My plans for the A-List include continuing to update it as I evaluate and add programs to my essential list of Mac apps, and also to broaden the information offered on the list with information like what each app costs, if anything, and a little summary of reasons for selection.

I’m pretty ruthless about ripping products off the A-List when I’ve decided they’re no longer valid, are outdated, or have been beaten by a competitor. You’ll notice that in some product categories, there is more than one contender. In that case, I like them both and am still considering between the two.

The A-List is based on real-world research. In other words, I’m not setting up bench tests to assess Mac software. I’m living and working with these products, and when they succeed or fail in real world use, that’s when I make changes to their status on the A-List.

Feel free to send me suggestions for new Mac apps to consider. There’s a specific email address for doing so toward the bottom of the page.

So what’s wrong with the iPhone? Two things:

1. One word: AT&T. I live and work in the greater Boston area, and AT&T’s network is pretty poor here and elsewhere. When I receive calls at my house, the iPhone rings only about 50% of the time. Sometimes calls don’t even register as missed. One of the first things I noticed after switching to BlackBerry on Verizon’s network is how many calls I was suddenly getting. And calls to my BlackBerry don’t drop off or become interference plagued anywhere near as frequently as those on my iPhone. Apple’s insistence on exclusivity with AT&T in the U.S. will keep me from going back to the iPhone until that changes.

So is this a regional problem? Not according to Consumer Reports, which has more than once ranked Verizon’s network as best or second best in most major markets throughout the U.S. Both in the Northeast and in my travels all around the country I have found this to be true. I was a Verizon Wireless customer before I bought my iPhone.

2. The virtual keyboard doesn’t work for me. People assume that it’s the lack of tactile feel when pressing fingers to glass, but I don’t think that tells the story. My frustration with the iPhone keyboard is that I cannot use my thumbs, but am instead reduced to stabbing with one finger, which is slower and less accurate. The worst part is that I frequently press the wrong keys while attempting to type without looking. On the BlackBerry, even though the keys are both much smaller and packed more tightly together, I’m able to “touch type” because of the little bumps that help you locate the keys by touch. The way I see this the problem is one of size. I could deal with lack of tactile feel on the iPhone if the virtual keycaps were larger so there were less chance of hitting the wrong key. Without those tactile bumps, me and my thumbs need larger targets.

That’s my short list of serious pet peeves with the iPhone. Were I to make a list of things I love about Apple’s smartphone, it would have at least a dozen items. But while it’s a short list negatives, they hard to get around: It’s not a reliable cell phone for calls, and I can’t really type emails and texts comfortably. The switch to the BlackBerry was a no-brainer for me.

Even so, I wouldn’t say I love the BlackBerry. The software syncing situation is terrible for Mac users. PocketMac is hopeless. (I’m about to try Missing Sync.) RIM needs to break down and write a true Desktop Manager for the Mac. I’m going to miss the iPhone’s seamless integration with all things Apple and Mac.

I also don’t like the BlackBerry’s over-reliance on email as a way to notify about voicemails and texts. I get so much voicemail that I need one place for that. I love the iPhone’s visual voicemail center and texting module (which uses more of an IM paradigm).

The BlackBerry Web browser and digital media features pale by comparison with those of the iPhone. I bought a 4GB SD card for the BlackBerry and still haven’t been able to successfully copy my songs and photos to RIM’s smartphone.

One BlackBerry Curve strength I hadn’t expected is that it’s noticeably lighter than the iPhone while being roughly comparable in size.

All in all, the iPhone is the most important smartphone released in the last three years. But Apple’s blind insistence on being exclusive with AT&T and Steve Job’s belief that buttons are bad — even keyboard buttons — makes the iPhone incomplete for me. I know other people who’ve gone back too. I’ll come back to the iPhone when and if Apple gets the message about the main things that a smartphone has to accomplish: phone calls and email.

If I could only get the BlackBerry keyboard and Verizon’s network on the iPhone, I’d have the best of both worlds.

For the last month I’ve been living with Apple’s diminutive MacBook Air as my sole production computer for all professional and personal use. My previous main Mac was a 2007 2.4GHz 4GB RAM MacBook Pro 17 with the highest resolution Apple offers in a notebook. So I went from one Apple portable extreme (highest resolution, most power, heaviest) to the other (smallest, lightest, least powerful, least memory, weakest video). There are a number of trade-offs, but the positive outweighs the negative.

