Why I’ll Never Become a Mac

For those of you who know me, I LOVE my iPhone. I really do! I have over a 150 apps on the thing, and I’m constantly getting new apps that do amazing things.

 

And that is why I really do love my iPhone – it is an amazing mobile device.

Before the iPhone, we thought the ability to surf the Internet in clumsy, text-driven mobile browsers was as good as it was going to get.

As Steve Jobs was famous for saying: “this changes everything,” when he introduced the iPhone.

I get real-time updates from all my social networks on my iPhone, and I can respond in real-time, from anywhere. If I’m standing at a bus stop in Toronto, Canada, I can use a cool app on my iPhone to tell me when the next bus will arrive at the exact stop I’m at – it uses GPS and the latest traffic and scheduling info and it’s never – never – wrong.

If I’m at a bar or restaurant and there is a tune playing in the background I don’t know but like, I have an app that “listens” to the song, identifies it, and even displays the words in karaoke fashion so I can sing along!

I can shoot high quality HD video with my iPhone, cut a whole movie, and upload the piece to YouTube. 

I have an iPhone 4, not the iPhone 4s, so I don’t have Siri. But I have an app that closely mimics Siri (Vlingo) so I can say: “Call Parent’s home” and my iPhone dials my parent’s home. I can ask Vlingo to google things, create text-messages, and a few other cool things that Siri can do.

Oh, yeah, and it is a phone, with text-messaging and all that good stuff too.

Did I mention, I LOVE my iPhone.

Despite my love affair with my iPhone, I’ll never buy an Apple computer. All my life I’ve had PCs. From my first IBM PCjr, running at a staggering 4.77MHz, to my custom-made power computer, which I built myself, running at 1596 MHz – we’ve come a long way since the 80’s.

Not that Apple doesn’t produce cool tech – just look at their iPhone, iPad, even a lone single-purpose device like their original iPod was pretty cool.

But Apple computers are overpriced and as good as their hardware is, their software sucks. Before I get lynched by all the Mac Heads out there, hear me out.

What prompted this writing wasn’t an all-out attack on Apple. It was a software update to my iPhone’s operating system, iOS. Yesterday, I received notification that there was a new update available to my iOS, prompting me to install it.

I ignored it – for now and the immediate future.

Every time I’ve updated my iPhone’s iOS, I spend HOURS fixing, debugging and correcting it to make it work once again. On more than a few occasions – all but one so far – I’ve actually had to revert back to a backup of my iTunes from my network, to restore all my apps and data after an update.

 

Maybe iTunes is just exceptionally buggy – but it’s the software which Apple uses for all iOS devices – iPhone, iPad, iPod – to manage their content and update the operating system software. So you’d figure Apple would make sure it ran smooth as silk, because millions of people around the world are depending on iTunes, to keep their iOS devices up and running.

All operating systems, and most apps have regular recurring updates, but every time my Windows-based systems update, the process takes mere minutes – not HOURS – and I don’t usually have to panic about whether or not the update will cause my device to stop working.

I’ve learned, when Apple releases an update, wait a week or more before installing it, so they can work out the bugs.

I don’t have to do that for my MS-Windows systems.

When Apple updates the iOS, they actually format the hard drive, reset the phone to factory settings, and then re-install the operating system with the new and improved iOS.

When I update my MS-Windows systems, a small patch file is downloaded, and updates the parts of the program which have been modified, not the whole system.

There have been many comparisons between Steve Jobs and BillGates. Although they competed for market share in the highly competitive tech sector, they became good friends. But the approaches both took in deploying their products shows.

When Apple releases an update, they know they will get a lot of calls to tech support and people dropping into their Apple Stores seeking help to get their devices running again.

When Microsoft releases an update, they expect it’ll work on most of the computers out there, and don’t anticipate any need to offer additional support.

Maybe that’s why Apple’s products are so much more money? For the cost of a mid-range Mac, I can buy a far more powerful PC. Maybe Apple builds their constant need for tech support and personal customer attention into their product pricing?

Whatever the reason, although I’m sold on my iPhone 4, and looking forward to the iPhone 5 when it comes out, I’ll never switch to the Apple platform for computers.

Apple will have to work hard to earn that respect from me. And they can start by creating iTunes updates which don’t make me worry whether or not my iPhone will work afterwards.