The Dark Side: A Stormtrooper's Tale

It has happened. It started back in April, and I have to admit that I haven't looked back.

I got a MacBook Pro.

It's the most amazing laptop I've ever had. Beautiful, powerful, and just plain pleasurable to use. I can go on and on about how "it just works," but I'll sound like a fanboy. One thing I've learned since tossing my prejudice and putting aside my disdain for Apple's business practices is that you don't really understand how awesome Apple products are to use and own until you use and own them. Seriously. Looking in from the outside, it's easy to toss aside Apple products as over-priced over-marketed hype, but once you actually use them, you learn that the products are designed to just work without too much effort. I know, the hacker in me (and in you) likes to be able to fix things. Well, with OSX you can. It's called Terminal, and anyone with UNIX or Linux experience will find themselves unbelievably at home in Terminal. Talk about hacking ability!

Back to the MacBook Pro. Aside from OSX, I find that the experience I have using the MBP is superior to any laptop I've ever owned before. I have lots and lots of laptops including a brand-new HP laptop, and while the Envy comes close, it's just not quite there. I don't know how close the Ultrabooks can/will get to the ergonomics and just solid feel of Apple products, but so far, nothing compares.

Finally, and most importantly, I've also started buying into the Apple ecosystem. I have an Airport Extreme (router that you can attach USB drives/printers to) and as of yesterday, an iPhone 5. I'm finding more and more ways that the products work together, and while it's annoying that I have to spend nickels and dimes here and there for connectors and apps to make things share with each other that I think should have been able to share with each other in the first place(Bluetooth file sharing? Not on the iPhone!), everything just works better. I won't even go into little things like the TiVo app working on the iPhone vs my Galaxy SII.

So, I'm going down a dark path that appears to have disco lights at the end of the tunnel. I'm embracing these products more and more, which of course sullies my status as a geek to many of my friends and my wife. That's okay. That's why I'm the worst kind of geek.