It happened that late April through May is a slow travel period for me, so while I’ve attended local events offsite, I haven’t hit the road yet. But in a couple of weeks, I’ll be on a tour that includes D.C., NYC, Boston, and Miami. The east coast thang. I’ll give the MacBook Air a thorough travel test then. Once that’s complete, I’ll write a full long-term review of the MacBook Air on Computerworld.com.

My biggest single issue with the MacBook Air is something that you know going in: the size and resolution of the MacBook Air’s display. It measures 13.3-inches diagonally and has a maximum (native) resolution of 1280-by-800 pixels. The smaller size never troubles me on the road, where email and Web surfing are the main applications. I’m similarly unfazed by the MacBook Air’s small displays size because it’s connected to a 24-inch external LCD. But when I’m home, sitting on the sofa — where I sometimes spend hours researching, preparing PowerPoints, developing spreadsheets, juggling loads of documents, and writing — I feel the pinch of the small screen size. Like I said, I knew that going in, but the trade-off it’s not as bad as I expected.

It may be a case of just enough screen real estate. After years of using nothing but large-screen, high-res notebooks, I don’t have the “peering through a keyhole” feeling I sometimes got with pre-widescreen Windows notebooks (usually at 1024-by-768 resolution).

Another aspect that may help is the MBA display’s brightness and high contrast, both of which count a lot with me. What I’ve learned over the years is that display specs don’t matter. What matters is how it feels when you spend hours in front of it. The MacBook Air’s thin-film transistor LED technology creates the best notebook display I’ve spent that kind of time with. Though I haven’t spent the same amount of time with the newer MacBook Pro 15 models, the first to support the TFT LED displays, my guess is that they’re equally impressive.

All in all, I’ve adapted pretty well to the MacBook Air’s small display size. Even so, if Apple ever comes out with larger-screen MacBook Pro (such as a 15-inch or 17-inch) with the same incredible thinness, I’d probably break out the credit card the first week they were offered.

I’m also completely unperturbed by the on-paper lack of overall computing power that shows up clearly in the MacBook Air’s specs. My test unit has the 1.8GHz processor with the 64GB solid-state drive. Were I to spend my own money (or my company’s money), I’d get the 1.6GHz CPU and the 80GB 4,200-rpm conventional hard drive. For the things I use my main production machine 98% of the time, I don’t notice any loss of oomph. The 64GB drive is tight. In my ideal world, the MBA would come with 3GB or RAM and a 120GB hard drive, but so far I haven’t needed either.

The biggest problem I wasn’t expecting in the MacBook Air concerns the USB port. I was surprised that apparently Apple didn’t do the proper testing as part of its design work to ensure that virtually any USB device fits its one USB port. Or perhaps Apple just decided that form was more important than function. Either way, not only did I have to buy a new USB 3G EV-DO device for my company-supplied Verizon broadband wireless service, but when I paid extra for the smallest one (smallest in all three dimensions), it didn’t fit the MacBook Air’s USB port. Apple pointed out to me that the largest one Verizon offers has a fold out USB connector that does fit the MBA. But not only does that mean the darn thing flops around, it’s also massive at 3.6-inches long by 1.5-inches wide by .7-inches thick. It’s roughly half the size of deck of playing cards.

Bottom line, I think it’s a weakness in a computer using the name “Air” to refer to its wireless orientation that most USB air cards don’t fit it and it doesn’t have an ExpressCard port. Apple is quick to point out that every wireless broadband provider in the U.S. offers at least one air card that fits the MacBook Air, but to me, that’s not good enough.

Similarly, I have no issue with the MacBook’s optical SuperDrive being an external device, that’s a reasonable trade-off. But the fact that Apple’s device does not work through a USB hub and must be connected directly to the lone USB port is disappointing.

The biggest advantage I hadn’t fully appreciated — despite acknowledging it to be the killer feature of the MacBook Air from day one — is how freeing the small size and weight is. At work, I frequently just grab it and go to meetings. Since my business is Internet publishing, being able to refer to our Web site or those of competitors is a noticeable advantage to me. I haven’t even gotten to the travel part yet.

Stand by for my final Computerworld review in a month or a little more, which will address my travel experiences and also give details about my workarounds for some of the trade-offs I’ve experienced — as well as my final recommendation on the MacBook Air. In the meantime, I can tell you that I’m very much enjoying the research behind this evaluation.

At my Computerworld blog, I wrote recently that I’m changing my mind about the MacBook Air and embracing it for its elegance and usability as a travel computer. This contrasts with my three-month-old post in the days just before the MBA shipped in which, after a brief period of time with the early review unit Apple sent Computerworld, I took a harder line on the design compromises Apple made in creating the Air.

