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7 Years On, Macs Still 'Just Work'

- 2008.04.04

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My Turn is Low End Mac's column for reader-submitted articles. It's your turn to share your thoughts on all things Mac (or iPhone, iPod, etc.) and write for the Mac web. Email your submission to Dan Knight .

For readers in the UK, we recently observed the Easter Bank Holiday. It's a traditional time to start all of the DIY jobs you've been putting off over the winter, and this year, I had one too.

The Small White One, my beloved G4 'Book, fell prey to the dreaded iceBook BGA solder problem last summer. Despite my best efforts at the time, it seemed irreparable and was consigned to the graveyard in the spare room. (Parenthetically, I should take a line to praise the heroic efforts of the Bullring Apple Store, who managed to revive it just long enough the pull the important stuff from the hard drive - and for free.)

This, of course, left without a computer. We are, fortunately, a modern two-laptop household, so it was straight onto iTune for a suitable replacement. I am not well-off, and finding a straight replacement proved too expensive. Eventually, I ended up buying a Mirror Drive Door G4 and, a paycheck later, a 20" Cinema Display to go with it.

I spent a lot of time over this period lamenting how well Macs held their value. I must have done, because at some stage in the process, my girlfriend asked me, "Does it have to be a Mac? You could get a new PC for so-and-so amount".

I was stumped.

The thought of buying another Windows machine had never even crossed my mind.

I didn't know why, at the time. In fact, I intended to write this last summer, but it's taken me this long to answer the question.

Macs, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, really do "just work".

I started using computers in 1991, and for the first 10 years I only ever used a Windows machine. I became very familiar with the inner workings of the machines and their operating systems, and I rather enjoyed tinkering with them. My last couple of PCs I built from scratch.

Then I left university.

All of a sudden, I was trapped in the real world, with a real job, and without the time to troubleshoot misbehaving computers. Or to deal with losing half-an-hour a day to reboots.

Longtime readers may remember my My First Mac submission from 2001. That 7200 turned out to be an absolute stalwart, for all its Road Apple status. It was eventually replaced by a 7300, so I could dual-boot BeOS, and eventually with a tangerine iBook. All of these machines were a joy to use.

When my last PC finally died one hot summer, I had a moan.

Then I asked myself - so what?

What had I lost, really? Grappling with Windows on a daily basis? Wondering which part would fail next (the onboard hard drive controller and network adapter died long before the rest of it)? High-end gaming? I'd already given up on the hardware arms race and bought an Xbox - why? Because it, too, just worked.

Likewise my G4 'Book and Power Mac. It's been said many times before, but it bears saying again - show me the five-year-old PC running Vista and Office 2008.

My girlfriend is moving to another city so she can start university this autumn. I'm going, too, and I've decided to take the plunge and start my own business. I have no doubt it will involve a lot of late nights, stomach acid, and heartache, but I do know one thing - it won't be because of IT worries.

And my DIY project went perfectly. Even 'Book repairs, it seems, just work.

Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.

Recent My Turn articles

Using Low End Macs for Internet Radio, 08.18. When the local public radio station moved classical music to HD radio, it was time to find another way to listen. An old iMac with iTunes solved the problem.
'That's Not a Computer', 07.30. Salvaging a broken PowerBook by turning it into a desktop computer.
Upgrading a Digital Audio G4 to work better in Leopard, 06.02. In its original configuration, the dual 533 MHz Power Mac G4 was slow with Mac OS X 10.5, but add the right upgrades, and it runs Leopard quite nicely.
My 4 favorite PowerBooks, 05.28. The PowerBook 150 has a big screen for a vintage PowerBook, the 165c has color, the 100 is diminutive, and Lombard has USB and a great keyboard.
More in the My Turn index.

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Mac of the Day: 17" iMac G4/800 MHz, July 2002 - The iMac 'grows up' with a 17" 1440 x 900 display.
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November 8 in LEM history: 99: OS 9: I think I like it - 01: The simplified Mac life - Soured on Windows - Flea market Mac - 02: Little room for improvement in new 'Books - Combo drive upgrade for iceBooks - 04: Re-Porter - 05: Fix the old iMac or buy a Mac mini? - Apple's Copland project - 06: MacBook Core 2 - MacBook value equation - Cheap is as cheap does - 07: Problems with Classic mode in Tiger - The G4 Power Mac that won't run Leopard
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