I'm an Apple evangelist no more.
Why?
Yesterday my iMac died.
This makes the second iMac that's died on me in less than one year.
This was my 24" Aluminum iMac. My primary work machine. Before that, my 3-year-old Whitey was taken before its time due to a faulty cooling system. I'm pretty sure the hard drive crapped out on my 24 incher. I'm hoping I can salvage it with a new hard drive I have on order.
Last month I noticed that my new iPod Touch was doing some goofy stuff. The screen flickers and becomes unreadable. A call to Apple's customer service department didn't do much good -- they said try reinstalling the software. And if that didn't work, well, it would likely need to be sent back.
It didn't, so now I have to either bundle it up or live with it. I didn't pay much for it, and I suppose I could just chalk it up to a lesson learned. I'm so furious with Apple right now that I don't even know if I want to bother boxing it up, to be honest.
So that's three... count 'em... THREE faulty Apple products in less than four years. Meanwhile, my trusty G4 tower sits in storage out in the garage and would no doubt boot right up if I plugged her in today.
I've used nothing but Mac as my primary workstation since the mid 1990s. But I think I've purchased my last iMac. The quality's just not there... not like it used to be. Maybe it's because Apple has been preoccupied as of late with selling phones, music players and other gizmos at Wal-Mart that they've forgotten how to make a truly excellent top-of-the line computer for the discerning professional.
Or maybe success has gotten to their heads and they
just don't give a rip about quality control anymore. Who knows?
Just five years ago, I was
that guy. You know, the one pushing Mac when everyone else was using a PC. I was like iMoses, giving a commandment to the heathens to buy whatever Steve Jobs beamed down from Silicon Heaven.
But I've since lost my religion. As well as time and money.
So as I sit here writing from my wife's $450 Acer laptop, I have to ask myself "Why Mac?"
Honestly, I can't answer that. At first, it was because Mac was
the machine for graphic designers. But that was 1996. Times have changed. As far as Adobe products are concerned, Mac and PC are on equal footing now.
The prestige? The prestige of owning a pretty, shiny (and non-upgradable) piece of office jewelry that costs more than twice as much as a down-to-earth computer and has about 5% as much software available for it?
Yes, yes, yes... the viruses!
Well, I've never once lost a PC to a virus. But I've lost two Macs to faulty manufacturing.
So I'm really not surprised by the recent iPhone 4 debacle. From where I'm sitting, Apple's quality has been going downhill for years. I'll likely be buying a new desktop in the next month or so.
Dude, I'm getting a Dell.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to scrape this Apple logo off the window of my Toyota.
(Oh... )
