January 07, 2004
PC pundits pound their heads against the wall, asking why, if Apple only sells a small percentage of computers, the company receives such a disproportionate amount of media attention. The answer is simply that they’re selling the best computers, to the most interesting people. Maybe it is only two percent of the total PC market, but it’s the most interesting two percent.
I have been trying to get my wife to agree that our next computer will be an Apple despite the fact that neither of us have ever owned one. Here are the reasons that I want one:
- They are "lickable".
- They run Unix and thus all the cool stuff: perl, python, apache, mysql, etc.
- They have all the sexy stuff: iPhoto, iTunes, video editing tools, etc.
- They are different than anything I have ever tried, and since I like learning that is more than enough reason.
- If I don't buy Office X, then I will be buying a computer with no "Microsoft Tax" (right?!).
- When it comes down to it, the stuff that my wife and I use computers for (outside of my professional use) can be done on either platform (simple word processing, IM, photo and video manipulation, email, web browsing, etc.)
- After living in the WinTel and Nix world I would like to see how a system that puts asthetics and usability first (and not just usability and profit) works.