Woo hoo! My roommate switched! (find out why)
One of my roommates just switched from Linux/Windows to OS X with the purchase of a new powerbook 15 (1.25 GHz, no superdrive). This has been in the works for something like three or four months. Here's the things that switched him over to Apple:
1. Unix underpinning. For geeks, this is a serious plus to the Mac. If you are already familiar with various nix's, then you want one underpinning your OS. Every geek wants the stability of Unix, and many geeks want a good graphical shall on top of unix. Unfortunately, Linux isn't quite there yet.
2. Quality of construction. One month ago, his old PIII notebook had its fan die. When he asked "what's that burning smell?" I answered "your laptop" and he managed to turn off the laptop before serious damage was done. Unfortunately, he bought a laptop from some annonymous Taiwanese manufacturer and was unable to find a replacement fan after weeks of searching. Apple's construction has always impressed him, and he realized that Apple wasn't going to be bankrupt in a few years, so he would be able to get a laptop fixed if it broke.
3. Industrial design. Simply put, Apple's products look beautiful. My roommate has a good sense of aesthetic beauty and Apple's utilitarian minimalism works well for him. Form following function is a great way to design hardware. The minimalist designs that Avie comes up with are wonderful. The idea of buying a laptop with buttons for CD controls on the front is completely unappealing because it is visually disgusting.
4. Educational discount and bundling. Getting a 15 AlBook for the edu price was helpful (he was planning on spending $2500 for either a new Mac or PC laptop, so edu pricing was very useful). Further, he was able to buy a 10GB iPod for $269 and when purchased in conjunction with a powerbook was able to get a $200 rebate. So he got an iPod for $69. This is an amazing deal for students.
5. Good hardware configuration on the Powerbook. The ATI graphics card is great. Airport extreme built in is great for him since his college has 802.11 stations everywhere.
6. iTunes/iTunes music store. He thinks that these are great things to have and he wants to rip his CDs into MP3's for playing on his new iPod. He thinks that iTMS is going to take over the world because it is so well designed and cheap. He wanted to get into Apple simply because they innovate in areas like this.
So those are the reasons why he switched over. Here are the reasons why he wanted to hold off on switching over:
1. Powerbook uses a G4 processor. It is hard to buy a laptop when you know that something better will be coming out in six to eight months. His problems weren't with the G4 so much as with the slow FSB. After discussion, I made it clear that the slower bus would only be a factor under heavy altivec usage. FOrtunately, the new PB's have the 167 MHz bus, not the older 133MHz bus.
2. Cost concerns in general. Apple hardware is more expensive and even with the great edu discounting it still costs money. Cost would have produced hesitation to buy a laptop regardless of make or model. He certainly wasn't going to go for the sub $1000 Dell cheapie laptops.
Interestingly, the presence of the iApps (aside from iTunes) was a non factor in his decision making. I think that this might be the case for many switchers, but that the iApps are things that grow on people once they start using them. Of course, he isn't going to go out and get a digital camera (his good old fashion camera is better than most anything that the digital world has). Nor is he going to update to a bluetooth aware phone.
1. Unix underpinning. For geeks, this is a serious plus to the Mac. If you are already familiar with various nix's, then you want one underpinning your OS. Every geek wants the stability of Unix, and many geeks want a good graphical shall on top of unix. Unfortunately, Linux isn't quite there yet.
2. Quality of construction. One month ago, his old PIII notebook had its fan die. When he asked "what's that burning smell?" I answered "your laptop" and he managed to turn off the laptop before serious damage was done. Unfortunately, he bought a laptop from some annonymous Taiwanese manufacturer and was unable to find a replacement fan after weeks of searching. Apple's construction has always impressed him, and he realized that Apple wasn't going to be bankrupt in a few years, so he would be able to get a laptop fixed if it broke.
3. Industrial design. Simply put, Apple's products look beautiful. My roommate has a good sense of aesthetic beauty and Apple's utilitarian minimalism works well for him. Form following function is a great way to design hardware. The minimalist designs that Avie comes up with are wonderful. The idea of buying a laptop with buttons for CD controls on the front is completely unappealing because it is visually disgusting.
4. Educational discount and bundling. Getting a 15 AlBook for the edu price was helpful (he was planning on spending $2500 for either a new Mac or PC laptop, so edu pricing was very useful). Further, he was able to buy a 10GB iPod for $269 and when purchased in conjunction with a powerbook was able to get a $200 rebate. So he got an iPod for $69. This is an amazing deal for students.
