Baaaaa..........

I find it amusing that the response I get from some people when they hear I’ve got an iPhone is to make the noise of a sheep. Their logic is that everyone who has an Apple product only does because they followed the rest of the flock.

 I’ve been an Apple user since 2004, I was brought round to the Mac way of thinking after having to replace the motherboard on my Windows PC twice in 18 months. I’d decided the pain versus the pleasure of owning a Windows PC just wasn’t worth it anymore. I do a lot of photography and thats what I mainly use my computers for, the last thing I want is for it to crash halfway through importing or editing shots and thats what I was getting on a regular basis with my Windows machine. I remember discussing my how painful I found the Window PC experience to my then girlfriends father, he just turned round and said get a Mac. He owned a children's book publishing company and had always used Macs for the creative side as he found them more dependable. 

 My first Mac was a Mac Mini, it was a cheap way into owning a Mac as I could use my existing monitor and keyboard. Macs have never been cheap computers, but I have long believed in the phrase you pay for what you get. I remember paying about £500 for it and my first reaction once I got it home and set-up was it just works. The nice thing was also finding that the software that came with it covered of most of my needs from writing, spreadsheets, music and even photography to a degree. In the end I only had to buy one piece of software and that was for digital photo processing, iPhoto was ok for holiday snaps but not serious photography.

 Mac Mini - now used as home entertainment server (2010)

The interesting thing over the last 6 years has been watching people with no IT knowledge switch to Macs and seeing the genuine excitement in their faces when they start talking about their new computers and the biggest thing that always sticks out to me is when they say it just works. What Apple has done well is to make their environment into a place people don’t feel intimidated by the technology in front of them. Some call this the dumbing down of computers, I call it the empowering of the user. Apple have realised not everyone wants to delve under the hood, so they’ve made it so you don’t have to. If your the sort of person who likes tinkering then Apple has given you the ability to do so (on the computer side), the best of both worlds.  

Unfortunately over the last couple of years with the appearance of the iPod, iPhone and now the iPad Apple products are being seen as fashion items. This is a line that has been pushed mainly by die hard PC (windows) users who appear to be personally threatened by the popularity of Apple products. This isn’t a new trend, we've had it with Canon and Nikon, Ford and Vauxhall, Nike and Adidas for some strange reason when people buy into a product they feel they have to defend their decision to the death. The fact is it’s their decision and not someone else's, they took it because of the unique circumstances in their lives and you can guarantee no one else will have the exact same circumstances in theirs. Oh don’t get me wrong there are people out there who do buy based upon what they think is fashionable but the vast majority don’t, if you think they do then maybe you need to look at yourself and check you haven’t fallen into the flock off knocking something for the sake of knocking it.

 Oh and on the iPad front yes I’m planing to get one at some point as it fills a need in my own business plan and if you thing that makes me a sheep well Baaaaaaa......