Reading 1 - Jon Good

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I remember as a small child when my father was finishing up his dissertation on a Macintosh computer in the late 90's.  The computer was basically a cream colored box with a very small 3 inch black and white screen.  Although compared to the extent of technology today considering I'm typing on my custom built HP and playing Pandora on my iPhone, I was fascinated with this piece of machinery.  The capabilities of this computer were quite primitive: A basic text document creator filled with endless pages of my father’s work from the past two years, a folder organizing system such as the equivalent to my computer or finder, and a manager based baseball computer game that I could never really figure out if I was controlling or not. 

Being subjected to both computers I have many opinions of my own right down to the specs of both computers.  I feel as if I have a very educated mind in the computer world helping with small problems or even going with my parents to pick out which computer to get my sister for college.  The whole Mac vs. PC argument doesn't seem like a level playing field.  Both companies have a variety of different projects and ideals but a small path crossing of the OS business has everyone in storm.  Macs and PCs are made to do different things and cater to different people.  You don’t see a Porsche vs. Landrover debate although both getting you where you need to go, just in a different way.  I respect both parties and being a PC person myself, I also have an iPhone.  As Stephenson stated quite plainly in the article, the PC has evolved in not the prettiest manner as having a Porsche in your garage but again it’s built to haul the load (Stephenson 11).  Another thing that interests me about this debate is even though Apple builds its own computers and operating system, Microsoft is a software based company only.  How can these two different realms be debated when they are hardly the same thing?  Microsoft should just make the software for Apple computers, the tycoon would be born. 

In conclusion I have found myself starting to lean towards Apple products because of their sleek and well-built devices.  You don’t see someone using a PC more than 4 or 5 years old while MacBooks will still be as fast as they were out of the box from 2008.  As a Sophomore with a Windows based computer, I will be buying a new computer in the next few years and to be quite honest a Mac will probably be in the bag I’m carrying home.