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Why I Bought A Mac
January 15, 2009 By permadi
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I have been a long time PC users (21 years to be more precise — I feel old) and have resisted Macs.  Actually, I haven’t used Macs much and I guess I am resisting it.

I decided to to buy a Mac because:

  • I can install Windows on it (Intel processor).
  • I want to write iPhone applications.
  • People seem to like Mac machines nowadays.
  • It’s like a two-in-one deal (the ability to install Windows on the Mac with BootCamp).

Why I didn’t like Macs:  I had used a Mac several times at work and found it to be clunky and slow.  This was about 8 and 4 years ago.  One of the machine I used was an iMac and I absolutely hated it  “hmm, this machine is slow and aqua, looks like a blob, is it a toy?”  Even when Leopard came out, the machine I used a G4 that looks like a serious machine, was slow.

I don’t want Mac lovers to be worked-up by my comments, though.  Please read the next post because I sort of like my Mac now, even though I still use Windows more than my Mac, which looks like this:

IMG_2542.JPGIMG_2540.JPG
Other dislikes of Mac:

  • One button.  Why on earth would Apple not support dual button mouse.  Oh, the arrogance.
  • Where is the Backspace keyboard button?
  • Why isn’t there a “Rename” option on the folder context menu (oh, I have to use the Finder menu, and yes, I can click the icon-text and hope it goes to “rename” mode instead of opening the folder.
  • The resource-fork: what is the purpose of it (what is .DSxxxx files?).  A file is a file, why does it need a pair?
  • The “detached” windows (meaning the menu is always on the top unlike Windows apps where the menu is part of the app window).
  • “Control” and “Command” buttons, “Alt” and “Options” buttons.  As a Windows users, they confuse me (also because they positions are slightly different on the PC).  Of course, we all heard how Windows “borrows” from Mac, so if Mac OS came out first, was Windows the one which deviated first?  I think whatever popular should be the standard to follow, but that’s just me being lazy.
  • The price.  It’s expensive — though some who has done real comparison have said that’s not true.  For example this Technologizer article.
  • I want to get into iPhone programming, make iPhone apps and hopefully have something in the Apple AppStore.

Some notes about iPhone programming: You can create some iPhone stuff on a PC, such as using Aptana iPhone Plug In or this iPhone Binary Compiler for Windows which requires a jailbroken iPhone — also see this link.  Or how about this article: “Apple Says Jailbreaking Is Illegal,” and the complaint is on this link (27 pages pdf), wow. iPhone apps can also be made using JavaScript.

But seriously, these are not ideal and the developer is bound to hit the limit sooner or later if they are serious about developing for the iPhone.  To make native iPhone apps, there’s no question that Xcode (Apple’s Programming IDE) and the iPhone SDK is the way to go.