The Snow Leopard and I part IV

The following morning I forgot about my bank balance and picked up the telephone. I tried to convince myself I had no alternative. I was in business, not a beta-tester for Microsoft.

The difference between ordering an Apple and Dell with Windows became evident seconds after I picked up the phone. There were no long waits listening to canned music, or repeated presses of buttons as I toured the Asian sub-continent. After one button press I was cheerily engaged talking to a breezy Australian gentleman based in Ireland. For me as a customer an important point; in as much as it will doubtless offend the politically correct, I was talking to a native English speaker ( Ok Oz speak is nearly English). With the best will in the world it is far preferable for the customer than trying to communicate with someone for whom English is a second language, with a strange accent, whereby you are constantly asking them to repeat things, while they without the flexibility of language and nuance work their way through a carefully prepared sales script.

Talking to Apple there was an instant feel-good factor; I felt I was not only a valued customer but two minutes into the conversation it was like talking to an old friend. As my questions were being fielded, there was time for humour and even a suggestion of mild flirtation. There was no hard sell, or any attempt to get me to upgrade on the basis of what I was contemplating buying actually couldn’t hack it. All Apples could hack it without upgrades. He prepared a quote for me and e-mailed it while we spoke and I agreed to think about it.

The next morning I rang him back and his voice mail said he was busy. I left my name and four minutes later he rang me back. An important difference - many rival companies it seems are only configured to accept calls.

Recalling that my Dell took over a month to materialise there was the next important question: how many working days would it take to assemble and deliver and would it be late? My Australian friend laughed. It will be with you tomorrow.

The next morning my Apple arrived carefully packed inside a nondescript brown box just like the Dell. But as soon as I opened the box, there was no longer any comparison. Inside the brown box there was a beautiful white box. As anybody who has ever bought any Apple product knows, even a humble i-pod, your purchase comes in a box that is more redolent of an exquisite piece of jewellery. What brilliant marketing. Even the feel of the box is an experience and that is before you begin to consider the care and design that has gone into the presentation. All so very clever, even before extracting your Apple you are half way to loving it.

Carefully hauling the monster out, remember it’s a 27” monitor, I set it on the carpet. Everything was so beautifully and ergonomically packed. I went and got a coffee and sat and stared at it gooey-eyed. I’d just spent a fortune. It cost more than two and a half times my Dell, but I didn’t care. As I admired its beautiful brushed aluminium curves I wondered where to put it. I realised it would take me several months to get up to speed after years of doing things the Windows way. On a whim I decided it was too beautiful to be parked in my office just yet, so took it up to my bedroom, cleared a top and parked my childhood bear alongside. I couldn’t get over how elegant it looked. I extracted the mouse and keyboard, inserted batteries and fired the machine up.

It was virtually ready to go. Unlike the Dell where I spent three hours feeding DVDs into it to back up the system. The Apple of course came with the operating system on a disk. I wondered just how many pence Dell saved by putting you through that misery.

As the machine booted up the screen lit up and the tasteful Apple logo appeared and held while the operating system loaded.

Such a difference to Windows where you are presented with rolling and flickering un-aesthetic screens of unintelligible geek speak which mean nothing to 99% of purchasers and anyway scrolls too quickly to be read - a visual presentation that smacks of something which is half finished, which of course is what it is.

Seconds later to my shock my Apple began talking to me. A nice man with a Californian accent. In fact he was so nice I forgot about the accent. He carefully guided me through the set up. It was simple and confidence inspiring. None of that terror you get with Windows where you wonder you might get something wrong and it might never work again properly.

Connecting to the internet was simplicity itself again so unlike Windows. Is this your network asked the nice man having divined what networks were in range. I typed in my key code and that was it.

Finally the man asked if I would like an avatar for my account. As I was in a hurry I agreed to let him choose. Imagine my shock when he asked: ‘will this do?’ I was staring at a picture of myself. Being blonde it took me a full two minutes of shock to work out the Apple must have a camera. It took me another minute to find it.

It took another hour or so to discover that the Apple came complete. Its optical drive unlike the Dell would read any DVD, CD you stuck in it. It had a microphone, camera, wireless adapter all noticeably missing from the Dell. I’d paid through the nose but felt I was getting my money’s worth.

Next I connected my printer and this I must confess did pose problems. As an old Windows hand I first download the latest drivers, using my Dell machine and saved them onto a CD. I then plugged my printer into the Apple. There was no message announcing that a device had been attached, no message asking if I had the correct, drivers, no message saying it couldn’t find the correct drivers on my CD even though they were there, plus all the normal obtuse Windows warnings and ‘wizards’. In fact nothing happened. I started to read the normally helpful Apple instructions I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong. After half an hour I was nearly crying with frustration, so as a last desperate measure I tried to print a webpage. It worked perfectly and has done ever since. I was learning fast, Apple unlike Windows doesn’t make a drama out of a simple job. I had plugged in a printer, Apple had rightly concluded I wanted to use it and simply got on with finding the drivers and configuring it – as simple as that.

I was beginning to realise that Windows compared to Apple is like washing your feet with your socks on.

(to be continued)