Welcome To The Revolution…Or How I Switched To Apple

I doubt you�ve heard anything on the radio, seen anything on the TV or read anything in the newspapers but there is a revolution occurring here in the UK. Before I go any further let me just skip back in time a couple of years to give you some background.

The year is 2003.  My name is Alistair Hutchinson, I am working as a nurse in my local ER (known here as A+E) and something strange is beginning to happen.  I am receiving calls at all hours of the day and receiving visits whilst working, from others in my profession, often bringing along their �ailing friend� for me to administer my healing hands, more often than not in a way that seems almost mystical to the people present.

Have you guessed what I�m doing?  No?  Well, I�m fixing, repairing, innoculating, and generally disinfecting their PC�s.  How my name has circulated around the hospital I have no idea but all of a sudden it seems I am busier with my hobby than I�ve ever been.

So busy in fact that I stop enjoying it.

For every PC built for a friend I enter into a kind of gentlemans agreement to provide free support for the rest of my days, oh and woe betide me if my sons aren�t going to continue that support when I�m gone!

At around about the same time all this is going on the Windows XP spyware writers seemingly quadruple their efforts because, obviously, I don�t have enough to do already.

So I get out, I buy a Mac (PM single 1.8 G5) and sell my PCs.  It�s not my first Mac, that award goes to a G3 iBook that I bought previously whilst a student and ended up selling after only 6 months due to lack of funds for my studies (for studies read beer) but when I sold it I swore I would one day own a desktop Mac.  That day had come.

From then on whenever I was approached to recommend a spec for a PC I would simply reply �Buy a Mac, it�s simpler to use no more expensive to buy and it won�t let you down�.  Now, I have to be honest here, the people I said this too merely went and sought advice elsewhere and ended up buying PCs anyway but that was ok with me.  I didn�t need the hassle of setting up computers for people and spending hours on the phone trying to troubleshoot their problems as I was busy studying for one or another course for work and was also a new father for the third time so I guess you could say I had my hands full.

Fast forward to 2004, people are starting to ask questions about my Mac.

�How many viruses have you had?�, none

�Are you bothered with spyware?�, nope

�Can I run Office?�, yep

�What is that?�, my iPod

Now let�s come back to the present day.  In total there are now seven new Mac owners in my hospital and about eight new iPod owners.  Thanks in part to my evangelism of the Mac as a viable platform, Apples new found coolness, and Microsofts repeated ineptitude in closing security loopholes Apple has gained sales of a 15 inch Powerbook, a 20 inch iMac, 3 12 inch iBooks, a Mac mini (delayed by three months would you believe) and a Powermac G5 dual 2gig, plus accessories such as Airport Express/Base Stations etc.  On top of that our department is beginning to look like the white earbud brigade has moved in.

Now I�d love to take the credit for all of this but I think this quiet revolution is entirely independent of my Mac experience and more an indicator of the simple fact that Apple is succeeding.  They are being mentioned more and more on UK websites, newspapers, TV and even radio and that�s despite the fact that advertisements for Apple are decidedly few and far between in the UK.

What do you think happens to public perception when the only time the worlds largest OS company gets a mention is to report another security exploit or how fast the latest virus for its OS has spread around the world and Apple gets a mention every time they launch a new product?

Believe it or not Mr Gates, people are switching to the Mac.  Maybe not as fast as Steve would like but I reckon he�s in this for the long term and can sit and wait for that momentum to build up.