I had always used DOS and various versions of Windows growing up, but once I got older and had a bit more money to spend on a computer, I decided to try out Apple hardware and software. I bought a ppc white iMac notebook (as a small portable around the house computer) and also a 15" aluminum PowerBook g3. I also got a lampshade style imac ppc. In general I enjoyed the iLife programs and the tidy and sharply designed user interface. So software was never really a problem. The problem was the hardware. In the year that I ran these machines I had nothing but trouble with them. The iBook stopped booting, it had a garbled screen and there was some serious main board issue. I sent it it on a recall, and it worked again for a while, and then started doing the same thing. Ultimately I gave it away to my uncle who is an electrical engineer, and he used specialized equipment to heat up the solder traces and get the chips and circuits working properly again. So I had two serious failures on that machine. The PowerBook developed horrible white blobs on the screen, and I had to send that in on a recall as well. So you can guess I wasn't terribly impressed with apples supposedly high end engineering and build quality at that point. To cap things off, my iMac started doing a thing where the monitor would light up for a brief moment on bootup, but then afterwards the backlight would turn off. I never found a solution or recall notice for this problem, but it also made that computer unusable. These were all machines of the same production era, and the only one that didn't become completely unusable was the PowerBook, but i was so disgusted with apple at that point that I gave it away to a friend and decided to move on. My best guess is that apple had decided to cash in on their previously established reputation for quality hardware, and that quality took a serious dip when the machines began being made in Asia.
At any rate I bought one other apple product which was the first iPod mini. It has always worked great and done exactly what i wanted. Perhaps it was that positive experience that gave me the idea that apple was now making some nice specialized consumer friendly devices. So, after a few more years, and getting a taste of pad computing with palmos devices, I decided that apple was probably on to something with their new touch interface devices. I decided to get an iPad, knowing very well what it could and could not do. I have to say that I am 100 percent happy with it. It is wonderfully convenient to use during breaks at work, and chilling out around the house. I use it mainly as a reading device, both for the web as well as using apps like iBooks and kindle. It's also great for playing a game of chess or some other game. The touch interface is responsive and intuitive, and feels more like I'm interacting with real world objects than virtual. The device is very fast and satisfying to use.
So, I'm not a typical apple fan, and I have reasons to have a negative bias against the company. My main "truck" computer these days is a 15" thinkpad, and I am so happy with it that I doubt I will ever buy a different model laptop. I run win7 on it and am also quite happy with that, although i wouldn't mind the option to be able to easily run macos as well. In summary, despite my experiences, and becoming older and more hardened in my pc ways, I am very happy with the innovations and hardware involved with the iPad, and look forward to what the future holds for tablet computing. Hey, I've even started a little ios app collection from the App store!
At any rate I bought one other apple product which was the first iPod mini. It has always worked great and done exactly what i wanted. Perhaps it was that positive experience that gave me the idea that apple was now making some nice specialized consumer friendly devices. So, after a few more years, and getting a taste of pad computing with palmos devices, I decided that apple was probably on to something with their new touch interface devices. I decided to get an iPad, knowing very well what it could and could not do. I have to say that I am 100 percent happy with it. It is wonderfully convenient to use during breaks at work, and chilling out around the house. I use it mainly as a reading device, both for the web as well as using apps like iBooks and kindle. It's also great for playing a game of chess or some other game. The touch interface is responsive and intuitive, and feels more like I'm interacting with real world objects than virtual. The device is very fast and satisfying to use.
So, I'm not a typical apple fan, and I have reasons to have a negative bias against the company. My main "truck" computer these days is a 15" thinkpad, and I am so happy with it that I doubt I will ever buy a different model laptop. I run win7 on it and am also quite happy with that, although i wouldn't mind the option to be able to easily run macos as well. In summary, despite my experiences, and becoming older and more hardened in my pc ways, I am very happy with the innovations and hardware involved with the iPad, and look forward to what the future holds for tablet computing. Hey, I've even started a little ios app collection from the App store!
