“Nearly 22 years ago, like the rest of the world, I first heard of the Mac and, like many, I was immediately smitten,” Chris Howard writes for AppleMatters. “For many many years I watched the Mac world with envy. But for all my wants and desires, I never seemed to get a good enough reason to change. And it was getting harder as I invested more in Windows applications. But then one day, I decided I could.”
“I switched for software,” Howard explains. “In a sense, people buy PCs just because. There’s no real decision involved in continuing to buy Windows PCs. Folks buying Windows computers don’t go shopping thinking ‘Ooooh maybe I should really be buying a Mac.’ We hope one day they will, but for now they don’t. But buying or owning a Mac is different. Mac owners and potential customers tend to know exactly why they’ll buy a Mac. They make a conscious choice. Even in this day and age of the resurgent Mac, anyone buying a Mac could still feel they have to justify it – if only to themselves. And so back to the original question, why do you own a Mac? What’s your reason, your story?”
Full article here.
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Oh yeah, and my first pre-Mac computer was a Radio Shack TRaSh-80. Mmmm 32kb of RAM, black & white monitor, and a cassette drive.
Jim: An Apple //c is not a Mac. It’s an Apple // series machine.
Bonsai: “Common sense” ain’t very common.
I use a Mac because i understand computer technology very well, and can tell the difference between a well designed computer and a piece of crap. Those who use PeeCees, apparently, cannot.
And that new G5 cost me $800 less than that IIci.
I never owned a Windows machine. That doesn’t mean I never used one. In fact, until last year, that’s all I touched. But when it was time for me to OWN my own machine, I knew I wanted a Mac. Why? Because my father is cheap. I didn’t want to get stuck with a low-end piece of junk. So I knew if I got a Mac, no matter which one I got, I’d be getting a great machine. Turns out a got a PowerBook 12″, which isn’t so cheap anyway, so I guess it wouldn’t have mattered. But it’s too late for me now. I’ve joined the Cult of Mac.
I am a mac user – and a very enthusiastical one – because I didn´t like Macs.
But I loved NeXT and my NeXTStation which I used from 1992 to 2001. NeXTSTEP was the most elegant and stable OS around and is now only topped by OS X (which it is)
MW around – as in: NeXT was the true Mac and it has been around for so long
Rainy Day….
if it makes you feel better….
My APPLE lineage
IIc
Mac Plus
Mac Classic
Quadra 610
G3
Current Macs (Including imediate family)
G4 350 (still works great, in the kitchen at the wife’s desk)
G4 1.25 imac
G4 dual 1.8 (modified)
Mac Mini (son’s at college)
12″ Powerbook (son’s at college)
15″ IBook (daughter’s at college)
Emac (daughter’s at college)
plus 4 ipods and various and isights
Is there a 12 step program for this addiction?
Rainy…. while you at it, can you check my spelling and grammer? lol
I came to the world of computers late in life. With no need, only a desire, for a computer, I subscribed to the major pc magazines for an introduction to computing. Having no friends with computing experience, advertising led me in the direction to consider a Dell. Before I pulled the trigger, a neighbor bought the lowest end G3 iMac 500 Indigo loaded with Mac OS 10.0.4. She did not know at the time she was technophobic. Unwanting to learn by herself, she offered the iMac to me for half (400 US dollars),the cost she paid. Without any influence from the mac community, I became the proud and lucky owner of an iMac, my first computer. I was lucky. I avoided the dark side altogether.
Bought a Powerbook 12″ ’cause it was (and still is?) the only laptop available with DVI, DVD burning, and Firewire. My LCD monitors and projector are all DVI-capable, why would I ever want to use VGA?
Bought two Mini’s to replace beige box PC’s at home ’cause they’re quiet and lower power. Used to use Mandrake Linux as my mail/web server, but got sick of their constant major releases and quick EOL’s.
The only Apple hardware I own: 12″PB, Mini x 2, iSight. Not interested in iPod, flat-screens, etc.
Apple ][e
Apple ][gs
Macintosh SE30
Macintosh Portable
iMac DV-SE
PowerMac G5 1.8GHz DP
…
…
…
…
…
…
{the empty lines are being held for my next six computers from Apple; nobody knows for sure WHAT the future may bring, but I certainly know WHERE it’s coming from, and that’s Cupertino!}
][e
Lisa
Macintosh 512k (or was it 128?)
Macintosh Plus
Centris
Quadra
Powermac 8600
G4 733MHz Superdrive
12″ 867MHz G4 Powerbook
G5 Dual 2.5GHz
Never found a Windows alternative that did what my Apples could do. But honestly never really looked very hard.
Now I can’t imagine what it would take to tempt me to something else. Apple would have to intentionally make products worse than what we have now, because right now I’m pretty satisfied by what my computer can do for me. Heck, I almost can’t imagine upgrading anymore (well, maybe the PB could be a little faster). That must be a sign of aging. Oh well, I should be good for 2 or 3 years where I’m at, unless something really changes.
