Apple in the Big Apple
New York. Went to the Apple store last night with the intention of buying a MacBook. The Apple retail experience is pretty cool, lots of space, Macs and ipods to play with, sales people in the background – letting the Apple products sell themselves, being available to answer specific questions and take orders.
And then cold feet. I’ve been taken in by the hype. Do I really need a new MacBook? It would be for work and work already provide me with a reasonably decent Dell laptop. Can I really justify the $1200 outlay (even though it is cheaper than in the UK? And there’s a thing that bugs me about the retail experience in the UK. Lack of pricing transparency. The ticket says one thing, but then you’ve got to add the sales tax. In the UK, unless you are buying in the B2B space the price you see is the price you pay). And my final decision was no. I can’t really justify it. So instead I’m going to give Ubuntu another go and try and have the best of both worlds, a cool operating system on my old Dell machine.
That is part of it right? Go to the store, balk. Go to the store, balk. Configure it online, balk. But eventually, one day, you decide the time has come and you buy.
When it is time to buy, make sure you do it at the store, not online. It is a much cooler experience.
Marc, did you know Ubuntu is really an ancient African word meaning “I am sick of compiling Gentoo”. 🙂
I’ve done exactly what you described 4 or 5 times in the past few months. I use my old PowerBook at home and have always dreamed about using it at work, but when it comes down to it I need a working copy of Windows for 80% of the projects I work on…even if just for backup.
I just can’t seem to justify spending all that money for a tool that I think my job should provide for me. Sure PCs and Macs are both computers, but they’re far from equal. My work is markedly better on one than the other…call me biased.
I’ve also tried the Ubuntu route, but always end up back at Windows because of some glitch like my Lotus Notes installation acting up, or the wireless card just quitting on me. Sometimes I just feel stuck in this ugly Windows world. 🙁