Check out my Computerworld blog for the details and my reasoning on the about-face. But if you want the bottom line, it boils down to this. I hope to acquire a MacBook Air as my “second” Mac for business use later this year.

Check out my takeaways about MacBook Air at my Computerworld blog.

Besides, I could use some friendly faces over there!

– Scot

If you read through the thread (as well as many others on other forums), you’ll find that various things are blamed for the problem, including an add-on customization utility called Application Enhancement (APE) by Unsanity.

The Apple Discussion thread offers a solution that involves booting in single-user mode, which requires you to hold down the S key while your Mac boots. Apparently that works for some people, but on my MacBook Pro 15, the only boot option that worked at all was Target Disk Mode (which lets you plug in a firewire cable and address the drive from another Mac as if it were an external drive).

This story and information about solving the problem is evolving over this weekend as I write this post. Some resources that may help people in this situation:

• Computerworld: Finger-pointing over Leopard blue screens heats up
• Computerworld: Some Leopard upgraders see ‘blue screen of death’
• Apple Help Document: “Blue screen” appears after installing Leopard and restarting
• Apple Help Doc: About the Archive and Install feature

My situation is complicated by the fact that there are permissions issues with my backup (taken right before the first attempted Leopard installation) that are making it difficult for me to restore that backup. I had no trouble booting to my backup after it was created. (I used SuperDuper to make the backup.)

My plan is to clean-install Leopard and use the Apple Migration tool to rebuild the computer’s environment. This is probably the smartest way to upgrade anyway. I opted not to do it to test Apple’s upgrade process.

While Apple appears to be laying the blame on Unsanity’s APE software, Unsanity says that’s not possible (see first Computerworld story listed above). So there’s more to this story likely yet to come.

As it happens, at one time I did have the APE product installed on my system, but I uninstalled it a long while back. But in examining the backup now, I have found APE leave-behinds. It’s not clear whether those files and folders are the cause of my problems, though. If I could properly restore my backup, I’d be able to test it. Perhaps I’ll get the chance later.

To be continued.

At Computerworld, we’ve put together the quintessential examination of the new Apple OS commonly referred to as Leopard. Check out: In Depth: Apple’s Leopard Leaps to New Heights. Be sure to check out the First Look at Leopard Image Gallery for a complete visual tour of the new OS, complete with a screencam of the Stacks feature.

I like Leopard. The new OS X has over 300 new features according to Apple (I didn’t stop to count them). There are literally oodles of small tweaks and changes. Things like, when you select Shut Down from the Apple menu, the new default countdown time is 60 seconds, not two minutes. (Yeah, I went for something pretty mundane that you probably haven’t read in a hundred other Leopard reviews.)

A new built-in Mac backup system, Time Machine, is probably the single best new aspect of OS X 10.5. The new virtual desktop functionality, called Spaces, is another noticeable addition. But to sum up Leopard, more than anything it’s a significant usability upgrade both to the operating system’s control surfaces and the bundled applications that come with it.

When you look at it on paper, though Steve Jobs might bristle at this, Leopard is very much like the kind of refinement Microsoft attempted with Vista. To get there, though, Microsoft had a lot farther to come.

I’ll have more to say about Leopard when I’ve had more time with it. The main purpose of this post is give you advice about whether to buy it.

Sooner or later, this is an upgrade most Mac OS X users will want. There’s enough benefit and improvement to pay the money. (Apple’s system requirements specify at least a PowerPC G4 processor running at 867MHz or faster. All Intel-based Macs support Leopard.)

But like any new operating system, this one may have cause some problems with application compatibility, drivers, and interface customization software, such as kernel extensions. (For example, I use DoubleCommand because I like having keyboard buttons on my MacBook Pro that delete both to the left and the right. Call me crazy. But once you work this way, it’s seems silly not to continue. DoubleCommand lets you reassign the functions of some keys.) I don’t expect that it will take very long for most actively updated software products to have updates for Leopard. Most software probably won’t need it anyway. Some hardware products might be a different story. I still find support for the Mac to be weak from many major printer manufacturers, for example.

For new Mac users, little issues with a new version of OS X are nothing like the annoyances and frustrations that some people face with a new version of Windows (Vista definitely included). But it’s a computer; a new operating system may cause some ripples here and there.

Most hard-core Mac users are either planning to line up at Apple stores on Friday evening or wishing they were. My advice is to hang back at least a couple of weeks or months. Make sure everything you use regularly is going to work after your upgrade. Tiger is a fine OS. You can’t even use Time Machine without connecting an external storage device (like a USB drive) or devoting a sizable partition on your hard drive. Don’t get me wrong, Time Machine is a great utility. Every OS should have this functionality. But it’s not really compelling OS content.