5. Good hardware configuration on the Powerbook. The ATI graphics card is great. Airport extreme built in is great for him since his college has 802.11 stations everywhere.
6. iTunes/iTunes music store. He thinks that these are great things to have and he wants to rip his CDs into MP3's for playing on his new iPod. He thinks that iTMS is going to take over the world because it is so well designed and cheap. He wanted to get into Apple simply because they innovate in areas like this.
So those are the reasons why he switched over. Here are the reasons why he wanted to hold off on switching over:
1. Powerbook uses a G4 processor. It is hard to buy a laptop when you know that something better will be coming out in six to eight months. His problems weren't with the G4 so much as with the slow FSB. After discussion, I made it clear that the slower bus would only be a factor under heavy altivec usage. FOrtunately, the new PB's have the 167 MHz bus, not the older 133MHz bus.
2. Cost concerns in general. Apple hardware is more expensive and even with the great edu discounting it still costs money. Cost would have produced hesitation to buy a laptop regardless of make or model. He certainly wasn't going to go for the sub $1000 Dell cheapie laptops.
Interestingly, the presence of the iApps (aside from iTunes) was a non factor in his decision making. I think that this might be the case for many switchers, but that the iApps are things that grow on people once they start using them. Of course, he isn't going to go out and get a digital camera (his good old fashion camera is better than most anything that the digital world has). Nor is he going to update to a bluetooth aware phone.
Comments
Unfortunately, Linux isn't quite there yet.
Damn right. Anyone who uses Linux on a desktop chances are would be happier with OS X if they gave it a fair shake.
Originally posted by Aquatic
Damn right. Anyone who uses Linux on a desktop chances are would be happier with OS X if they gave it a fair shake.
Yeah. He like Linux's desktop(s), but always thought that they were just not quite complete. Linux on the desktop will probably never happen (well) because it is something that takes alot of time and money and I don't think that it is the kind of software project that the open source development model is well suited for.
What he will name his computer
The desktop picture for his computer
Because these things matter when you have a Mac. Yes, a Mac tends to be an expression of one's personality, and you need to think for a long time how your personality will be expressed by your computer. Welcom to Macdom.
Originally posted by Yevgeny
Apple's construction has always impressed him, and he realized that Apple wasn't going to be bankrupt in a few years
I think that that is the best complement to Apple in your whole post!
Originally posted by ZO
19GB iPod? Dude, you bought your iPod from the same Taiwanese manufacturer your roommate got his P3 from... Demand for your extra 1GB!
Originally posted by iMacfan
I think that that is the best complement to Apple in your whole post!
Yeah, it is interesting to be able to view Apple as being the "stable" hardware manufacturer and to be able to use FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) against the PC hardware manufacturers. Yes, you can buy a Taiwanese laptop with good specs, but where will they be in three years when the fan breaks and you have to ditch your laptop because you can't find a replacement custom fan? A very useful argument to someone whose laptop just died because its rare and strangely configured fan can't be replaced.
Originally posted by ZO
19GB iPod? Dude, you bought your iPod from the same Taiwanese manufacturer your roommate got his P3 from... Demand for your extra 1GB!
well, wouldn't a formatted 20 gig be more like 19 gig usable space anyway
Damn right. Anyone who uses Linux on a desktop chances are would be happier with OS X if they gave it a fair shake
Is Gnome 2.x easily usuable on OS X? I'd be interested to see how well my company's Gnome based app.s would run under Apple's X11.
Are rebates available anywhere except north America? I've never seen any in at the UK Apple Store.
Originally posted by Yevgeny
Yes, you can buy a Taiwanese laptop with good specs, but where will they be in three years when the fan breaks and you have to ditch your laptop because you can't find a replacement custom fan? A very useful argument to someone whose laptop just died because its rare and strangely configured fan can't be replaced.
Well, there are also non-taiwanese companies which produce Intel laptops where spare parts are no problem. So this reason alone would probably not impress all PC buyers. Just yesterday, I ordered a new notebook for my work. Originally, I wanted an IBM T40p (apart from not being able to run MacOS X, it's a really sweet machine
At home, I have a G3 PowerBook (Pismo), so I do not have any first hand experience with the G4 PowerBooks, but my personal opinion is: Apple makes fine notebooks, but there is still room for improvements. E.G
- i think the IBM keyboards are much better than the Mac keyboards
- the IBM notebooks have infrared AND bluetooth
- they have a connector for a docking station or port replicator
- the new pentium-M chipsets allow up to 7 mobile hours