Because it makes you stupid.
It’s three years since I bought my first Mac. Before that, I was like everybody else. Mac was something for fan boys. Discussions were mostly like discussions between two religious extremists with a large population of just run-of-the-mil believers (more or less) who did not care or understood what those „experts“ were talking about (that’s me). I used Windows, because there wasn’t really a choice. Then I met this extremely good looking piece of aluminium (aluminum for the other side). I was attracted to it by it’s looks and by the prospect of something else than Windows. I had looked at Linux distributions but I never found them very appealing and that is true till today (but Linux servers are the way to go).
The next shock came with the iPad. I resisted one year and when I bought it, I wasn’t sure, how I would use it. Today I use it for watching tv, reading books, checking emails while lying on the couch (to relax my back … ahem). Especially for reading I find it perfect, because I can read while my wife sleeps. Unfortunately I have seen the new iPad. The display is so much better. I have to give my iPad more often to my kids in the hope they drop it and I will have a reason to buy the new one.
And then came the time when my old trusty Motorola phone finally gave up the ghost. Since I had all the other stuff, I bought an iPhone. Not the ultimate manager tamagotchi, but still something I sneered at for a long time. I hate phones. People who have their phone with them all the time, even when skiing or biking go on my nerves. Did you know there is a biking app that automatically sends tweets to Twitter and Facebook to inform your friends where you are, how fast you are, your heart beat? This is ridiculous. They even pick up their phone while talking to you.
But I connected the dam thing to the Mac and everything was set up and ready to use. I even read books on that stupid little screen. It is helpful when I connect my iPad to it for browsing, though.
BUT. Since I use a Mac, I lost a lot of skills. I don’t have to interpret cryptic error messages any more. The darn thing just works. I had once a problem with the disk and it told me exactly what I had to do and it worked. Doing administrative task with it is a blast. Connect a Time Machine? Takes not even a minute.
There is never an error message when I connect to another network and it does not find the server it is used to.
It still looks like new. I normally changed my notebooks after about three years, this one will make it a lot longer (except if the retina displays make it to the MacBook Pro).
I do run Windows 7 in Fusion for testing and developing and I find Notes is a lot faster, than on the Mac, but every time I start Windows there are messages everywhere about updates and other stuff. Today it annoyed me with a forced restart because of updates. It is just the way Windows does not take you serious as a user.
Yes, it looks like I am addicted. That’s the problem. I can not imagine to switch back to Windows (to 7 at least). Am I a fan boy now? I hope not.
Therefore never buy a Mac. You will miss all the stuff you can talk about with your colleagues. All the crashes, the error messages most of us click away anyway. And you are going to buy the other stuff, too, if you are lazy like me and do not get any satisfaction out of installing and configuring stuff.
If you are thinking buying a Mac because it is cool, forget it. Everybody has one at home now, at least where I live. In Switzerland Apple has the highest market share, 27.3%. Apple is now number one in Switzerland. I am again just one of the big crowd.
If IBM would realize, that this is a chance to sell Notes on Mac …