For some of us, half the fun is being among the first to use a new version of the Mac OS even if that means coming across some minor issues. If that describes you, there’s no reason not to go for it.

The week after the column appeared (after I returned from a vacation), I received a call from Apple acknowledging for the first time that, yes, it has an enterprise division headed by Al Shipp, senior vice president of enterprise sales. Only hitch was, Apple’s PR department wasn’t authorized to let me talk to Mr. Shipp or, in fact, anyone in Apple Enterprise.

Because Apple wasn’t talking, I reached out to Dale Frantz, CIO of Auto Warehousing Co., whose company was the focus of a case study about enterprise adoption of Apple servers, desktops, handhelds, and software in Mac Attack! An enterprise PC shop switches to Apple, July 16, 2007, Computerworld, by Julia King.

My interview with Frantz was far-ranging and fascinating. Not many CIOs these days have the brass to dump everything Windows-related and start all over again with Apple. He’s in the middle of doing it. He’s met with Al Shipp and has more than 20 business cards from the Seattle office of Apple Enterprise. His several-hundred-thousand-dollar overall deal with Apple comes with all the discounts, support, and engineering help that you’d expect from Microsoft. Apple is in every way doing exactly what I called for (except for selling enterprise-specific desktop hardware) in it dealings with Tacoma-based Auto Warehousing. So what gives?

I’m working on a follow-up story to the Enterprise Prize piece. In the meantime, though, I couldn’t resist passing along Frantz’s best guess as to why Apple has reached out to some medium-size businesses like his but isn’t making a major push to reel in larger enterprises. His belief is that Apple is quietly preparing to enter the enterprise market — and doesn’t want to tip its hand until it has the infrastructure in place to support enterprise customers. By infrastructure, Frantz means documentation, trained software engineers, and sales support.

Frantz also readily agreed with my analysis that, during this time when Vista is floundering a bit, Apple has an unusual window of opportunity — call it 18 months — to make some inroads with businesses of all sizes.

Apple has made a lot of smart moves over the past few years. Maybe the next one, the move to enterprise sales, has just yet to be played.

If you’re an enterprise IT manager whose company has recently moved to Apple, I’d like to hear from you. Drop me a line. (If you let me know it’s what you prefer, I will keep what you tell me confidential.)

• Mac vs. PC cost analysis: How does it all add up? (Computerworld)

It seemed to me that people who criticized this story missed the key points I was trying to get across:

1. This was a pure, hardware-based, speeds-and-feeds kind of comparison. I was comparing the hardware goods only, including CPU, chipset, RAM, video, display, hard-drive capacity and specs, ports and upgradeability, dimensions and weight, and so on. In other words, I was attempting to make an objective comparison that did not inject any evaluation about the hardware, anything at all about the software, or my personal experience with the operating systems and hardware involved. It was an on-paper comparison.

I did that purposely to lay the groundwork for further analysis about the value of Macs vs. Windows PCs. I started with the objective measures.

2. The main point I was trying to make is that when you compare Macs with comparably equipped Windows PCs, it may surprise you that, overall, Macs sometimes beat Windows PCs in the price/performance comparison. Sometimes Windows PCs do. Overall, there’s relative parity.

There is a time component to this kind of analysis. The Windows PC makers lagged behind Apple for a while on the CPU front, but with the release of the Santa Rosa platform (Intel’s marketing name is Centrino Pro), many are catching up again. The value meter may be tipping a bit toward Windows PCs now as a result. But this ebb and flow is a natural part of computer valuations. It never rests. Pricing is always in flux.

It’s definitely true that Apple Mac pricing has not always approached parity. I’ve made this comparison before. Macs have clearly been more expensive than Windows PCs in the distant past. But if you’re talking about name-brand Windows PCs from reputable manufacturers like Dell, HP, Toshiba, Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, and others, the out-the-door pricing is more or less on par.

There’s an important point of comparison you need to recognize to fully understand the logic of my position. For a direct comparison to be made, there has to be a Mac SKU that directly equates to the exact set of features *you* want. And that’s where we enter into the completely subjective realm and get away from intrinsic value. Just because you don’t want this or that small feature that the Mac has, doesn’t mean that everyone else doesn’t want it. And vice versa. So if your desire is a specific set of features that fits in between a specific Mac SKU and the way it can be configured, then some Windows PC somewhere may, in fact, be a better value — for you.

