Call me old fashioned
Firstly, I’ve been a Mac user for 26 years now and my Classic still fires up beautifully as I’m slowly transferring my PhD research work into the modern age.
Here’s what I see to be a fundamental ‘issue’ – Steve Jobs never believed in focus groups; he believed that people did not know what they want, so he just gave it to them. So, we reveled in new toys.
Though I love Apple and all things Pixar (and find the non-PC work an insult to my brain cells) I always believed that I knew what I want. Apple for me is simply the best tool for the job I need to get done. When I used Word 3 (?) back in 1986/7, it did exactly what I needed in terms of word processing and formatting my thesis (to this day, all theses produced in my old department ‘borrowed’ my table designs) – it was simplicity, but it worked and worked well. I still believe that my formatting work on my Classic is more effective that what many folk are producing now with the behemoth that Microsoft Word has become.
Anyway, to continue, my writing, my music and my photography/graphic work are important to me. Apple provided the best option for me to express myself creatively - FOR ME. This is my current situation, my partner’s MacBook runs Leopard (yes Leopard) and she’s happy as Larry and refuses to let me touch the machine, it does what she wants it to do – and quickly (I'm still gonna sneek into her office one night and upgrade it to SL!). I have 2 MacBook Pros, one runs Snow Leopard (beautifully) and the later model, Lion (perfectly fine, but still in the category of ‘why did Apple think I wanted my laptop to look like the iPhone I don’t own? I check my email, browse and don’t do anything remotely creative on it). My desktop, on the other hand, runs several platforms on several drives (a Windows platform…..for certain software – yes, I shower after using it; a Lion platform, still haven’t used it, I just wanted some form of comparison and will remove it - it's slower than my SL; and my MAIN drive, a SNOW LEOPARD platform).
With Snow Leopard I use the machine for what I need to use it. It never crashes (and I mean never, unless I do something stupid) and most importantly, it flawlessly runs the software I need to do my job (or entertain myself). I was in the same boat when it came to questioning Lion and yes, I had issues with my ProTools/hardware integration etc. So…I stuck with Snow Leopard.
It is clear that with Lion and now with Mountain Lion, Apple are pushing for us to use iCloud and similar initiatives. This does not interest me. Unless there is a cumulonimbus looming over the horizon, I am NOT interested in clouds of any kind. The idea of storing my private material on someone else’s server still seems akin to giving someone the key to your front door.
Apple is also wishing folk to integrate their other Apple produces (iphone, iPad) with their computers via this ‘heavenly’ link. I have an iPad, not an iPhone, but it still doesn’t interest me. For those of you who think it’s a blessing, here’s some light reading for when things can go horribly wrong (Google ‘How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking’).
Yes, I used DropBox to transfer files (non important files) from my iPad, but my life is a very manual one where I like to see and know exactly what is happening. It’s boring, and not particularly high tech, but it’s secure (relatively) and it works.
So, I stuck with Snow Leopard as it gets my job done and yes, I built a hackintosh. I built it in the shell of the G5 that Apple made obsolete not long after I bought it.
If someone can convince me that Mountain Lion will make my work more effective, then I’ll upgrade, but to date, Apple’s desire to emulate their mobile iOS in everything, does very little to impress or excite me (I think I’ll go and hug my Classic). God bless you Steve, thank you, but I now know what I want.
