James Derk -- CyberDad

The "Ipod Effect" gets another one

They are calling it the “Ipod effect”, where people who had never been exposed to Apple products prior to buying an Ipod music player are so impressed with the device that they buy an Apple computer for their next PC.
Is it happening? According to a comprehensive study by S.G. Cowan, of more than 1,400 households studied who owned Ipods and planned to buy a new PC, more than 7.5 percent were going Mac. That’s not a lot until you consider Apple’s market share is only 3.3 percent.
For those doing the math at home, that’s a doubling of the current Apple market share.
Well, count me among the pile.
I am writing this on a (so far) gleaming white Ibook G4, which I have to say is pretty cool. So yes, after 15 years of Windows computing and repairing I am taking a left turn into wow and a right turn away from rebooting.
First impressions?
The 12 inch Ibook is a work of art. What the Ipod is to music, the Ibook is to laptops. The screen is bright and sharp. (The 14 inch screen, by the way, just makes the pixels larger; you don’t see any more information than the 12 and the 14-inch screen is more blurry to my eyes.)
So I went with the 12 inch, even though Apple wouldn’t sell me a DVD-burning “SuperDrive” with it (you have to get the lesser “ComboDrive” which only burns CDs.) It is odd that Apple won’t offer the SuperDrive as an option.
As a life-long Windows user, I have a bit of a learning curve here, starting from the lack of a right mouse button, which so far is the only thing that is driving me totally nuts (yes, I can program a mouse button to be a right key but I meant natively on the keyboard.)
But what has impressed me so far was that the Apple OSX fired to life out of the box and simply worked. Of course, a Windows laptop out of the box works too, but after 50 patches from Microsoft and 10 reboots.
Anyway, I promise not to turn into one of of “those” people; I think both worlds can co-exist peacefully; like Coke and Pepsi, the Cubs and the Cards, the ying and the yang.
As for the daily use of it, I am still getting used to how to find anything; I know I have certain applications installed and as yet I can’t find them but it’s only been a day or two. I have the handy bar at the bottom which is very helpful in finding key applications. I find the Apple discussion forum at www.apple.com to be invaluable. Microsoft could emulate that in a heartbeat.
The new Ibooks, which were released a couple of weeks ago, now come standard with more RAM and more features, which were the deciding factor in getting me to buy; the standard 512 RAM was a major plus. It’s too early to tell right now if that will be enough but it is peppy at this point but I have not taxed it yet.
The unit is quiet as a mouse (I don’t think the fan has even come on yet) and I find the size perfect for my needs. My Windows laptop is 15 inches and it is far too large to do any work on an airplane and far too heavy to lug around happily. At 12 inches and less than 5 pounds, this 12 incher is perfect for my needs.
In terms of ordering, the Apple Web site said it would ship in “1-3 days” but really neglected to mention that was from Shanghai; the arrival time from order to drop off was 8 days in my case.
Anyway, I will share with you my journey as a “switcher” as well as a continuing Windows user. I will have feet deeply in both camps and I hope that will serve the reader well.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Even if you just fancy yourself an engineer you will love Emachine Shop (www.emachineshop.com) with free software that will let you design and scope out parts, inventions or entire machines.

James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His email address is jim@cyberdads.com

posted by James Derk @ 9:28 PM