Macs
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| | Hardware seems a bit of an odd topic for this blog, but I can't get over how smooth the transition to MacBooks was from windows (for myself and my non-technical better half).
Pros:
- That time machine backup thing worked great when someone stole my bag.
- Speed - it's fast because they can ship so many of them (it's a format), they can get great throughput from the hard disk (the latest ones are 1400Mb/s!)
- Console Computing - I've talked about this before, but ass there's so few mac models, if you want software to work then use a mac as the software companies can test that it works well on that hardware. If you want to run windows software, use mac hardware as it's the only reference PC around these days. The developers that wrote that software will probably have been using a mac.
Cons:
- Price? Not really, they're pretty competitive due to the scale they operate at. Yes you can get cheaper computers, but with worse components.
- Apple is the new evil empire? Maybe, but with brew and root access you're in control. Remember I'm advocating the hardware - what OS you choose to use on it is your choice.(OS X isn't bad though)
I do have a windows partition, I just don’t have much need of it these days. I was always skeptical of ‘Just Works’, - the reality is that it doesn’t just work, thousands of developers have slaved away years of their lives to make it ‘Just Work’.
And for that I say thank you very much - I will try not to take the just working for granted!
For reference, the 13 inch MacBook Pro seems to be the perfect machine.
| (Big shout out for Steam - Even though I’d bought Civ 5 for Windows, it was magically there to run once I’d switched to a mac - a very nice touch. ) |
Console Computing
| | <h2>Standards versus Variety</h2>
It all started with 100% IBM compatible PCs made by Amstrad called 1512s. The PC era was born and gave rise to a world of competing interfaces and standards with Microsoft trying to support everything.
Supporting everything is hard, and testing everything even harder. Apple didn’t have that kind of money back then and took a different route of supplying their own hardware. This gave Apple fewer variables and made it easier for them to innovate and adapt their business.
Quality versus Innovation.
Having a single implementation that everyone uses drives up quality. If it works on one ipad / xbox / macbook / iphone your pretty sure it will work on all of them. By taking out the variability on the hardware it’s a lot easier and cheaper to QA a product.
There was a time when hardware innovation was at such a pace it was important to have such diversity. But now there’s diminishing returns on the hardware front. In fact those diminishing returns mean that the console-pc (the macbook) is able to spur innovation on as they can recoup the massive R&D investments needed to improve on today’s hardware.
So thankyou sir Alan for giving the PC to the world, but now is the time for hardware consolidation - We users have become used to software that just works. Welcome to planet of the console.
Ramifications
- Not great news for android!
- We already see massive uptake of ipads in schools.
- I predict that along with desktop visualisation it will be interesting to see what the enterprise console looks like - likely will look like a Wyse terminal.
- John Gage at Sun Microsystems was a decade or two too early when he said "the network is the computer".
| Read also: PS4 Winning the race and it isn’t even close! |