But I am a TOTAL convert on Macs...don't even own one yet but can't wait to get one when my next desktop inevitably fails. HATE Windows with a passion. Apple has converted me, sight unseen, to a Mac.
Wow...really? You might want actually try one first.
While in general I would agree that is very good advice, that's basically what I did. I liked my iPhone so much (after using many other handheld devices in the past, from the old-school Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor, Sony Clie, Pocket PC, all the way up through a Windows Mobile phone) that when my laptop had reached the end of its useful life I got a MacBook Pro. The last time I had used a Mac was for a class at school about 13 years ago (and I hated it then, by the way). I realize it was a little crazy to take such a leap of faith, but that's what happened.
I will say that Apple was smart to emphasize how you can run Windows natively on a Mac these days, and to provide a relatively straightforward way of doing it with BootCamp. That gave me some psychological reassurance that if I needed it I could still use Windows. I had a Windows XP partition initially and now have a Windows 7 partition, but to be honest, about the only thing I do with it is check in to update the antivirus definitions from time to time. I have completely switched over and I have not regretted it for a minute. I know I'm a bit of an obnoxious convert (I used to consider them mac-asses), but so it goes. I am perfectly capable of dealing with all of the Windows annoyances, the registry, all of the maintenance, etc., etc., but honestly, it's a pretty nice life not having to do that stuff. Being a bit of a nerd about this kind of stuff, I have kept up with Windows 7 and I will stay up to date with things that come out, but it's been a great experience actually just _using_ a computer and not spending all of my time tinkering with it.
To bring it back on topic, the iPhone was what did it for me. You can compare the iPhone spec-wise to a lot of other devices out there, and on paper it's not the most impressive. But where it excels is the user interface and how it does what it does. Take multi-tasking, for example. In theory it would be nice to be able to run multiple apps at once (the iPhone will do a few, like the phone obviously, and the iPod). But you can switch between them so quickly it's rarely an issue. In contrast, with my Windows Mobile phone I could run a bunch of things at once, but all that did really was slow everything down. It was just a big mess. There are a few apps that I wish they would make exempt from this (apps like Pandora, for example), but overall I think it's not a big issue.
The other things that is hands-down better on the iPhone than on any other device I've used is the multi-touch screen. It's just terrific. The trackpads on the MacBook Pro are like that also, and at this point I would be very upset to have to give that up.