This point isn’t unique to computer sales. Buy a Honda automobile, for example, and you’ll find there are three or four models for any car type, and the only options are dealer installable. Like Honda, Apple has smartly positioned its specific models.

There’s also a corresponding point to be made: The Macintosh lineup consists of five model lines and 12 basic SKUs (or specific models), each of which offers additional configuration. There are three desktop model lines and two notebook model lines. When you look closely at these model lines, there are economy, middle-of-the-road, and high-end models. Macs are no longer just premium computers. Apple changed its stance on that markedly over the past 10 years. If you’re not that familiar with Macs, you have to open your mind, take a look at the different Mac models, and closely compare the specs to understand.

Dean Abanila, technology specialist at the Rhode Island School of Design, said it well:

“I work with more than a few students and faculty looking for computer buying advice. Many are making PC-to-Mac transitions. Your analysis is dead on. At least twice per week I spec out both Macs and PCs for folks. More often than not, the Mac is cheaper, and this has been the case for some time now. Before I start to sound like a Mac fan boy, let me say that I often recommend PCs, and will continue to do so. I support both platforms here at RISD. As I am sure you are aware, recommendations depend on the user’s goals.”

One last hardware point: I agree with those of you who wrote to say you’re with me on the comparison, but as purchasers of corporate microcomputing hardware they feel Apple doesn’t have a product that meets their needs. I’ve written about this in the past and am contemplating a Computerworld column on the point again. Apple has a huge opportunity right now with the pushback on Vista and the upswing in Mac sales to release a Mac designed for business.

At my company, where there are many new Mac users, the MacBook Pro 15 has become the standard. But that’s a pretty expensive computer for some companies to justify. I think the MacBook might be a solid alternative for some companies, and its pricing is more in line, or even advantageously priced, when compared with small-screen Windows notebooks from Lenovo and others. But there’s room for a MacBook business machine that has a better keyboard, a better-looking case, and probably some other minor tweaks. I also don’t think the iMac is a great desktop computer for business. I don’t like the integrated monitor from a support perspective.

There’s room for Apple do something here, but the real problem for Apple is that it doesn’t have a corporate sales channel to speak of. It’s a retail-oriented B2C company, not a B2B company. Some enterprises are ignoring those downsides, though. Computerworld’s cover story this week is about Tacoma, Wash.-based Auto Warehousing Co.’s decision to dump a major part of its IT infrastructure and PCs in favor of Apple servers and Macs. It does happen.

Software?
So much for the recap from last month. A lot of people have asked me to dive into the software comparison between Macs and PCs. Software needs, however, are far more variable than hardware needs. For example, some people are required to use Microsoft Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint. They would be forced to either buy or get their companies to buy Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac, which sells for $399 list.

I know that some of you believe that alternative office products negate the need for anyone to use Microsoft Office for the Mac. That simply isn’t true. There are interoperability issues with even the best alternative office apps. Trust me on this, some of us are required by our companies to use the Microsoft product.

On the other hand, some people don’t have those constraints. They might be very happy, indeed, with a product such as NeoOffice, the free, open-source Mac office suite based on the OpenOffice.org office suite.

So how do we figure this out? Do we tote up $400 or no? It’s much harder to generalize about software. It’s not easy to draw fair comparisons about software on a level playing field. I believe each person has to make his or her own assessment on the software front. Here’s are some factors I think you should weigh in considering the software side of analyzing Mac vs. PC costs:

1. There is plenty of software available from the Mac, both from established software houses and from individuals. Surprisingly, there are more products in some product categories than there are for Windows. For example, every time I turn around, I stumble across another project management tool for the Mac. There are more browsers for the Mac than there are for Windows. I don’t think Windows users realize just how many software product categories Microsoft has come to own. It’s true, though, that in some categories, there are only two or three Mac offerings. All in all, though, there is a very solid, rich spread of software makers creating Mac applications. As a long-time software reviewer, I’ve been surprised by the quality of these applications, too.

2. The $80 Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization application lets you run Windows and Linux very seamlessly on your Intel Mac and switch between Mac and Windows, for example, with a simple keyboard command. It’s even possible to run Windows applications as if they’re running in the Mac interface, and to associate data files on the Mac with Windows applications. This extremely powerful tool literally gives you access to all your Windows applications on your Mac. Parallels is one of the best software utilities I’ve tested in years. It adds a huge chunk of software value to any Macintosh purchase. Apple’s free Boot Camp beta software is less convenient, but it offers the same ability to run Windows on your Mac. VMware’s forthcoming Fusion virtualization tool for the Mac will compete with Parallels.

