I know there are a lot of freelancers who don't care about the latest technological trends, or bother about the latest computer hardware or software. Not me. I'm a Mac geek. I don't put that on my resume, but it has helped me over the years on countless occasions. One thing I look forward to each year is the Macworld convention. Apple uses Macworld (and the Worldwide Developers Conference) as a platform to launch new products and tout how great they are. Now I'm in the market for a new computer so I have a keen interest in what's on deck. Since Apple introduced it's latest desktop model (the Mac Pro) one year ago, I figured that it's well past due for Apple to announce "the next big thing". Guess I figured wrong.
Well, the 2009 Macworld convention was a joke. This was Apples last appearance at a Macworld convention, and they certainly didn't go out with a bang (Steve Jobs didn't attend due to health reasons). Minor software upgrades and another laptop model was all that was announced. I fell asleep halfway through the keynote live feed.
Over the past 5 or 6 years I have been consistently underwhelmed with Apple's desktop offerings. Yes, the G5 and Mac Pro were a significant advancement over the G4, but these advances came at a snails pace compared to the PC platform. Steve Jobs made the claim that Apple would produce a G5 computer that would break the 3GHz barrier back during a keynote presentation in June 2003 at the Worldwide Developers Conference. That claim never came true for the Power Mac G5. The 3GHz barrier was finally surpassed on January 8th of 2008 (the last desktop release to date) in an Intel-based Mac Pro. It took Steve Jobs 5 years and 9 model releases to live up to his claim! And this is olny one of many examples which has earned Apple the reputation of overpromising and underdelivering.
So what does any of this have to do with freelancing? I'll answer my question with a question. Have you ever seen a progress bar, or a spinning beach ball on your computer screen? I have, and it bugs the shit out of me. While I have no control over what computer I work on at an agency, I can control what I work on at home. And for those times I'm working at home I want the fastest, most stable machine possible so I don't have to deal with progress bars and application crashes. Since Apple has the graphic design market cornered I'd really like for them to live up to all their wild claims of producing "the fastest", "the best", or even "the next big thing" when it comes to desktop computers.
Unfortunately, I'll probably end up with some half-ass, stop-gap system whose overall performance is marginally better than what they put out over a year ago. Thanks Steve! Keep up the mediocre work! You pompous hack!
Besides the rainbow beach ball of death, my favorite is when you turn the computer on and all you get is an icon of a little disk with a question mark in the center of it. As if to say,"Hard drive? What hard drive? I don't know what you're talking about. Have a nice day."
ReplyDeleteI think OS9 was a much quicker, more stable Operating System. I've heard that the latest upgrades for Creative Suite applications don't run properly on the G5 Mac; go buy a PC and give that chubby guy in the Apple commercials something to snicker about. :-D
ReplyDeleteJohnny Freelance
Actually Johnny, OSX is a far more stable and reliable operating system than OS9 ever was. In OS9 the entire computer would freeze when a single application would act up. That doesn't happen in OSX. As far as CS4 goes, it was designed to run on an Intel-based Mac Pro, not a G5. Anytime you have software that is running in emulation in a mis-matched OS you will encounter problems. And while Apple is guilty for their wild oversell I won't be switching to a PC anytime soon. Then I'd REALLY have something to bitch about!
ReplyDelete