It’s My Seven Year Appleversary!
On Oct. 11, 2007, I made the second most important conversion of my life–I bought my first Mac.
Today, I own an iMac, my second MacBook Pro in that time, and a MacBook Air. I also have the iPad Air and an iPhone Six Plus. During my time of evangelism, I’ve also brought more than a dozen others to the fold–family, friends, maybe an enemy or two.
There are many blessings that come from being a Mac. I don’t have to run Norton and slow my processes down. I’ve not ever had a Blue Screen of Death from Windoze. I’ve NEVER had an issue with a virus. And with Apple Care, if anything has ever happened to go wrong, Apple has fixed it in less than three days time.
One-on-One Training
In 2007 I also bought a year’s worth of One-on-One training that Apple provides. You get to basically go to the Apple Store of your choice every week for a year and sit with an Apple expert and they teach you how to use your new machine. Adolpho Cantu taught me Aperture, Final Cut Express, and then we dabbled in ways to move things out of Photoshop into my video projects, which seven years ago, were sophisticatedly primitive given the level of video equipment I had at the time.
But that $99 a year and the curiosity to learn has made a tremendous difference from where I was then and where I am now. Eric is another of the trainers at the Apple Store at Northpark Mall in Dallas. I visited with him recently and he’s still teaching. Many thanks were tendered during our conversation. I then showed him what we’ve been doing with books for the iPad and it made his day. Neither of us could have imagined anything like that would have even become possible in October 2007.
The Price Threshold
I often hear people talk about how expensive Apple products are and how they can get a cheaper: computer/tablet/phone with another company that runs Windoze or Droid. Yeah, you can. But with them come headaches you don’t get with Apple products. That’s not to say Apple is perfect, because there are issues in the Mac World as well, but nothing near as problematic as I was experiencing when I had a PC. My point is, you pay a little more for peace of mind and it’s worth every penny.
My Apple World in 2014
I’m running the beta version 5 of Yosemite on two of my work machines now. For the big machine, it’s still running Mavericks. There still are a couple of crucial things for my work that aren’t jiving so well in Yosemite so I can’t make the complete change over. But it is cool to see the things that are coming soon from Apple–ways to make the iPhone, iPad and Macs all share the same information seamlessly without even having to do anything to make that happen.
And this part may surprise some of you, but I have the iPhone Six Plus and I have to say, I wish more and more that I had gone with the smaller iPhone Six. No, I’ve not bent it like six other people apparently have done out of millions of them sold already, but I just find the whole experience with it to be a little wonky–a little like a return to the Droid/Microsuck World, if you will. There have been times when the screen on my iPhone Six Plus has gotten stuck upside down. A time or two when I couldn’t start the video in horizontal position, and had to turn it sideways and then back to horizontal to shoot wide and not shallow. And then when I’m out walking the dog and I want to start MapMy Walk or take a picture while I’m walking and holding the leash in the other hand with a 45-pound dog yanking in the other, it just feels like I’m a flicker away from dropping the massive thing. In other words, it’s just a little too big, even for someone with big hands.
The other thing I wish Apple had done was better timed the coordinated release of iOS 8 for the iPhones and iPads with the commercial release of Yosemite. We have all this functionality sitting there on the iOS devices that really doesn’t work to its full potential right now and I’m certain most people are going to miss out on some of that when Yosemite finally does go live.
Happy Appleversary!
Regardless of those quirks, I have no regrets for being a Mac. Having Apple products in my life has changed my world and work dramatically in seven year’s time. I’m now a much better photographer, graphic artist, video producer, video editor, sound editor, music producer, book for iPad producer, movie-maker, 3D graphics designer, photo editor, web designer, and even educator because of what I’ve been able to learn in the Mac World since.
Thinking of making the conversion? I encourage it whole-heartedly. It will change your world in ways that only you can imagine. Thanks Apple, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Oh, and War Eagle. We need to beat Mississippi State today….
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