Paying The Apple Tax

I have always liked to think of myself as being neutral when it comes to the wonderful world of IT.  As far as I am concerned, a computer is a computer.  It doesn’t matter whether it is running Windows, OS X, Linux, whatever.  A computer is a tool you use to perform a particular job, task or whatever.  The same goes for vendors of hardware, Dell, HP, Lenovo, a business PC is pretty much universal.  The components are remarkably similar, it comes down to the support, price and availability.

Unsurprisingly I spend almost all of my time working with Microsoft operating systems and applications because that is what almost everyone in business uses.  So I spend roughly eight hours of my working day with Windows, Exchange, etc.  There are times when I am sick to the back teeth of Windows, and want something different.

So a couple of weeks ago I bought a 13″ MacBook Pro.  I have been an Apple user for several years now, having owned two iMacs (one of which is still in daily use here in the home office), and a Mac Mini.  I suffered through the joys of the early versions of OS X with OS 9 available as a dual boot while the application vendors updates to the shiny and brave new world of OS X.

Now Apple is pushing a little further towards the corporate environment offering Boot Camp for users who simply must run Windows, and the next version of OS X (Snow Leopard – out in September) includes native support for Exchange 2007 inside the Mail application.

I bought the MacBook Pro as an antiodote to my daily Windows usage, and to delve deeper into the guts of OS X to gain a deeper understanding of its innerworkings.  Then I started wondering whether I could replace my day to day Dell XPS laptop with the Macbook Pro.  Can you really, really use a Mac as a day to day machine from an IT pro standpoint?

With the use of VMWare Fusion I am pretty sure I can.
For starters, the machine is gorgeous.  People often becry the fact that Apple hardware is so expensive, citing that a comparable spec Windows laptop is several hundred pounds cheaper.  This is very true, but Apple hardware is like owning a bespoke suit.  You can buy something off the peg far cheaper, but it’s just not quite the same.

The brushed aluminium unibody is exceedingly lightweight, the machine is quiet, the screen is the finest I have seen on a notebook from any manufacturer, and the touchpad large enough to appease almost anyone who hates standard notebook trackpads.
My only deviation from the default Apple spec was ordering 4Gb of RAM from Crucial, as the official Apple pricing is notoriously astronomical for memory.

As I stated earlier, the key to being able to use the MacBook Pro as a support machine for this particular Windows based IT pro is VMWare Fusion.
When I’m running OS X I use Firefox as my web browser, and can use services such as Logmein or Microsoft Remote Desktop to access client computers so that’s a tick in that box.
E-mail is handled by the Unity feature in VMWare Fusion.  I have a Windows XP VM machine loaded up with all of my support tools so if I need a full-on Windows environment I don’t have to reboot into Boot Camp and load up either Vista or XP (for the record, I have no Boot Camp partition on my machine).

With Unity I can run Outlook 2007 and have it interact with the OS X desktop so it looks just like any other application.  I even have its default icon sat in the Dock in OS X.  A click of the icon and the VM fires up and loads the application.  Simple and straightforward.

I connect to the company NAS to access files and folders, print to the newly installed Samsung laser printer and have no concerns regarding interoperability.  It even plays quite happily with my Windows Home Server.

As well as the MacBook Pro I also finally bit the bullet and ordered an iPhone 3G S from O2.  Again being a predominantly Microsoft house, I resisted the lure of the iPhone 3G and renewed my contract with Orange after hearing that the HTC Touch HD was a worthy competitor to the iPhone.
The push e-mail support is good, but Windows Mobile just feels so old and outdated (not to mention clumsy) I began to regret my decision soon after receiving the phone.

The touch screen on the HTC unit is clunky and unresponsive, and while the Touch Flow HD interface is a great improvement on the default Windows Mobile 6.1 environment I am rather drawn towards the “silk purse/sows ear” way of thinking.

I am using an original “2G” iPhone at the moment until the new 3G S arrives.  I have already fallen foul of the availability issues of the unit, being told my O2 yesterday that the 32Gb black unit I requested is out of stock and they currently have no idea when they will be receiving more of them.  I agreed to the white handset instead, I’m not particularly interested in making any kind of fashion statement, and the phone will be in a protective case at all times anyway.

Push mail support on the iPhone is just as good as Windows Mobile, and the sheer volume of applications and games on the App Store make the iPhone a complete no-brainer for me now.  A phone, just like a computer, is a tool for business (and pleasure) and I went for the best tool for the job.  Hopefully I will receive the phone by the middle of next week.

Which brings me finally to a note for my customers.  Obviously moving from Orange to O2 I will be changing my mobile phone number.  I will forward the details as soon as I have them, and should I not be available then Sally will be answering on the old phone number as she is continuing my contract.