I’ve just realized that over the past 12 months I’ve gone Apple. It started innocently enough with a Juniper iTunes credit card and an iPhone on launch day last June. Then an Apple TV found it’s way into my home. Eventually, a MacBook and a Mac Pro followed suit.
I have to say I’m impressed with all my Apple products. Here’s a quick review roundup:
My iPhone gets plenty of use at home and on the go, and if the next version only adds in 3G and GPS, I won’t even be all that tempted to upgrade. It’s so much better than any previous phone I’ve owned, and AT&T’s customer service isn’t nearly as bad as it was in the Ameritech/SBC days. I can’t wait till the API is finally released and the 2.0 software comes out. I’m sure my wallet will take a beating that month. Interestingly, I use the iPod functionality less than I did my old iPod.
My Apple TV probably gets the least use of all my gadgets. We have ditched out Netflix subscription (kept forgetting to send movies back), and decided to put that money towards rentals & tv shows. Between the Apple TV and my Xbox 360, we could get pretty much anything except Smallville and NBC shows. Combine this with the rewards my Juniper iTunes card gets for just paying monthly bills with it, and we get quite a deal.
My MacBook is the surprise of the bunch. For many years, I’ve only had 17″ laptops. Unfortunately, the $2,800 Macbook Pro was out of my price range, and there were some great deals on MacBook refurbs, so I picked one up. I was pleasantly surprised that the screen size wasn’t that big of an issue. The real surprise was how quick and light, and long lasting this thing is. Sure, I’m not going to get any modern 3D game to run on it, but it’s almost half the weight of my previous laptop, and the battery life is amazing. I guess the LED backlighting really paid off.
The Mac Pro is, well, awesome. It’s great to run three virtual machines, plus all my development servers and software, email and still not break a sweat. It’s replaced three physical machines (dev/file server, photo server, and workstation), so I’m saving on electricity and space. The keyboard is surprisingly awesome to type on, though the Mighty Mouse doesn’t like to always tell the difference between a left and right click.
What’s left to be assimilated? Well, I want to upgrade my wireless network to N, and the likely candidates are an AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express to bridge some HD-capable streaming to my Xbox. My wife likely won’t be switching anytime soon, and is plenty powerful with XP for the internet/email/light web dev she does. Our daughter, however, will probably inherit this MacBook in a few years and eventually get an iPod.
Make sure to stock up on AAPL brand black turtlenecks and Jeans. I hear that unlike most turtleneck brands, these just work!
I would highly recommend you consider the extra money for a TimeCapsule over the AP Extreme. The extra cost to have a built-in 500GB or 1TB “server grade” HD for TimeMachine back-ups and general file sharing is well worth it. We got the 1TB and moved all our media to it (my son has a 160GB Classic iPod and my daughter a 16GB touch, so we have a lot of music and movies between us) and it has really freed up space on our laptops and macs.
Troy:
For most people you’re advice is correct. However, with my setup, I actually have all my computer & network equipment sitting in a full-height network rack. So for backup and file-sharing, it’s far more cost-effective to just get internal & external drives for my Mac Pro than it is to get a Time Capsule. I currently have two external drives attached to my Mac Pro… a 160gb that’s my MacBook’s Time Machine drive, and a MyBook 1TB drive that’s my Mac Pro’s backup drive.
As a graphic designer working on PC, I have always been tempted to switch to Mac. I tried once, but my old estate agent broke into my apartment and stole my Mac Powerbook. I guess I saw that as a sign to stick with PC. But after reading your review, I am now tempted once again.
Wow, Liam, I can’t believe you tracked me down
Yeah, I was just surfing about and came across your site. I really like the ‘Help make me popular’ links. Where did you get that widget?