing this in Google Chrome, which I have no idea whether it runs on the Apple OS but assuming it does what different does it make. It works just as well on the PC I am using so why replace it with an Apple. I have read a lot about the Apple way of working is more intuitive, I find this argument hard to follow as it is just an OS nothing more nor less. They all have their own quirks and faults and once you know your way around them then it doesn’t really matter which you use. If you are use to an Apple OS then this is fine but so is the Windows environment.
Now this is the killer argument for me. If I was starting out I would plump for the Apple everyday. It is a much more controlled environment and so easier to live within. However, I am not starting out. I have been at this computing game for almost 25 years, all of it spent within the Microsoft environment and so I know what I am getting with a Windows based PC. It will usually be significantly, and I mean significantly, cheaper than an Apple; will usually be faster with the latest technology. With this come the problems of freedom, it is uneven and sometimes challenging and maybe a little raw but delivers. I cannot say with my hand on my heart that if I used an Apple I would produced any better photographs than on this and my previous PCs and yet I am made to feel that is the case.
In the end they are both machines designed to add and subtract 1 and 0 – the reason for buying such machines is the applications you can run. If they are the same then why move to a more expensive way of doing the same thing. I suppose I am a PC not because of any great messianic zeal but rather because to move to an Apple would cost far too much money.
I suspect this is not the end of the matter as I will have some future momentary wish to move to Apple and no doubt I will write about this again and again. Such is life but then again I am a PC.
Simon Marchini LRPS
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
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