Rob Manuel

Working with the Internet my entire adult life, I’ve mostly seen Macs as a source of irritation. I’ll be working on a website and the designer gives me a bunch of files without file extensions and I have to spend half an hour working out what application will load them, or I’ll be adding two days extra development time to a project as I debug the CSS so that the site will display on IE.

Actually the largest source of irritation is file endings. I co-write the B3ta Newsletter with my friend David Stevenson, a keen Mac user, and the endless ‘fixing the line endings’ and ‘removing the curly quotes’ as we exchange drafts on email has driven me to distraction.

And yet, two weeks ago, I bought a Mac. Why?

I needed a laptop for my wife to do a bit of email, as my other PC laptop is heavy, it’s often unavailable as I’ve left it in the office.

The secret reason was a bit more boys-toys: “working out how how to use a Mac will be something to geek out on over a dull weekend.”

Scooted about on eBay and found I could buy a 2005 12″ Powerbook at around £550. As these retail new at over £1000, it felt like a bargain.

And I’ll tell you something. Over the last two weeks I’ve fallen in love with my Mac, I’ve turned into a Mac bore. So I figure I’ll just get it over and done with quickly, and instead of winding up all my PC friends by phoning them up one by one, I’ll just write something and let them ignore it in one easy go.

Ten reasons I love my Mac

• The 12″ powerbook is so small I can carry it on the tube without my shoulder hurting.
• Battery life. I get 3 to 4 hrs, meaning I can actually use it for a solid bit of work without plugging it in. Unlike my Compaq which lasts about 1 hr before plaintively bleeping that it needs more juice.
• Having a Mac is like moving to America. Everything is basically the same as the UK, but assuming you can afford it, stuff just works better.
• Tight iLife / iWorks integration. I am so in love with it. For example:
• iPhoto. This weekend a friend and her baby popped over. I took a few snaps and dropped them into a slideshow complete with a Madonna backing track via iTunes. She thought I was a genius and couldn’t believe I’d managed to achieve all that whilst holding down a conversation about prams.
• Mac users are better looking. I took my wife to the Apple store so I could buy a laptop bag and she said, “Gosh. I should send my single friends here. They could pull.” As compared to the time I dragged her to the computer fair off Tottenham Crt Rd, “These people smell. Can we leave?”
• Built-in bluetooth. I transfered my photos off my phone with no faffing about, unlike my PC where I visited a shop, bought a USB dongle and then spent two hours fighting with passkeys trying to get everything to talk to each other.
• Talking point. Last week I was working in a new office full of PC users. Everyone wanted to come over and talk to the Mac user and see how life was different on the other side. It’s a bit like being the token gay in the office. Although as I use a PC at home, it’s probably more like being secretly bisexual.
• I was up and running within minutes. I thought I’d be all twat-fingered and not being able to get stuff to work. On the day my Mac turned-up, I managed to use it to build a quick messageboard / blog website for a friend. It wasn’t any easier, but the fact that it wasn’t any harder than normal means that there’s no reason not to use a Mac as the main tool of my trade.
• It’s so small and shiny.

Ten things that have annoyed me

• No # key. I had to Google to find out how to add a hash to a document. And yet Apple think that I need a § key? Who the hell needs that?
• Bouncy dock items. It’s like having a unruly child with Attention Deficit Disorder. Yes MSN, I can see you’ve managed to sign yourself out, but why do have to keep pestering me until I get clicky on your ass?
• Line endings. Gah. All my posts on Yahoo-groups appear to have random carriage returns placed halfway through sentences. It’s making my emails look retarded.
• Smug friends, who on telling them I really like my Mac, launch into a “I’ve been using a Mac since 1984. Windows is rubbish” zealotry.
• Right click! Yes I know Windows people laugh at Macs for the right click issue, and then Mac people go, “A-ha! But you can plug in a two button one if you like.” But I don’t want to plug in a second mouse - it’s a laptop - I’m currently typing this on my lap. Where would the mouse go? On my knee?
• That six months ago I didn’t tell my mum to buy one and she’s stuck with a PC which she finds tricky to use.
• Fn / Ctrl / Alt / Option / Windows - between the Mac and the PC there are five keys that work as shortcut modifiers. How on earth am I meant to switch between the two machines and know which ones to press? Cut and paste is the worst. On the PC it’s Ctrl C whilst the Mac it’s Apple C. And the Apple key is in the same place as the ALT key on the PC. Gah, it’s slowing me down. Roll on magic keyboards of the future with mini LCDs in each key.
• You know what? I can’t find ten things that annoy me about the Mac. I’ve been racking my brains and there’s no more. In fact, I’m writing this within a web browser and I’ve just realised that there is a spellcheck built into Safari. How cool is that? Not only is it cool, it’s the same spellcheck that works in Textedit and Pages so any words I add to the dictionary are available in all aps. God damn it, I love my Mac. It’s giving me the horn.

End bit

So the question is… Do I replace my desktop with a Mac? Oh gawd, I really want to say yes, but I haven’t really got the spare cash at the moment, but every fiber in my body is going, “yes! never use a PC again. Windows is rubbish.”

And incase you’re wondering. No, my wife can’t have my lovely Mac. She can have the (actually much higher specced) PC laptop that’s currently sitting unloved on the floor.

But I’ll tell you something about this ’switch’ business. Ex-smokers are always the most irritating type of non-smoker. Are ex-PC users the most boring type of Mac user? Er.. I suspect they are, so if you see me knocking about, remind me to shut up about Macs.