Computer Bigamy – welcome to the ceremony!
December 12, 2009 4 Comments
I’ve used PCs since the days of dual floppy drives and DOS 2.x. Not out of great levels of emotional commitment, mind you, but simply out of business necessity – that’s what was used in my work environments. Shotgun marriage, don’t you know.
Apart from a brief, temporary fling 20 years ago using a Mac for a while with Quark, I’ve stayed faithful to the PC all this time out of necessity and intertia. We’ve been through a lot of hard times together – upgrades, crashes, viruses, etc. I never did take a final binding vow “for better or for worse,” I just knew that for a season there’d be a lot of worse.
I’m about to become a bigamist.
The family PC is wheezing, with one disk in the grave, and frankly, I’m tired of Windows and all the headaches that come with it. So today, a new iMac gets set up. And what is always important to me is initial user experience – how intuitive is a system to set up and use?
Being thoroughly spoiled by the iPhone, the bar of my expectations is high. So here we go – you’re invited to peek in on the ceremony as I take the veil off this new system everyone else praises.
10:15 am – De-packaging. It’s all in one (attractive) box, which is a nice first impression. First glance inside – wow, I see simplicity. The all-in-one screen (27 inch diagonal – awesome!), a power cord, and a box with (I assume) keyboard and mouse. I’m so used to a jumble of stuff with every new computer…! Look, I realize this is external beauty, but…what a gorgeous white wedding dress!
10:20 – Set-up of keyboard and mouse – brainless (mouse cord a bit short for my tastes). Powering up screen, and now I want to see how far I can get without instructions. Because I’m a guy, and because that, to me, is an important litmus test of usability.
10:30 – Welcoming and opening screens – awesome. After establishing my language and country, it IMMEDIATELY did a wireless network scan and setup. Then, asked for my Apple ID. Recognizes me right away, coaxes to take a picture to go with main account, wants to now link with my MobileMe account. Done. Setup by 10:37. Painless. Umm…this is awesome, folks.
10:40 – Downloading new iTunes version. Speed of download is fantastic.
10:50 – Setting up user accounts – just slightly cumbersome, but not bad. Nice sets of controls.
11:00 – OK, I don’t need to write anymore. Getting this thing all configured, without once looking at documentation. I’m sold – I’m a Mac!
I guess I’ll to wait awhile to retire the other 2 computers, but I think I’ll eventually divorce these common-law PCs. For now, I’ll be a half-happy computer bigamist!
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