The thrill is gone

[karavite]

Perhaps it is too much work, too much time on computers, age, experience, bad Apple marketing - who knows, but normally I am obsessed with any new Mac product and immediately plot on ways to get the latest thing (I have had 9 Macs and a Newton over the years). Heck, I even had Newton DREAMS until I bought one.

However, I was suprised that Panther, G5... did or are doing nothing to get me excited. I still believe the Mac is far superior to the PC and I love my G4 DP 1 GHz, and really enjoy vidoe editing with it, but I long for the kind of excitement I felt when Apple released somthing like the Quadra AVs - that was an exciting time and though that machine (I had a 660 AV) would be no match for hardware today, it was so new, so exciting... I don't know, there was just something different that seems lacking (to me personally) today. iPods don't do it for me either (believe me, get some high quality audio equipment and you will understand what a horrible thing MP3s really are). Perhaps a tablet would do it - I don't know. Maybe I am just burned out or computers, even Macs, are becoming too familiar. All I really want is stability and reliabiilty which I seem to have now (minus a few 10.2 upgrades!).

Please don't flame me - I am not knocking Apple or the new products at all. Panther should be great and the G5 is long overdue, but it just ain't the same for me anymore.

[tyma]

*deep sigh*

Having come from a Wintel background, I know exactly how you feel. The move from Windows 3.1 to 95 was the same as you describe for the Quadra AVs - everything was new and exciting. Since then, however, it's been progressively boring for me - as a user and an administrator - with each new "greatest ever" release of Windows.

Now... I'll add that I've always been a "closet" Macintosh fan. I've always envied the Macintosh user and wished I had one. I've usually had at least a one or two generations old Mac on my desk, just for me to play around with. I never invested in a new Mac, though, because while Windows had it's problems, MacOS just never seemed to hook me as something that could be a primary OS - plus, it never had the server offerings that Windows did.

However, along came OS X. Let me tell you, I was ecstatic at the thought of a Unix based MacOS - sure, I looked in to A/UX, and even toyed with some of the Linuxes available for the Macintosh platform, but here was a bold, beautiful, outstanding manouver direct from Apple. I was floored, and decided as soon as it came out that my next computer purchase would be a Macintosh.

Now, here I sit on my eMac (I wasn't willing to shell out for a G4 tower as my first Mac - consider it a "test" of the Mac platform) running OS X 10.2.6 - and I freakin' love it. Every little pixel on the screen, every command, every icon is exactly what I have been itching for in an OS for as long as I can remember.

So I'm home now. And I find the platform every bit as exciting - if not more so - than the 3.1 to 95 migration, or your Quadra AVs. I can't wait to propose to my boss we throw some XServe's in our racks... :-)

Tim.

[crash]

i've been using macs since... since.. forever. i used to get all worked up too. i've been doing web design/programming for 6 years, and when OSX offered native apache/php/mysql, i thought i had died and gone to web developer heaven; not to mention all of it's other enhancements over OS9.

but lately, maybe over the past 6 months, everything seems so lackluster. sure, the G5's are awesome, and i'll probably break the bank to buy one. panther looks nice, i guess. but in general, computers are starting to be more of an annoyance than anything. trying to convert pc people, or even explain that macs can do the same stuff is such an old scene.

i'm just tired of it all, i guess.

please no flaming. this wasn't intended to be a whine session, just the state of affairs.

[hulkaros]

Just one simple question people:
-How is the other part of your lives, you know the everyday one where no computers are involved... Do you at least get some excitement there?

Please, if you want and feel like it, let us know

[karavite]

tyma and Crash - you summed up my feelings exactly.

Hulkaros - that is a valid question. Do I need new Apple products or Prozac? :-)

As to the rest of my life - never better, but it was also good when I was Mac crazy too! In fact it is even better now due to a recent decision I made - I have instituted a personal policy of computer-free weekends and guess what - unless I am working, I really don't need to be on a computer!!! For example, if I want to see what movies are playing at the theater - no Sherlock - I just call them and listen to the long message. You know why? It takes about as much time as waking up my Mac, launching Sherlock and checking that way. Need to look up something in the yellow pages - well, again, no sherlock - the old phone book is just as convenient for me (and sometimes more accurate and browsable). Email is always tempting, but I now give email the lowest priority in my communications. I want friends to call me or come over rather than (once again) go to my office, wake up my mac, launch Mail, see what my junk filters have missed, then read a message and respond. The weather? Well, there is always the weather channel, the morning paper or looking out the window. Listening to music? Despite having an awesome audio set up on my Mac (Marantz SR-63 Receiver and Tanny PBM-6.5 studio monitor speakers), I have a far better audio system in my living room, but both reveal the lousy sound of MP3s. Again, how much time/effort/quality does the Mac offer me is part of my decision process to not use the Mac - it's all about personal economics - cost vs. benefits. The contemporary computer is not doing it for me - outside of work. In fact, it is a pain in the butt.

You see, if Apple came up with some small device (not a laptop) that we could have out on the coffee table or on the kitchen and could let me do all the above tasks super conveniently, then THAT would get me really excited. I want something that will use my desktop as a sort of personal server to the web, email, sherlock (which I really do love)... and talk to my phone, stereo and other things. Some kind of tablet wireless client device to my desktop and as such it should be relatively cheap - maybe $500 or so. I hate being tied to my desktop machine for this kind of stuff and laptops are not the answer - too bulky, need power, go to sleep too... Since Apple seems to be going for a home computer market as well as making the whole digital hub thing a big part of their strategy, I think they could do this right. They pretty much have the desktop thing wrapped up - web development and more traditional computer work - it is all there. Why not expand the capabilities and let us all have the automated and convenient homes we have been promised for 40 years? Apple is the only one who could do this well, but whether they do or not, it is coming and they might as well lead it.

See what you have done! I just spent way too much time on the computer when I wanted to go out in the driveway and shoot some baskets! :-)

[toast]

Take your happy pills and wait for Panther final.

[hulkaros]

Originally posted by karavite
tyma and Crash - you summed up my feelings exactly.

Hulkaros - that is a valid question. Do I need new Apple products or Prozac? :-)

As to the rest of my life - never better, but it was also good when I was Mac crazy too! In fact it is even better now due to a recent decision I made - I have instituted a personal policy of computer-free weekends and guess what - unless I am working, I really don't need to be on a computer!!! ...
... ... ...
See what you have done! I just spent way too much time on the computer when I wanted to go out in the driveway and shoot some baskets! :-)

If you will read my "question" slower, it was an answer as well! As long as you have excitement in something that is healthy! If you aren't getting excited for something -anything- then there is a problem and a serious one!

I hope that you are really getting excitement from something out there! Be it computer related or not!

As for making you spent too much time on the computer then I surely got you excited over something

[MrNivit1]

I believe these symptoms (I have them too) are something I call revolutionitis... We all have experienced a great leap forward in terms of personal computers with the advent of X. This new OS was a big change from OS 9 and is very exciting. Now, though, that X is becomming the accepted standard and less radical (although still innovative) changes are being made to the OS (Panther's expose, user-switching, etc), we are not getting a complete new OS. This is why (I think) we are all feeling a little let down; change that is not as radical. tyma's feelings about OS upgrades in the windows world (see above) is also a case of revolutionitis. I believe this feeling will wane as we get used to expecting less of a radical change, that is until the next major Mac OS release comes along (OS 11? )