A Mac Journey…

The first time I ever had a chance to use a Mac was when I was connecting a couple of IIci Macs onto our Novell network. They were used by the marketing department who created all the marketing material for the company I was working for at the time. This was when PageMaker and Quark Express were going at it. As I recall, they used both. I can’t remember which operating system they were using at the time. I do remember it was rather foreign to me as I was a Microsoft user. MS-DOS as this was the very early 90s and Windows was still… in progress.

I was fairly new to the computer world as I had been a mechanical engineer and only started in computers with the advent of AutoCAD and then networking AutoCAD and sharing the CAD files. In any event, I thought the Macs were way cool but I never had much of a chance to really work with them. I filed the experience in the back of my brain and continued on with Microsoft.

Then Steve Jobs came back to Apple and before you know it, he introduced the iMac. I loved it! The design and especially all the various colors it was available in over the years. My kids were just starting school around that time so I decided it was a good time to invest in an original Bondi Blue iMac as they were “last year’s model” at that point so they were available for a great price.

What really decided the iMac was they were being used by the school my kids were going to. That and I just wanted to learn more about them as I had fond memories of the IIci and I loved the design of the iMac. Oh, and I should probably mention the kids liked iMac too!

When the kids weren’t using it, I was able to finally learn MacOS 8 and 9 and I started to learn just how much I liked MacOS over Windows. We had that Mac for several years until eventually the kids moved to laptops, mainly Macs.

For me, I watched several of my favorite Macs come and go. The G4 Cube (my favorite Mac of all time), the “sunflower” G4 iMac (my second favorite) and the titanium PowerBook G4. I was never able to purchase any of those (until many years later) as they weren’t in the budget. They were just too expensive for a “hobby” computer. Then Steve Jobs introduced the Intel Macs. Finally a Mac I could justify as they could run Windows as well as macOS!

My first Mac was a 15” MacBook Pro with the SuperDrive. I loved it! I sold my custom built desktop PC and moved to the Mac. By day I worked in Windows for work and at night, I moved to the Mac side. I came to feel the best Windows PC was a Mac.

Over the years I moved to newer MacBooks Pro, MacBooks Air, iMacs and the Mini. Never a Mac Pro though. I owned most of the sizes of the laptops and only the 27 inch iMac, both the original and 5k. All of them have been great! I had the 5k iMac the longest however my favorite of the Intel generation was probably my last MacBook Pro 15” which happened to be the last Intel based MacBook Pro. I had it optioned out so it was a screamer, for the time. My other favorite was the 12 inch MacBook. I loved it and should have never sold it. It wasn’t very fast but it had character and was so light and portable! I was probably one of the few people that loved the butterfly keyboard. I never had an issue with those keyboards and loved the feel of the keys.

Then came the announcement of the new M series chips. My greatest fear with this new generation was if Windows would ever work on them. It took a bit but it finally did! I can’t express how happy I was with this result as I was afraid I was going to have to buy a Windows PC again.

A few years later and I have to say the M series Macs are amazing! I still use a 14 inch M1-Pro MacBook Pro on a daily basis. It is still as fast as ever. I have the latest M4 Mac Mini as well and I’ve found I don’t need much more than that, processing power wise. It handles everything I do on a daily basis including running Windows, programming in Windows plus programming and everything else on the Mac side.

The sweet spot for me though is the 15 inch MacBook Air. It has a great 15 inch screen and it’s lighter than the 14 inch MacBook Pro and thinner to boot! Yes the Pros have a better screen but the Air’s screen is no slouch. Plus, no fan on the Air so it makes no noise although I’ve never really heard the fan run on the Pro. That was not the case with the old Intel MacBook Pro. It could sound like a jet at times when I was running Windows and Apple had done a lot of engineering work on that model to keep the fans as quiet as possible. You have to love these M series chips!

Now we have the new MacBook Neo with an “iPhone chip” and most importantly for me, color is back! I haven’t made it to the Apple Store yet to look at one in person as they were just released today. I have read several reviews and it sounds like Apple has another great Mac on their hands for a very, very un-Mac like price!

I can highly recommend any of the M series Macs. I feel they are the best Macs Apple has made. I do feel macOS has lost a bit of its shine but that’s another story.

For now, if you need a computer or need to update you computer, visit your local Apple store or any store that carries Apple products and give the latest Macs a try. You won’t go wrong with any of them!