A Treatise on Apple
So, a week ago, I joined the dark side and purchased an Apple MacBook Pro. Not that the spec means much/anything at all to a member of the technically challenged, but this laptop sports such features as a 2.4GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 4GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, 2 USB ports, 1 Firewire port, a “13.3 inch (diagonal) LED - backlit glossy widescreen display with support for millions of colours” (quoting the website there) and more supported screen resolutions than I care to mention, all encased in a unibody aluminium outside and weighing in at a tiny smidge over 2 kilos, and a price tag that makes this piece of kit the most expensive thing I have ever forked out for with my own hard-earned cash.
My personal favourite features, though, have little/nothing to do with the technical specification that so many computer nerds would drool over and pick apart (of course I name no names…). I’ve arranged a little top 10:
1. The backlit keyboard. Hello essay writing in the dark!
2. Having a mouse with no buttons - looks much nicer and I can click from anywhere. However, this is also a bit of a hindrance as it takes some getting used to and there’s no right click function; I stumbled upon that one by accident while habitually mashing my keyboard in a ham-fisted manner and pressing different buttons to find out what they do.
3. The charger - it’s magnetic!
4. The way the apple on the back/top lights up when the computer’s switched on and makes a pretty shape on my wall.
5. Having an eject button
6. The way it turns on and is ready to use in less time than it takes me to do one eye’s worth of makeup
7. Instant switch-off - no “automatic updates” making my computer effectively remain switched on for potentially hours after I’ve switched it off and consequently noising at me when I least suspect it, usually in the middle of the night.
8. The dock. I always hated that desktop icons used to mask sections of my wallpaper and now I don’t have to worry about that.
9. The lack of F1-F12 keys. What do they even do anyway?!
10. The way Safari spell-checks me. I know Firefox does this too, but it was a setting I had to prefer. This is automatic!
However, I do also have a few down points that I’ve noticed since abandoning Camp Windows:
1. There’s no delete key; only backspace. I never thought I used the delete key until I found myself without it. Now I miss it enormously.
2. The way “@” is above 2, and “”” are above apostrophe. Call me set in my ways, but I quite liked it when it was the other way round.
3. The “cmd” button. Is “fn” not enough for Apple? Do we need an extra? Also, the symbol is funny and when it appears as a shortcut next to things it just looks weird and like I’ve possibly set my language to incomprehensible gibberish by mistake.
4. The way I can’t set a homepage on Safari. I don’t like typing for facebook all the time. I liked clicking on the little house.
That said, there are way more pros to going Apple than there are cons. I’m very much a fan of this beautiful laptop, but as you can probably tell, it is it’s aesthetics mostly that I find have the upper hand over Windows. In terms of spec, I know I could get the equivalent in Windows for considerably less than this machine’s £1000 price tag and had it not been for the amazing student deal I was offered, I’m not sure I would have found the additional expense necessary for what I want out of a laptop - the extra £200 or so is just for the name.
And people clearly pay for the name. It’s too soon for me to pass a judgement based on personal experience but Apple definitely carries with it the opinion that Mac technology is far superior to Windows, and the machines themselves convey a sense of the artistic, prestige and reliability. It’s made out of metal, for Christ’s sake. That just screams “if you throw me off a cliff, I’ll survive!”, not that I’m prepared to try it.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Apple have made a full, baptised and confirmed convert out of me yet, but they’re well on the way. Come back to me when I’ve been using this for a month and I’ll probably have dismissed all those cons from the list. Even if I haven’t, how easy this laptop is on the eye makes up for any small faults it may have. A bit like me, really…
