A quote from Paul Graham’s latest essay “Microsoft is Dead“:
I’m now surprised when I come across a computer running Windows. Nearly all the people we fund at Y Combinator use Apple laptops. It was the same in the audience at startup school. All the computer people use Macs or Linux now. Windows is for grandmas, like Macs used to be in the 90s.
This phenomenon is easily observed at the BarCamps and DemoCamps here at home as well…
I too have to confess that I’ve also switched to Mac. I made the switch when the new Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros were released last November, but interestingly enough, my reasons for switching were more pragmatic rather than idealistic.
I was at a point where I needed to replace both my old desktop (4 years old) and my old laptop (2.5 years old). I added the numbers up, and figured that the new MacBook Pro would serve just fine as a new laptop and desktop replacement, for basically the same amount of money!
Another big reason for the switch is that I had already been using Linux on my personal machines for more than a year (and using it professionally for way longer than that), and the fact that OS X is built on top of a Unix kernel is just phenomenal. It’s like having the command-line power of Unix without the crappy user interface.
One big enabling factor for the switch is the mass migration to online tools. I used to be an Outlook Slave for many years, but ever since I adopted GMail, wikis, and other online tools it was much easier to make the switch to Linux and then Mac.
So far I’m very happy. My MacBook Pro does have some glitches; it crashes hard occasionally, but mostly when entering or exiting sleep mode. I’ll have to get that looked at some time… but it’s probably a tiny hardware glitch and nothing that the Apple stores can fix anyway.
One great thing about OS X is that, in contrast with Windows, it rarely ever asks you to “Confirm” stuff, and 3rd party software rarely ever forcibly notifies you of silly things (“An update for your HP printer driver is available!”). The OS just gets out of the way and lets you work.
I’ve had to learn a whole new set of tools on the Mac, but it’s been really fun and worth it! I’m now using the fabulous TextMate for day-to-day work and let me tell ya… I can’t and won’t ever go back to plain-old Emacs and plain-old X-based UI again.
One other thing; and I’m not sure if it’s just a placebo effect, but I feel I’ve been way more creative since I started using a Mac. Fact or Fiction? Who knows. :)
Silicon Island 