3. You don’t need security software. OK, so I’m not one of those Mac users who chortles up his sleeve about security. I take it seriously. And I don’t think the Mac is inherently immune from security threats. But the real-world truth right now is that most security threats are aimed at criminal financial gain, and the Mac’s market share is just too small to be a cost-effective target. I mean, really, which would you pirate? The giant cargo ship with the gangplank resting on the dock, or the buttoned-up tugboat moored 100 yards offshore? Other than software to block spam, Mac users don’t need any of the security products that Windows users absolutely require — antivirus, anti-malware/spyware, identity-theft protection, anti-bot, and so on. (The Mac comes with built-in firewall software.) There’s definitely a cost savings because of this. And I suppose we could work up some numbers based on annual subscription fees and the need to upgrade to new versions of security products every year or two. This does add up over time, but it’s not really a big chunk of change.

To me, the far more important cost is the system overhead, user distraction, system instability, and the need for user troubleshooting that Windows security software entails.

Kenneth Burton, a technical director for a school system, emailed me with the same thought:

“What about the issue of spyware and antivirus software? One of the reasons I switched to a Mac at home two years ago was because of the hassle of cleaning up the computer after my 16-year-old son.”

Another reader, Rudy Wolf, agrees:

“Having just made the switch myself (we now own four Macs), I have to take exception to your [first article in this series]. You didn’t go far enough! Where is the discussion about the hours I used to spend messing with Symantec’s Norton utilities and Windows utilities to keep my Windows PCs running and optimized? I have personally gained one to two hours per week because I no longer have to maintain four Windows PCs. My MacPro is now almost two years old. In that time, I have not run one utility to defragment its disk, optimize the system, or upgrade software. The worst I’ve had to do is press the Enter key a few times when the computer upgraded itself (flawlessly each time). I don’t know about others, but getting back 50-100 hours a year is a savings that has to be factored into the equation.”

4. Software is cheap. Unless you’re talking AutoCAD, Photoshop, or Microsoft Office, software isn’t all that expensive, folks. Just two hours of my time spent working on a Windows PC problem is worth far more than the average cost of most software programs. Even if you’re retired, you have to factor in the time wasted wrestling with problems. The point I’m trying to make is that, OK, so you may have to back your Mac purchase with an investment in software, but you had to do the same thing with your Windows purchase at some point. It’s a cost of doing business. But more important, you can amortize the cost of the software against the time you’ll save not wrestling with stupid PC problems. There is a very real savings there that’s difficult to measure or quantify. That benefit is at once supremely valuable and difficult to quantify. The problems you face with Windows are very definitely a cost to using that operating system and hardware.

Remember the Yugo, a car introduced to the U.S. in 1984 whose main claim to fame was that it was incredibly cheap, woefully underpowered, and highly trouble prone? Yugos spent a lot of time in the shop. In considering the savings on the purchase price, Yugo buyers probably didn’t factor in lost personal time, aggravation, repair charges, and what they were paying for transportation when their cars were being repaired. This is the very definition of penny wise and pound foolish. I’m not saying that Windows is a Yugo, believe me. But reverse the picture: The Mac represents the most reliable vehicle you can buy (perhaps a Toyota?). There’s a hidden value to having far fewer problems than average. And a big segment of the computer-using market place doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that.

No Lie: Impressive Reliability
The single most frustrating thing about being a Mac user is the disdain with which some Windows users view Macs. Apparently you’re not a real man or woman unless you’re suffering with everyone else.

The thing is, I don’t think Windows users (I know, I was one myself for many years) give much credence to the notion that Macs are far more trouble-free. Because it’s difficult to quantify it must therefore be false. It’s a subjective data point. As a long-time Windows author, reviewer, and expert, I know that I felt that I could solve any Windows problem (and probably could), and as a result, the Mac’s advantages held less benefit for me.

But I was wrong about that. The unexpected advantage I gained is that using my computer is more enjoyable. My concentration isn’t broken periodically by problems, updates, security pop-ups, and the like. I’m not thinking that I’m using a Mac. I’m thinking about what I’m using the computer to do — what I’m reading, writing, figuring, buying, watching, etc. The Mac becomes just so much chrome wrapping the data I’m interacting with. You’re not conscious of your television set while you’re watching it. That’s the way it is with a Mac. I found that much harder to achieve on Windows PCs, which are constantly drawing attention to themselves.

Another reader, James Sugrue, put it this way:

“I’ve been saying this for a while now. If you compare Apples to Apples (pardon the pun) then Macs are more often than not cheaper or at least price competitive. The thing your article didn’t touch on was the value you can’t quantify with Macs: Not having to worry about malware, not having to rebuild your machine every six months because the registry has gotten corrupted, or not having to deal with some dodgy driver that takes the system down. Your article didn’t describe the [overall pleasant] Mac experience.

