The title of this post might not seem very controversial, but for someone like me who has been a die-in-the-wool Mac user for the last 20 years, it’s something akin to sacrilege!
I’ve wanted to upgrade my existing iMac for a few years now.
It was a very old Intel iMac 20” – one of the original white models, that was
struggling to run my Adobe products with its maxed out 4Gb of RAM and 2Ghz
processor. I couldn’t upgrade it to the latest OS, and had to make a cup of
coffee waiting for the machine to start up. So yeah, it was time for a change.
Get a new Mac then, right?
Generally, the answer would have been yes – without
hesitation. But a couple of things had happened in the last year that gave me
serious pause. First, for over a year now I have been using a PC at my graphic
design day-job. And really enjoying it. It didn’t take me long at all to get
used the Windows operating environment, and the machine is super quick and
incredibly stable. More stable, in fact, than the new iMac I was using in my
previous job.
Second, and perhaps more telling, was Apple’s decisions
around some of their software and hardware that I’m not particularly happy
with. I’m not going to lie – Apple’s decision to stop supporting Aperture upset
me – a lot. I still don’t really understand their reasoning and am quite angry
about it. Which may seem very petty, and maybe it is. But it has also come on
the back of what I see as a major lack of interest shown by Apple to their
desktop computer users. It seems to me (and others), that Apple are far more
concerned with selling the next iteration of the iPhone and iPad than they are
with the iMac – and from Apple’s perspective, probably with good reason. They
don’t sell 6 million iMac’s in the first week of a new release, but are
practically guaranteed these sales figures when the next iPhone is released. So
fair enough – for Apple it makes perfect business sense.
But I’m still of an age where I want to work from a home desktop
computer for most of my design and photography work. I need to see that there
is a future in my chosen system, and
I just don’t get that anymore from Apple.
I decided, therefore, to take a very serious look at Windows
PC desktops. And the more I looked into it, the more excited I got about
actually being able to build my own system – from scratch, with individual
components I could hand-pick myself depending on my budget. The complete
antithesis of Apple’s pre-configured iMac.
As a photographer and graphic designer, I’m not intimidated
by technology, or a hands-on, do-it-yourself type of approach. In fact, I
prefer it. So in the end, the decision was actually quite easy, and I literally
gave my iMac away while I began my search for the computer parts I would need
for a custom build.
All the components laid out on the table before the big build. |
Budget is always the biggest constraint in any technology
purchase. There is the system I would like
to have, and then there’s the system I can afford. After a lot of reading, internet searching and online
watching, I decided to go with an AMD system that represented
best-bang-for-the-buck. I purchased the AMD A8 7600 3.8Ghz Kaveri APU with a
Gigabyte FM2+ motherboard supporting 4k displays, 8 Sata3 6Gb connections, USB
3.1 and 16GB’s of RAM, with a 240GB SSD drive for the operating system (Windows
10) and a Western Digital Black 1TB HDD for extra storage. I also installed a
DVD optical drive, internal card reader, and went with a 20” Asus LCD monitor.
All for about $850NZ. And the fun part – my son and I got to build it ourselves!
Because it was our first ever PC build, we took it slowly –
checking everything three or four times to make sure we got it right. So the
build took us about three hours. But it was three hours well spent, and when we
fired it up and installed the OS, everything worked perfectly.
The allure of Apple is not as strong for me as it used to
be. I was a die-hard iPhone user, now I have a Samsung Android phone. I was a
card-carrying iMac disciple, now I’ve build my own PC. And I don’t even own an
iPad (although my wife does). My 16 year old daughter has just started her
first ever part time job, working at McDonalds, and she’s saving up for – guess
what – an Apple iPhone. Probably the new i7.
Me? Well, I think she’s crazy (but all her friends have them – so there you go). The next phone I get
will almost certainly be running Android– or maybe even Windows? Guess that
makes me an ex-Apple fan boy? Truth be told, I can’t ever see myself going
back! Alas, poor Apple, I knew it well…..
Many would agree with your assessment of Apple's priorities. For several years now Apple's commitment to their Mac products has been on the wane - very little innovation, and the software is definitely being developed by the "B" team. We remember when Apple gear "just worked", but that is no longer the case. One can't help feeling that Apple has moved most of its talent into the IOS side of the business. Couple that drift in quality and innovation with Apple's ongoing arrogance toward its user population and you have a recipe for lots of disenchanted Mac people. Meanwhile, the Windows platform, after some rocky patches, is looking pretty good. I still don't like some of Microsoft's policies, but Apple is getting more and more like the company that it once derided.
ReplyDeleteHi Keith
ReplyDeleteSad, but true. Wish it wasn't so - as someone who has used and sworn by Apple their whole career.
Thanks for posting
Wayne
I can totally agree with you Wayne, i used Apple products for years, but when i recently upgraded my phone, I went Android with an HTC phone, Tablet i brought an Android powered Samsung, and when my 9yr old Macbook died earlier this year i replaced it with a Windows 10 machine, that offered more than a top end Macbook pro for 1/2 the price.
ReplyDeleteThe focus on iOS devices by Cuppertino certainly has left a lot of long time mac users unhappy
Hey Hayden - Sounds like we have a lot in common! :-)
ReplyDeleteIf you'd have told me two years years ago that I would become a Windows/Android user I wouldn't have believed you. And if you'd also told me that I'd be using a m/4 3rds system over a DSLR I would have called you crazy...