Computing is at a crossroad, so let's step back for a minute and ask ourselves why we need computers - we lived before them and we can live without them. The single answer is “control”. We want to do what we want to do more often, and faster.
The first household computers let us word process and more efficiently create content. The latest computers and smartphones (hopefully) help us think and generally operate more efficiently. Computers of the future should transparently enable us to become more effective in both our business and our personal environments – communicate, collaborate, create and consume more efficiently and more often. We want technology to allow us to be us, but better.
Transparency is the key to successful digital technology. The last 30 years of personal computing have been a learning curve that has both divided and united people. The 'Gurus' in the know have often concealed the knowledge required to operate computers efficiently, while the vast majority of people have felt left behind by technology. Transparency means that one can use technology intuitively. This single measure will define success for tech companies of the future and it is something that Apple does very well on the iOS platform (which powers iPhones and iPads – and some iPods).
It was the iPod that began Apple's stunning turn-around from the brink of bankruptcy. At the time I remember feeling (and writing) that branding music players, as Sony had done two decades earlier, was a step backwards for the consumer. The iPod was more expensive, had less features, and locked the user into using iTunes and thus the Apple eco-system. So why was it so successful? It worked well, and was EASY – your music needs were completely provided for. And the rest, as they say...Interestingly, as the Apple slice-of-the-pie becomes bigger, it may still turn out to be a bad thing for competition and therefore consumers. Yet, the rate of innovation and refinement of Apple products at present is second to none.
Apple's success in no small part depends on its marketing, of which Apple are also masters (some would say that this is their greatest strength). Barely a TV show goes by where a luminous Apple logo is absent from an actor’s desk. Their designs increasingly gravitate towards minimalist designs and succinct feature lists. Some would say that Apple drip-feeds their incremental technological improvements to a pre-primed market, starving for the features that their competitors have had for years. So...
Why do we still buy apple?
Apple's success at delivering items that work as advertised is remarkably high. And, in a tech world where product cycles are measured in weeks, it's nice to know what you are buying.
Having sold hundreds of laptops over recent years, PFS knows a thing or two about what laptops look and 'feel' like out of the box. We also know what they are like to drive (and fix). So what do I like about my 13” MacBook Air?
HARDWARE
Compared to the plastic construction of all other laptops, Apple's aluminium 'unibody' which now occurs across their entire range provides a far more rigid laptop that is unlikely to fall apart a year into use. It's also VERY thin.
A flexible chassis can also result in electrical faults in the form of cracked circuit boards. The power connector is magnetic which prevents accidentally tripping on the cord and destroying your laptop. Another design plus is the Air's lack of an optical drive - which should be considered obsolete. All-in-all a clean and unobtrusive design with all the necessary features. I should note that I use my laptop in conjunction with other computers which have things like cd-burners in the case I need one.
The 13" screen is adequately clear and bright, although response rates seem a little low. Graphics ability is again adequate, but not amazing – you won't be playing many games (except for maybe Farm Town). Two USB ports, an SD card reader, video output (now Thunderbolt) and a standard audio socket round out the set of external connectors. The design is minimalist and feels very well built.
My Air comes with 2GB of RAM and a 128GB solid state disk and a 1.86GHz Core Duo (a CPU that is now obsolete). The current models (released a few months ago) have current generation CPUs and double the RAM which makes them about twice as quick.
The most common hardware fault fixed in the PF Systems workshop is failed hard drives. The solid state (non-mechanical) hard-drive in the Air is delightfully fast and more resistant to the normal bumps and bruises a laptop faces, so should be more reliable too. Mac OSXs awesome Time Machine feature lets you take reliable computer backups to the next level with absolute ease. In the unfortunate event of a HDD failure, you should be fine!It's worth noting that Intel, last year, introduced an 'ultra-book' form factor as a template design for PC manufacturers. And so you'll have PC options with a MacBook Air feel, but build quality is still largely unknown.
SOFTWARE
By far the most common repair work we do here at PF Systems is the removal of malware. I'm yet to see a case of an infected Apple computer, although they do exist. Reasons for this include:
- More integrated and rigid user authentication.
- Less targeted by virus programmers due to the small market segment previously occupied by Apple.
- Less exposed operating system which in turn reduces the ways viruses can act yet also makes it harder to integrate legitimate software.
Mac's new Lion OSX operating system begins the feature migration of Apples mobile devices to their desktop hardware. These features include:
- Increased numbers of touchpad gestures.
- Launchpad - which looks exactly like the home screen of iPads and iPhones.
- Reversed scrolling so that you 'drag' the pages up and down.
- App Store
Apple has hyped OSX Lion 10.7 as a major advance. Honestly, though, it feels more like an incremental evolution of a desktop OS towards iOS than a major update. Day to day use of OSX is no more or less stable than previous versions of OSX or Windows; which is to say that (if both systems are free of malware) then both perform OK but not perfectly.
The power saving features of OSX combined with Apple hardware is one of my favourite features. It results in reliable lid open/closed behaviour and lets you resume working from laptop closed in seconds. If you do decide to reboot, the solid-state hard-drive in the Air gives you a boot time to login screen of not much more than this, anyway. Lion OSX also opens all your apps again where you left them before rebooting as an option.
I would (and do) recommend Apple to anyone who has a single computer that they use for everything and want seamless integration between all their Apple devices. Mixed Apple/Windows environments on a business/home network are more cumbersome than all of one or the other and PF Systems still highly recommends Windows, especially as a business OS.
