I’m about to make a monumental change in my computing life. Or at least it feels that way. Since I was 7 or 8 years old, all I’ve known are PCs. My first computer from my Dad was an IBM PC with two floppy drives and no hard drive. I learned how to play video games. I remember using DOS and upgrading to Windows. I remember visiting bulletin boards when modems came around.
I have always been happy upgrading and getting the latest and greatest in PCs. But something happened in 2006 that changed things. I upgraded to a top of the line PC and there was no real discernible difference. And the PC came with all kinds of annoying additional demo software and it started being annoying. Then the transfer from my older PC to the newer one was just plain difficult.
Then came a renaissance in Apple and its addition of the Intel processor powered computers. People left and right talked about how much they loved their Apple computers. Further, I loved my Ipod, loved how easy it was to use.
And as my computer continued to disappoint me, I yearned for intuitive, simple, exciting and powerful from a computer. And a part of me yearned for the excitement I used to feel after getting a new computer.
Then came news of Vista, 3 minute boot up times, integration issues and general slowness. And I finally started thinking about changing last year. But it still seemed like a silly idea.
So, I decided to get a Mac as an experiment for the person I work with, to use her as a guinea pig. And the accolades that came from her and the excitement and the showing how great things like Time Machine are and how easy it is and intuitive. She showed me how she can link her computer with the one she has at home and little things like how well Ical works.
After having continued problems from weird Windows issues over old programs recently, I finally had had it. So, in a week, I am about to buy a Imac and possibly an Mac Air. And while I admit I’m nervous, I’m also really excited.
So, does this mean, I and everyone else should go out and buy Apple stock? Probably. Because if diehard PC people like me are switching, we may be on the cusp of a complete sea change. And judging from Apple’s and Microsoft’s earnings, the tide clearly appears to be changing and it may happen more dramatically then people expect.
i would go further and say that we are IN the complete sea change. i made the same switch for my business for the reasons you describe (except i actually DID switch to vista, and had 8 months of HP printer driver issues that drove me over the edge), and was really pleased with how much less day-to-day frustrations i have with my computers.
the ‘sea change’ moment came for me when i was at a client’s office for a medium-sized meeting recently, and looked around the room, and EVERY ONE OF US HAD A MACBOOK PRO. we’re not talking about a crowd of just designers (the historical “cult of mac” members). there were hardcore engineers, IT guys, administrators, strategists, and desginers. all with macbooks. and glad to have them.
so the sea change moment has already been reached in some circles, and undoubtedly will continue to spread.
the closest analogy i can find for this in recent computer history is the rise of the firefox web browser. my guess is that, like mozilla firefox, they will move quickly until they manage to get ~20% market share of the desktop computer market (and some much smaller share of the server market). a great quote from a firefox browser share article which i think is relevant:
“Firefox increases in popularity now for one very simple reason: It’s a better browser. The fact that it can increase at Internet Explorer’s expense, despite IE coming pre-installed on 99 percent of computers sold, says something about Microsoft’s increasingly tenuous hold on the desktop computer market.”
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9929939-16.html
I’m not sure that I completely agree with the sea change issue. While I completely agree that Macs are preferable I just don’t see the high powered apps moving over to a new platform. As far as games go they seem to be 3 – 6 months behind PCs and I am curious as to what type of engineers there are using the systems. I haven’t seen too many applications, Matlab and Mathmatica have Mac versions but OrCAD, SolidWorks and Pro-E don’t as far as I can tell. I also see very little in the hardware synthesis tools. Even though i am writing this on a Mac I had to dual boot it to use some of my engineering software. Don’t get me wrong it works well when running as a PC but I can’t see businesses switching over at about a $500 to $1000 premium when it doesn’t free them from MIcrosoft.