I’m stuck with Mac OS X Snow Leopard for awhile. That unexpected delay wouldn’t suck so much if Apple’s newest operating system hadn’t decided to eat my Macbook battery. There’s a debate among Mac users about why Snow Leopard seems to flag previously good batteries as failing, frequently popping up the warning, Service Battery. That would be fine if your battery was actually failing. Some aren’t.
But there are elements of Mac OS X I love. They won’t motivate me to stick with the operating system, but I’d sure like to take them with me when I finish migrating to a new OS. Primary among them is Time Machine, Apple’s point-and-click, behind-the-scenes backup functionality.
Many of them have expressed shock, anger, and in the case of the AngryMacBastards podcast, a desire to ‘put a bullet’ in my head for writing publicly about my disillusionment with Apple Computer.
I dove into Linux at the suggestion of several commenters who urged me to take a look at the open-source end of the OS world before deciding to go over to the Microsoft dark side. Why not? I figured. One-half of my goal is never again to have to pay several hundred extra dollars for specially branded hardware just to run my OS of choice, and the other half is to remove myself from Steve Jobs’ heavy-handed control of the applications I choose to install there.
While I continue on my way out the OS X door, I’d like to respond to the commenters who let me know in no uncertain terms that they don’t agree with my opinions about the Mac platform. Tough.
I am a future Windows PC user and that is that. After a 15-year relationship with all things Apple, I’ve finally had it with the Steve Jobs ‘you’ll use your computer they way we tell you to use your computer’ method of customer relations.
This Apple fan has officially downsized his digital life and I couldn’t be happier. For the first time since the mid-1990s, I’m down to one phone number and one email address. I know, I can’t believe it, either. I’m officially calling Wednesday, June 17th, 2009, the date of my long-needed virtual house cleaning.
After 15 years of being a faithful Apple Mac fan, in 2009 I changed my mind. I realized I was living the Apple user life you never get to see in a ‘Get a Mac’ ad, controlled by a computer company set on telling me how I was allowed to use its products and how I wasn’t. So one day I decided to say ‘No’…