“I’ve been on the front lines of the Mac-PC war for as long as I can remember. My first work computer was an IBM PC with an 8088 CPU. I liked it so much I forked out the money to buy my own machine: an IBM PC XT clone running an 8086 chip, and bulging with 640KB of RAM and a whopping 20MB hard disk,” Preston Gralla reports for Computerworld.
“Since then, I’ve written dozens of books and hundreds or thousands of articles, columns and blogs about PCs and Windows. Along the way, I’ve earned the unending enmity of plenty of Mac folks. At one point several years ago, I was targeted by hundreds of Mac fans in an e-mail barrage because I used to write a column about shareware that covered only PC software and ignored the Mac. More recently on my Computerworld Windows blog, I’ve been called various schoolyard epithets when I’ve written anything remotely critical about Macs or people who use them,” Gralla reports.
“So it was with more than a little trepidation that I accepted a new assignment from my editor… to give up my PC and try living for two weeks on the Mac,” Gralla reports. “Talk about sleeping with the enemy!”
Gralla reports, “I asked for a laptop rather than a desktop, and what showed up on my front door about a week later was the latest MacBook Air, with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.83 GHz, 2GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeoForce 9400M graphics processor and a 128GB solid-state hard disk. It sported a 13.3-in. screen and weighed in at a very svelte 3 pounds. And so began my journey with a Mac.”
MacDailyNews Take: Earth to Preston: Perhaps you “earned the unending enmity of plenty of Mac folks,” because – as you’ve just admitted – you were writing things that were “critical about Macs or people who use them” and considering Macs to be “the enemy” without having ever used a Mac! Sheesh.
Now watch what happens:
Gralla continues, “If you haven’t yet touched or used a MacBook Air, take it from me: This is the most beautiful piece of hardware you’ll ever see… For PC users, Mac OS X takes some getting used to, but once I did, I found it a more elegant, polished piece of work than Windows (either XP or Vista). With so many nice little touches, it seemed as if I was finding a new one every day… there’s certainly a difference, and a substantial one. Mac OS X is simpler to use and easier to configure, yet has more bells, whistles and ‘eye candy.’ And much of that eye candy, such as Exposé, is not just elegantly designed and entertaining, but quite useful as well… Mac OS X beats Windows. There, I’ve said it. And lightning hasn’t struck me yet… After living with a Mac, I can understand why people would be willing to pay [extra].”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Windows guy finally tries Mac. Windows guy falls in love with Mac. Windows guy becomes Mac guy. As usual. Welcome into the light, Preston. If you’re a Windows-only sufferer who’s somehow stumbled here via Google News or elsewhere: Get a Mac. Run, don’t walk. The same thing that’s happened to Preston will happen to you.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Macaday” and “KingMel” for the heads up.]
