Datasheet

Part I: Informed Switching Starts Here

Apple is the industry thought leader

Anyone who follows the high-tech industry is used to reading articles about

amazing new technologies that are going to revolutionize our lives — and

then never hearing about them again. One of Apple’s roles in the computer

industry is picking and choosing among those new ideas. For the most part,

technologies that Apple picks are adopted by the rest of the industry, par-

ticularly by Microsoft. Apple may not have invented the graphical user inter-

face, Wi-Fi wireless networking, USB, the smartphone, or tablets but Apple’s

adoption and careful implementation of these technologies made them indus-

try standards. Apple users get the good new stuff first.

Appearances matter

Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. Sometimes, function follows

form. Early in Apple’s history, Steve Jobs recognized that aesthetics matter.

The design team that created the first Macintosh computer included a fine

artist who was involved in everything from the design of the graphical inter-

face to the artwork on the cardboard box that the Mac came in. When Jobs

returned to Apple, he restored artistic quality to prominence at Apple. From

the original lollipop-colored iMacs to the latest iPad, Apple products have

won awards for excellence in industrial design. Figure 1-1 shows the elegant

current iMac all-in-one computer.

Quality industrial design means more than arranging all the buttons and jacks

in a pleasing way. It also means questioning each feature and eliminating

unnecessary doodads. The result is something that isn’t just easy to look at,

but also easy to understand and simple to work with.

Are Mac users too smug about viruses?

Computer-industry pundits are continually

warning Mac users that the pandemic of

viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malware

that plagues the PC world will soon be coming

to Macintosh users. They’ve been issuing these

warnings for more than a decade, as I remem-

ber, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be right

someday. The Mac market is no longer too

small for virus writers to bother with. On the

other hand, Apple has the resources, skills, and

commitment to try to keep ahead of the mal-

ware threat. OS X Lion introduces important

security improvements, and Apple issues regu-

lar security fixes through its Software Update

program. Good security practices still make

sense in the Mac world, and I tell you ways to

keep your Mac secure in Chapter 10.

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