10 years with a Mac
As the Mac turns 30, I realised that I’ve been using Macs for 10 years myself now.
“The Switch” started in 2003 — during the end of my apprenticeship — when a colleague regularly brought his personal 12-inch PowerBook G4 to the office. It caught my attention, and I spend quite a bit of time learning about his computer. He was happy to tell me all about it — and Apple in general, too.
I ended up buying this very PowerBook from him at the beginning of 2004. I’ve been using Macs ever since, and I haven’t looked back.
The Mac and Mac OS X felt like the sweet spot to me. It seemed to be like a merger of the good bits of Windows and Linux with an extra dose of taste, logic and fun on top. Over the years, I’ve owned 3 Macs:
- A 12-inch PowerBook G4. Bought used at the beginning of 2004 — sold again September 2004, to buy
- a 15-inch PowerBook G4. This one was retired in May 2012. Later that year, I gave it to a colleague for free.
- For my 30th birthday, my family gave me a 15-inch MacBook Pro, which was very generous. It arrived in May 2011, and I’m using it right now.
I’ve used three more Macs given to me at my workplace: a 2009 21.5-inch iMac, a 2009 (or 2010) MacBook Pro 15-inch, and a 2011 MacBook Air 13-inch.
All the Macs I’ve used have been fantastic machines. And they just keep getting better with every generation.
So, happy birthday, Mac!
If you hadn’t been created, I’d be using a different computer and I wouldn’t even miss you.