Macs are not perfect but much much much better than windows. And they are a lot of fun because so much care and thought has gone into the the user experience. I think that Mac Users are much more likely to try doing things than windows users because they try one thing – and it just works, so they try another thing – and it just works, and on and on, etc ad infinitum.
The other day I told a friend: “With the Mac you expect it work and are surprised when it doesn’t. With Windows you expect it NOT to work and are surprised when it does.”
I had always wanted a Mac, being frustrated with my Windows laptop for often freezing up or being bugged, and when it was time for me to get a new computer, I didn’t even consider a Windows.
Long live the Macs!
~Caleb
OMPC/Bb,
Indeed, Windows IS just a tool. Mac OS however, is an instrument.
Obviously, the Windows KoolAid isn’t better, ‘cuz Bill can’t get the last 11% to switch!
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The story of Why I own a Mac has already been written and is posted on my website, specifically the page entitled:
My First Personal Computer
Click on the link.
Have fun, and make sure your speakers are on!
Not sure if anyone will bother reading down this far…
Bought my first Mac in mid 1990 for music sequencing. It was an SE (FDHD for those who are anal about these things) just before the Classics were rolled out, so it was going “cheap”. At $3500 Aussie dollars it was expensive for a 4MB RAM/100MB HDD machine. I also bought an HP Deskjet+ that day as well. Together they were a great combo, and HP later sold a bucket load of those types of printers (these were the days when you could refill your cartridges with Quink ink :=)
I had seen Macs in high school, probably a Mac Plus (it was the mid 80s), but always thought they were “toys”. Despite studying Computer Science, I only really “got it” in the past few years that Macs were actually among the best of the best of the best, sir, when it came to software engineering (I mean in its very early days, and again once OS X hit the streets, the OS 7+ to 9 days were really flogging a dead horse technology wise. Despite that, they were still easier to use than Windows.) So was the Amiga I guess, not that I ever owned one of those.
What amazes me now is how I was seduced by the dark side for so long – sure I had Macs at home (since 1990), but at work it was Microsoft or IBM all the way – be it DOS, OS/2, Windows etc. More recently it has been IBM AIX.
It was always a pleasant experience coming home to my various Macs…. so pleasant in fact that I never really had entertained the thought of developing software for it until fairly recently. Such a duh moment that one. Now I have a chance to write Mac software full time so I’m going that way. No more Inte…. err, Microsoft PCs for me.
Oh, and by the way, to you NeXT alumni, I’m sooo jealous of you guys & gals. In Oz, they never existed (no distribution you see), so if there are any there, they’ll be the odd one imported by some (presumably rich) dude. Knowing what I know now (i.e. that NeXT merged with Apple), I’d have tried harder and bought one. It’s funny, but I was always torn between Apple and NeXT, but when they merged, it was kinda like The Beatles getting back together… the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
I said I hadn’t thought of developing for Macs until fairly recently… I made a mistake. I meant to say that I hadn’t thought about developing for them FULL TIME until recently. I actually bought CodeWarrior in 1995, and signed up for the Apple dev programs in 1998, not that I did much about writing.
I’m sure you were all hanging out for that bit of the story.
Because my wife thought they were cute. It’s a door stop now, because os 8.5 always crashed. These cheapo dells we have now work ok, and since they are under the desk, who the fuck cares what they look like, right honey?
why? OSX! As a fulltime ex *NIX nerd I’ve spent lots o time with odd non-GUI os’es. To make a very long vitae short…I’ve never been as productive as I am now – running OSX. I look forward to Apple’s next steps (pun intended) with added meta levels on a GUI level. This OS is indeed the holy grail for geeks. /*eof
hey Randy, did you ever pay attention to what happened with the OS, post-OS 8.5? If you have never spent some time with a recent machine running osx you…umm…should, kinda. Take it as a polite hint but they’re, like, fuckin awesome.
Uh, Miro, I think Randy was being sarcastic.
I’m relatively new to computers… I waited until Macs showed up under a 1,000 US… in early 2001 the timing was right, I had the mula, and the indigo iMac G3 was 899.00, I jumped, and have never regretted my purchase. Earlier this year I got an iBook, beautiful, flawless, and fun. I always go with the underdog, and with companies who are out to ‘make a difference’, not just out to make a buck/marketshare, and you know to whom I’m referring. As long as Apple doesn’t get too big, and forget its original mission, making life better for end users, I will be a non-paid salesperson.
MW ‘movement’… it is almost like a political movement, isn’t it?
i never switched to a mac. my first computer was a mac and my brand new g5 is a mac. i have no reason to switch because i was smart enough to get the right computer in the first place.
sorry to all of you windows geeks
Beccause that what I use at work. So I know how to use it.
zupchuck,
Did you happen to notice that Apple Matters lists and links to MacDailyNews in their “Sites That Matter” section?
http://www.applematters.com/index.php
MDN MW: “costs” – Windows “costs” much more than Mac if you bother to think about it for more than a tenth of a second.
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nineboy,
That’s part of what my story is about.. enough long posts in here, so I posted the link to my website describing how I got my first personal computer– and that I never had to switch either, because ‘I got the right computer in the first place’, too.
My First Personal Computer
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