I Tried To Resist But I've Been Seduced By Apple

Wow where has the last month gone? It's been a month since my last post!

I had planned to have a Christmas break where I could relax and write a heap of blog posts, but both the laptops in my household met an unfortunate end and the vomiting flu spread through the entire extended family over the Christmas break. 

My dear wife spent Christmas day & Boxing day in hospital due to the flu.

I received a copy of the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Issacson for Christmas and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It paints Steve Jobs as a manipulative control freak who was embarrassingly obnoxious & very difficult to work with. But at the same time a genius who understood design, he knew what he wanted and never compromised.

The book records how Steve was very hands on with product development, which I suspect is in contrast to many CEOs who will be much more hands off.

With the stories of Apple and Steve Jobs in my head I ventured out to purchase a new laptop. I was determined to buy a new Windows 8 touchscreen laptop. The idea of controlling the screen with your fingers like a tablet or smart phone appealed to me.

After feeling up the Windows 8 touchscreen ultrabooks that were on display, I wasn't totally happy with the models on display.

I looked up and the Apple display caught my eye, I said "no" to myself. "You're not changing over to mac", it will be a nightmare, compatibility issues with my current hard drives, I'll have to buy a new version of MS Office, my wife will have to learn new shortcuts for Archicad (her CAD program), it's not a touch screen and we all know that Apple products are so expensive and the accessories are a ripoff too.

I'll wonder over and have a quick look, I thought to my self.

Like all Apple products, they are so beautiful, so sleek and elegant. They felt sold and refined, the hinge on the mac books were firm and smooth. The track pad was just so easy to use and accurate and the keys had a wonderful feel to them. The whole package was so well designed.

I was losing the battle with my self. I started to justify why i should buy the mac book. When you start doing that you know its all over. 

Then I came across the display model that was for sale with $400 off! 

I couldn't resist, I walked out the store with my shiny new 13" Macbook Pro. I was expecting to suffer some serious buyers remorse when i got home, but I don't have any remorse. I'm totally chuffed with my purchase. I could have bought 2 windows 8 laptops for the price of my macbook Pro, but I have no regrets.

I was determined not to support Apple, because Steve Jobs style goes against what I believe in. The companies actions are often arrogant and they milk every last cent out of their customers.

But in the end I was won over by design.

They way things look are important, the small things matter. The trackpad is only slightly better, the back light keyboard is only slightly more appealing, the body feel slightly more robust and the internal components are just slightly better specs than the Windows 8 equivalents. But when you add all those small things up it equals a much better final product and I was prepared to pay more for it.