Tuesday, November 15, 2011

palaver

Current work: new medical
Listening to: Noel Gallagher (good album)
Reading: Ian Beck, Pastworld (yes, I know it’s YA, and yes, I know it’s actually son’s book and it’s bad of me to read it before I give it to him; however, I do look after books properly, so there are no creases on the spine when I've finished reading. Enjoying this very much – good concept)

After a certain person ‘helpfully’ updated my apps at the weekend without asking me first (er, honey, there was a reason why I hadn’t updated them), I ended up migrating to the new OS on the iPad. iTunes said it might take an hour ‘or more’. Ha. Try five and a half. Very frustrating. At one point, none of my apps worked and all my music and data had gone. Instead of working on the iPad in the car, I had to leave it connected to the PC while I did the school run. And iTunes still took the rest of the afternoon to do the ‘restore’ bit (done automatically, not prompted by me). I can’t see that much difference in the OS, to be honest, apart from tabbed browsing in Safari. But the iPad is back to normal and the battery is behaving.

But the palaver is what puts me off the idea of changing to a Mac when this PC eventually wears out. If I have my PC built for me, I know the guys at MASS are brilliant and what I get will have all my data on it, everything set up for me, and no hassles. If I change to a Mac… well, I’ll pay the extra to have it all migrated over, but will it be how I want it? And is the “no Flash, no Java” applicable to desktops as well as to the iPad? Mac users (particularly authors) out there, is a Mac really that much better than a PC? If you’ve switched from one to the other, do you regret it or is it the best thing you ever did? (I love my iPad, but I prefer working at a desktop.)

3 comments:

Sharon Kendrick said...

Kate, someone once described the difference between a Mac and a PC and said it was like comparing a Mercedes with a Reliant Robin.

Now, I know nothing about cars so this didn't mean much so I'd compare it to standing underneath a tepid and brackish squirt of water - against luxuriating beneath a power-shower.

I changed from a PC to a Mac. Never looked back. It's bliss, bliss, bliss. And you can have lessons at the Mac shop if you want.

Liz Fielding said...

Horses for courses. I bought a Macbookpro earlier this year and having nearly torn my hair out with the frustration of it, surrendered it to the dh yesterday (he's Mac to his fingertips) in return for a lovely new PC laptop that does what I ask it (and cost a third of the price); I guess I'm a Reliant Robin kind of girl.

Maybe if the Mac shop wasn't 200 miles away...

Kate Hardy said...

Shazza and Liz - thank you for sharing. Interesting to see that you both have completely different experiences. More thinking time required here, methinks...