An Apple a Day...

I'm a recent Apple convert and like all converts I am sometimes fervent in my conversion. But in this case, I think the fervor is for good reason.

Apple products work. And I don't mean that in the way that someone would say, "yeah, my IBM works," or "sure, my Dell works." What I mean is that my iMac (the last of the slot loading, all-in-one machines) works - all the time. I've left it running for 4 months at a stretch, rebooting only when I installed the occasional software that requires it. It has never - not once - crashed. And the software works. In the same way. I've had to "force quit" an application maybe three or four times in the two and a half years I've been using my iMac. But OS X is so well thought out, so well written, that such an event has never caused the entire operating system to crash. And when I have force-quit an application, I just start it right back up and everything keeps working.

When I say I'm a recent convert, that doesn't mean I'm a new computer user. My first computer was a Tandy, running at 10Mhz with no hard drive and only 256K of RAM. That was in 1985. I use an IBM Thinkpad at work. And every day, when I come in and have to wait through the interminable boot up, I miss my Mac. I feel the same way all day...

Anyway... what got me started on this post is that Apple announced the (long anticipated) release of its iTunes software and its attendant on-line iTunes Music Store for Windows. I've used iTunes for a couple of years and I absolutely love it. It is slick, stable and "it works." I've used Apples Music Store as well and, like so many other things, Apple just got it right. It's easy to navigate around the site and find what you are looking for, and after setting up your purchasing information in a very secure setup, you can buy music with just one click. Sure, there are other music stores out there that cater to Windows users, but they will immediately be playing catch up to Apple.

And not only does iTunes work well, Apples MP3 player, the iPod, is an absolute "home run." It works with Windows, too. I don't have one, but it's on my very short list of "stuff" I'd like to get, and everything I've read about them, every opportunity I've had to play with one in a store, has impressed me. Apple's got about 30% of the MP3 player market and this will likely grow with the release of the Windows software. Even the lowest end model holds more music (or files - it can act as a Firewire removable drive) than all the other models out there combined; 10GB. That's right; 10 GIGABYTES.

So all you Windows users out there, go download iTunes. You will absolutely love it. And while you're waiting for the file to download, go look around Apple's site. Especially look at the screen shots of the updated OS X "Panther." If you can't admit that these two things don't at least make you think about switching, you're just fooling yourself!

Fervent? Yep. For good reason.