“A recent switcher to the ‘Cult of the Mac,’ I’ve often wondered why I waited so long. I am a professional software developer, using Windows and Visual Studio, so I have a lot of Windows pain most days. I wish I could do all my dev work on the Mac. I see that being a major barrier to switching for most of my peers, even though there are great apps like Parallels and Boot Camp that could help. There’s a lot of ignorance about Apple for some reason among us technical types. A programmer at work said yesterday that he hated Apple. I asked whether he’d ever used a Mac. Nope.”

James, he’d probably hate chocolate if he hadn’t tried it, too.

Apple’s Mac mini is a Trojan horse (not the malware kind) whose entire purpose is to be low-cost enough to entice Mac-curious Windows users to give the Mac a try. The Mac mini is neither powerful nor portable. But it works just fine and will definitely give you the Mac experience. Or consider this: You can rent Macs. They’re not cheap, but it’s a lot less than buying even a new Mac mini.

You’re not going to believe it until you try it yourself. I didn’t.

I expect to write another installment on this subject. I hope to address Macintosh total cost of ownership (TCO), the average length of time people keep their Macs, and Mac resale values, among other things.

I welcome your input on this subject. What I value especially are fact-based arguments on either side of the question.

In the wake of Microsoft’s IE7 update, other key browsers are revving in the near future. Both Apple and Mozilla are planning browser upgrades, and as you by now know, Apple’s Safari will be released for Windows too.

It’s great to see Apple planning new things for its browser, but it needs to make its product more mainstream on the Internet. If nothing else, Web development teams will be able to test to the Windows version of Safari before they release their code to their Web sites. Although in these betas, the Mac and Windows versions of Safari don’t always render Web pages the same way. Perhaps even more important, Apple’s stance that the iPhone display the exact same Web as other computers, and the fact that its browser is, of course, Safari-based, means that the offering of Safari for Windows will help Web development teams the world over inadvertently make Web pages work better on iPhone. Score one for Apple.

That said, the current beta of Safari for Windows isn’t a great Windows product. Hopefully Apple will attempt to pay more attention to Windows conventions before it ships the product. My guess is that it won’t, though. I don’t think Apple is out to dominate the end-user browser market. It has set it sights on winning the mobile market with iPhone. Lower-priced phones are needed to make that a reality, but Cupertino has a chance to do just that. It has definitely leapfrogged the competition with the iPhone. So look at Windows Safari as a building block for that goal, not something that’s truly aimed at browser market share.

One question I still have for Apple (I keep meaning to ask them): Will Safari 3 be released separately for OS X 10.4 Tiger when or around the time that OS X 10.5 Leopard ships (currently expected in October)? Or will you have to upgrade to Leopard to get the new version of Safari? Given the huge public beta running on Tiger, one hopes that Apple doesn’t stiff its user base on that. The same question applies to Boot Camp, by the way.

In case you haven’t noticed, Mozilla has offered its Alpha 6 release of Firefox 3. You’ll find information and download links for Windows, Mac, and Linux on the Release Notes page. Please read this entire document before installing the Firefox 3 alpha to avoid issues with your current Firefox installation. This Mozilla Firefox 3 Milestone Schedule appears to be the most up-to-date roadmap for Firefox 3. It was last updated on July 9th, as I write this.

It projects one more alpha release at the end of July. Unlike some previous major Firefox efforts, Mozilla appears to be doing more work in the alpha phase. So the notes project that alpha 7 will represent a feature freeze (feature complete) build. So, while they might still tweak features, they’re not expecting to add any features in the beta phase. With the first beta they’re projecting to freeze the user interface of the browser. The wording allows a little wiggle room to add some smaller features at the last minute into the first beta.

Mozilla’s project planners expect the two betas to be released on September 18 and October 16. From past experience, Mozilla’s roadmap is just an estimate. It’s what its engineers hope to do. They make no promises about dates, and that’s as it should be. It does appear that the open-source development team expects to release the shipping version of Firefox 3 some time in November of this year.

I’m not going to try to fathom the features in Firefox 3 for this little story, but if you want to wade through the Mozilla documents yourself, I’d start here, and I’d also look at this page.

