hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1257.txt

Episode: 1257
Title: HPR1257: Getting things done.
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1257/hpr1257.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 22:31:43

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Do you still need a Mac to get things done?
If you want to do something, use a PC.
If you want to get something done, use a Mac.
Those were the very words I spoke about eight years ago when I mastered the art of working
with my very first Apple computer.
This simplicity, elegance and productivity of the Cupertino experience had be convinced
that the cool business of Windows Computer was not getting things done for you, but running
spyware and participating in botnets to get things done for some dingy hacker in his
mother's basement down in the southwest of the Ukraine.
And in many ways, my statement was correct.
I've been lured into the Cupertino Crag the same way a lot of people got into Apple.
I got an iPod.
After the iPod came the first Mac mini, then the first iBook, then the first iMac and
so on.
These days, my house consists mostly of hardware that bears the seal of Newton's falling
fruit.
Yet I start to wonder, is that still absolutely necessary?
To answer this question, let us look back to the state of the technological landscape
back in those times.
All had just released Tiger, bringing some sense of stability and usability to the fairly
new 10th iteration of their operating system.
Where OS 1-9 still leaned heavily on its Xerox roots, OS X stood on the shoulders of
a PSD kernel and offered a clean but fairly customizable interface for us to utilize.
Windows, on the other hand, had just delivered its long overdue baby called Vista.
And even though the entire industry considered it to be a miscarriage, still decided to release
its fledgling into the world.
The Linux Wars were still raging in full force, as different factions of the Debian and
Red Hat Caps fought in a pyro-classic flame war on the news groups, incinerating each
of those arguments and scorching any newbie who dared to come close with a novice question.
In that landscape, Apple was truly a shining beacon of productivity with its eye-life and
eye-work suite, its slick hardware and elegant operating system, its fancy MP3 player and its
endorsement by the graphic and intellectualist society that this was the way to go.
But today, it's perhaps a different story.
The one thing that has dramatically changed is Apple's focus.
For me, the first sign was its infatuation with the iPhone and the mobile market.
Probably to be considered Apple's most popular and profitable product of all time, the iPhone
has also changed the very DNA of its maker.
Apple used to be about creativity, and I emphasized on the word create.
Want to write a novel, get a Mac.
Want to get into graphic design, get a Mac.
Want to call your mom or play a game where you throw birds at blocks.
Get a Mac?
Sorry?
What?
Indeed.
Back then, the core focus of Apple was not aimed towards entertainment or communication,
at least not until the iPhone came along.
And in those days, since Steve Jobs picked that magical device from its pocket, Apple
has changed considerably.
As I looked around the workspaces of my friends who did graphic design, I saw their Apple
workstations age with time.
The near orgasmic cries of joy that they uttered whenever an update was released diminished,
with every iteration and turned into small grunts of frustration, as the upgrade to their
shiny silver tower was once again postponed.
But for the rest of us grunts, Apple still had something to offer.
Beary a hardware and a powerful operating system.
But the decay of the latter started to show its flatulent underbelly with the arrival
of snow leopard.
In this period of IOSifying, the operating system, certain power features got hidden away
in favor of some iOS-like enhancement that were supposed to bridge both operating system.
In essence, OSX was getting dumbed down.
Oh well, if you're a slider and don't like a certain kind of operating system, you
just dual boot a second operating system onto Apple's superior hardware, right?
As long as that hardware remains superior, there is no problem.
But a sign from the fact that Apple's innovation curve on its desktop and laptop platform
was becoming an exceedingly flatter slope, its prices continued to keep the same high standards.
As the competition, Samsung Acer Aces, caught up with equally fancy ultrabooks at an equally
fancy price, Apple decided it would be a good idea to remove all of the removable parts
from its hardware.
The new iMacs got glued shut.
The MacBook Pros had no use replaceable parts.
The power users started to lose the one thing they had over the Apple experience.
Control.
So, do I still buy the Cupertino Patti line when I'm out shopping for a new computer?
I used to say, of course, but that started to change.
Advising a friend of mine, an aspiring power user on a new laptop yesterday, I heard
myself utter the words Aces and Linux in one single sentence.
The request that queried this answer was one motivated by the option of control, being
able to do stuff with the hardware you can do stuff with.
As many flavors of Linux start to mature, Apple is not the default answer anymore, not
even for the creative mind.
And if you are on a budget and would like to add your own sticks of RAM or an SSD drive
to the polished silver of Cupertino, well with the latest model, that is no longer the
default way to go.
What it comes down to is that there are no certainties in the computer industry.
With the ever faster pace of digital evolution, today's masters of the industry become tomorrow
outcasts.
Where the outcasts became the underdogs and the underdogs become the new heroes.
In a couple of years time, I've seen companies and technologies fade to the background,
step back up to the plate and embrace, and be embraced or rejected by the ever growing
crowd of consumers.
In the end, Apple has not lost its shine, but it is no longer the company it was when
I crawled out of the shades of oblivion called Microsoft.
It is no longer the underdog, but neither is it the prettiest girl at the ball.
Microsoft is no longer the corporate suit, and Linux seems to have trimmed its wildest
beard and nose hairs.
Everybody loses some shine and everybody gains some.
The great thing about this is that there are no longer default answers to standard question.
And if the default resides, the power of choice arises.
Tired of choosing between NAS, Linux, and OSX, listen to the NightWives.com podcast,
and learn how to decide from operating systems to operating systems using our hack tips and
tweets for cross-platform geeks.
To tech into your way of life and let technology work for you instead of the other way around.
www.kniGHTWISE.com
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