It’s painful to say it, but after being a devout Microsoft guy for the last 20 years of my life, I think I’m on the verge of becoming a Mac fan.
It’s been a long journey for me. I was one of “those.” I cut my teeth on MS Dos 6—and I liked it. I once asked out loud why Windows was even necessary. I had used Macs in school. They kinda worked, although I was irked that it was so hard to go from Claris Works to something useful in the “real world.” I will even go so far as to confess that I may be the only human on earth who likes Windows Vista (and I still proudly run it on my home desktop today). I spent way too much of the 1990s picking on my Apple fanboy friends for spending twice as much money for a computer that does less than a Windows PC.
In 2007, my conversion started. I wanted to get into podcasting, so I got an iPod nano. Then I started seeing predictions of the year mobile traffic would account for 50% of web traffic, so I finally broke down and got an iPhone so I could understand the platform better. Over the next two years, I grew to really like the phone. When the iPhone 4s came out I not only upgraded but got one for my wife as well. It was a devastating experience to wake up one morning and realize that I owned four Apple devices compared to two computers running Windows. What had I done?
I shook off the feeling and reassured myself that I remained resolute in my convictions. It was only iOS that I liked. I still held that Macs were overpriced paperweights. In September 2011, that last stronghold began to crack. Baby number two arrived, and space at home started to become scarce. Looking for ways to avoid a home upgrade, I realized I could save space with integrated hardware of a Mac Mini or iMac. Seeing friends with their mac laptops, I bit my lip as I admired the swipe gestures and other nice features in Mac OS. I realized that on a Mac, the slashes go the right way. I kept my excitement to myself when we began talking about transitioning to Macs as part of our team transitioning from Coldfusion to Ruby.
Then the clincher: Windows 8. At this point, I feel like Microsoft hasn’t innovated much with Windows since releasing XP in 2001. I admire them for trying with their next version, but I’ve really grown to love iOS. I may grow to love Windows 8 as well, but at this point in time I’m not sure I like the idea of turning my PC OS into a tablet OS.
The realization was painful at first. It’s hard knowing that I’ve left behind family members in the Windows camp. I’m still sorting out if I have any regrets from 20 years of being a Microsoft user, but I’m slowly starting to feel okay with getting excited about Apple product announcements! It’s been a long road!