For some Mac users, Safari seems a little lackluster and Firefox lacks Mac-specific fit and finish. Those people may adopt the Camino browser, a Mac-only program based on the same Gecko browser engine the powers Firefox. There’s a lot to like about Camino, but the big problem for me is that it doesn’t support extensions. Until recently, it was also using the Firefox 1.5 browsing engine instead of the newer Gecko 1.8.1 Firefox 2 engine. Camino was recently updated to version 1.5, though, and that problem is solved. Camino 1.5 also picks up many of the Firefox 2 features, such Web-based spelling, feed detection, session restore, and upgraded tabbed browsing. (See Camino 1.5 Release Notes for more details.)

The new 17-inch MacBook Pro also came with a surprising set of upgrades. Finally, the 17-inch model offers 1,920-by-1,200-pixel resolution. That had been a glaring omission in the previous MBP line. The new higher-resolution display is a $100 option. I vastly prefer this resolution for this size screen. It gives you a lot more screen real estate. Some people may find that some things are too tiny for comfort, but Apple does a much better job than Microsoft at creating UI structures that work well in multiple resolutions. So, for example, the tiny colored dots that let you close, minimize, and expand Finder and program windows appear to be the same size no matter what resolution you’re in. The only issue you may have is with the text of some Web pages. Safari has an optional toolbar button pair that lets you increase the font size of the current Web page up or down one notch. (The Command+ and Command- keyboard combos also handle this.) That was only the only adjustment I needed to make for my aging eyes.

In addition to the new high-res screen, the new MBP 17 has Intel’s faster Intel Santa Rosa chipset running a Core 2 Duo at 2.4GHz and an 800MHz frontside bus. The new MBP 17 comes with 2GB RAM standard (supporting up to 4GB of RAM), and there’s a $150 7,200-rpm 160GB hard drive option. Standard equipment delivers a 5,400-rpm 160GB drive, and there’s also an optional 4,200-rpm 250GB drive.

Graphics moved up a little to Nvidia’s GeForce 8600m GT graphics processing unit with 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM. It offers dual display and video mirroring and external display at resolutions up to 2,560 by 1,600 pixels.

The new MBP 17 is identical in appearance, size, and weight to the previous generation. In fact, in all other details that I could find (see Apple’s spec page), it’s identical to the previous generation.

Computerworld’s Ken Mingis and I each bought this new machine, and we wound up configuring our purchases identically (with the glossy high-res screen and the 7,200-rpm 160GB hard drive). You can buy the new MBP 17 for $2,799 (same price as the previous generation). With these two upgrades, the list price increases to $3,049 (see Apple’s options configuration page). I paid a lot less because of one of the benefits of signing up to Apple’s ADC developer program, which costs over $500, is a decent discount on one Apple hardware purchase during the one-year membership period. My price was just over $2,400.

I followed Ken’s lead and tried a new RAM vendor to upgrade to 4GB of RAM. Large RAM upgrades under Windows often leave you wondering why you bothered, since there’s rarely more than a minor noticeable performance improvement. But this 2GB upgrade on the Santa Rosa MacBook Pro had a noticeably positive effect. It runs much faster after you double the RAM size.

Apple charges way too much for RAM upgrades. It’s cheaper to take Apple’s default 2GB of RAM on this computer and then purchase two 2GB RAM sticks, replacing the Apple RAM, than it is to buy the 4GB upgrade from Apple at the time of purchase.

Ken and I each bought two 2GB DIMMs for the new MacBook Pros for $215 from OtherWorldComputing.com. Unfortunately, the price has gone up to $228.50 since then. But it’s still a pretty good deal. Other World Computing also offers a $50 rebate on your original 2GB of Apple RAM if you fill out a form and ship your RAM to them.

Another low-cost RAM vendor with which Mr. Mingis and I have had good luck is Data Memory Systems. DMS’s version of this 4GB kit is $238, but without a rebate option.

The OWC DIMMs have run perfectly on both new Macs.

After several weeks using the new MacBook Pro 17 as my main computer, it’s hard to imagine a better notebook computer. It is the best notebook of any operating system that I have ever used. There are no tiny miscues or fit and finish issues. Other than the keyboard, which isn’t on par with that of a Lenovo notebook, I have no wish list at all. The only nit I can find with this computer is that it runs hotter than the 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 17 it replaces. In particular, whenever I launch Parallels running Windows XP, this Mac forces me to find some sort of large magazine or pillow to place on my lap as a heat buffer. Otherwise, my legs start baking. My guess is that the 2.4GHz MacBook Pro 15 gets even hotter because the case is smaller and can’t dissipate the heat as well.

For excellent additional information of the new MacBook Pro 17, check out the Computerworld review by Ken Mingis: First look: The new MacBook Pro 17, now with hi-res screen.