Joining the Macarati

  by Alex Horstmann | 13 Mar 2007 | Permalink | Macarati

The what? The Macarati! A term dubbed by our own Will Harris which refers to people that own an Apple Mac.

You see, I have been drooling over the sleekness and sexiness of that pinnacle of industrial design that is the MacBook Pro. Its brushed metal veneer which labels the owner as cool and trendy, its User Interface (UI) which Apple tout as the best thing sinced slice bread and its hefty price tag that puts it in the realm of must have expensive goodie.

I have had my finger over the Buy Me Now button for a number of months. I am generally quite an impulsive shopper, but this purchase has had me torn. An inner battle has been raged in my mind between my having to have this shiny laptop and my (usually inefficient) economic reason.

I am, I suppose, a reasonable expert user. I work in the Software industry and use a computer every day. Currently a Windows PC. However, my job is quite design focussed, so I am innately drawn to a Mac. Here is the problem, for work I would rather a Windows machine. It’s what I’m used to and, from a web UI development point of view, it’s what 99% of users of our software will use. So it makes sense for me to have a Windows machine at work.

However, home is a different matter. At home I want to look trendy with that hint of techy that a Mac allows, like opening a terminal and working on the Unix command line! I’m also drawn to the Mac UI. It’s window transitions and OpenGL magic. The fact that it’s meant to be easier to do everything with, the fact that you can get lots of cool software for little money (not from Apple obviously!), it’s multimedia superiority over a PC and it’s built in iSight and accelerometer! All of these cool things that are yanking heavily on my gadget loving strings.

So, I’ve given in. I’d like to say that I’m conducting some research into whether the Mac is better than the PC, which is more productive… I’m not. I am like a moth flying into the flame that is Macs cool factor. However, I do plan to try and give an account of whether Macs are really better than PCs and share that with you. Perhaps doing this is some vain attempt to justify the extortionate amount of money that Apple charge for their hardware and the possibility that I’m wasting my money?

Either way I know that it’s going to look good in my living room!