Well, I have to say…I’ve loved my two Macs. It was a big transition — moving from the PC environment to the Mac environment is not an easy thing, and finding workarounds to get your Mac to do things that were SOP on the PC is a time-consuming PITA. Once you’ve accomplished all that, you really don’t want to go back. The rock-solid reliability, the seemingly infinite lifespan, the relative immunity to malware and hacks (not 100%, but at least you don’t have to keep the works permanently gummed up with anti-virus software), the general whimsical charm of the Mac…they’re hard to beat.
But the wonderful little MacBook is aging. I’ve actually worn the characters off the keyboard. Though it still chugs along, sooner or later it is gonna have to be replaced. Guess I’d rather have a computer in place and running before this one falls apart like the Minister’s One-Hoss Shay.
Given the shrieks of dismay from the Apple Fan-boy Legions over the latest Macs, my plan to buy a new MacBook Pro met with a serious pause.
Apple has gotten rid of all the MacBook’s USB ports, leaving only one hole into which to plug any and all external hardware. And there’s no SD card slot or adapter.
Well. Right now mine, which annoyingly has only two USB ports, is fully occupied with the hard-drive to which Time Machine is backing up these very characters as they’re typed, along with everything else that happens on this device, and with a device that talks to a rodent, should I choose to use a rodent instead of the touchpad. Which I occasionally do. And I often back stuff up for clients onto flash drives.
It looks like plugging in even the few external devices I use is going to consign me to Dongle Hell with the new MacBook. Plus…yeah, it is tiresome not to be able to use Quicken, and yeah, it is tiresome that an e-book designed on a Mac ends up with Kindle-unreadable table of contents…and things. And the new version of iPhoto is annoying, and the weak photo editing software: annoying. And…the fact that Apple has raised the MacBook price significantly is especially annoying.
For about $1400 less than a new 15-inch MacBook, I can buy a pretty damn spectacular PC at Costco, one that has a screen comparable to mine and a built-in numeric keypad (a blandishment whose absence on the Apple machine is another annoyance), and my very own, NOT-rented-in-the-cloud, up-to-date version of Office.
It’s true I’d have to do battle with virus-checkers, a constant annoyance. And it’s true I’d have to back up to Carbonite, which I’d druther not do. BUT I could use Quicken for PC, a mixed blessing because over the past few years Quicken has apparently gone to Hell. As a practical matter, Excel is far better, except for the fact that it doesn’t talk to your bank…and that may not be such a bad thing…
It will take some doing to relearn Windows. But I have a friend who’s a PC Magician, and I think I also can walk into the computer commons at the junior college and ask to be shown how to operate it. Really, all I’d need to do is sign up for a yoga class over there to get access to the computer commons hardware.
So…I dunno. But I’m thinking that without Steve Jobs, Apple is just another computer maker. Apple is no longer Apple.
Welp, speaking of Excel, I need to do some bookkeeping. And so, away!
What’s your thought about the new MacBook? And about the prospect of retrograde movement from Mac to PC?