Raible Designs

Everyone wants a Mac

Greg tried to download an x86 version (I did this about a year ago and got Darwin installed before I realized you couldn't run OS X on x86), James wants one with a cinema display and even Gerhard longs for one.

Well I was lucky enough to buy one last Christmas. I got a 667 Mhz Powerbook with a gig o' RAM. I wanted a laptop for traveling to client sites and this seemed like the best laptop at the time. So 10 months later, you ask, "Was it worth it?" Yes and no.

• Yes: It's great to have OS X and I don't long for a Mac anymore.
• No: I hardly ever use it except for testing and surfing, not much development.
• Yes: My boss bought it for me as a Christmas bonus last year, so the expense was easier to justify.
• No: It doesn't give me much over Windows XP with Cygwin and Red Hat - they (seem to) both have Unix cores and my Win XP install seems to be just as stable as OS X.
• Yes: My client uses Macs for all their video-production and website-viewing. I can test their product on the Mac (with Mac browsers) before I release it. This is the #1 benefit to having the machine and it's paid for itself because of this.
• No: The screen resolution is fixed to 1152 x 768 and I'd like it to go higher. I can change it to be higher when plugging it in to an external monitor. The new Titanium G4's go up to 1280 x 854. Most Windows laptops I've seen allow you to 1600 x 1200.
• Yes: iSync rocks and it's great to sync with my T68i phone and have no wires.
• No: I expected a fast laptop because megahertz don't matter on Macs. Yeah right, my Windows XP machine (1.5 Ghz) was a year older than the Mac and with half the RAM was still twice as fast. I've heard that this has more to do with OS X than the hardware.
• No: I've used Windows most of my life and I'm much less productive when working on the Mac. I'm just slower, plain and simple, and that frustrates me to no end. I admit, this is my problem and not the Mac's, but it is a reason that I don't like it so much. Keyboard shortcuts have started to make my frustrations subside.
• No: I expected Virtual PC to run on the Mac so I could get the "best of both worlds" running Windows and OS X on the same machine. However, it runs so damn slow that it's unusable. My 300 Mhz, 256 MB RAM old Compaq runs faster - and it takes 5 minutes to boot up!
• Yes: People drool and it gives me buyer satisfaction.

I think if I used it more, I'd probably like it more and get faster at using it. However, with 5% of the market share, it doesn't get much love from the application vendors. And while Java runs great on the Mac, it's revisions are too far behind the other platforms. If you were on a project that wanted to upgrade to JDK 1.4, and use some new APIs in that version, you wouldn't be able to develop on your Mac for a year.

I too dream about the Cinema Display and my boss has been thinking about getting me one for my Christmas bonus, but is it work the money? $3500 for a fancy display you can brag to your friends and fellow bloggers about? Tough to justify, easy to buy. I have dual 19" monitors setup right now and they probably provide me the same function without the form.