14 DAY TRIAL // It has been several months since Paul Thurrott bought his new Intel-based iMac and wrote his first opinions of it. The iMac has not changed much in that time, not at all actually, but Thurrott has undoubtedly been as protean as a chameleon in a disco lightshow.
The latest development is the fact that Thurrott has sold his iMac out of "general frustration with OS X". There is no actual, tangible reason for the move, but is seems that Mr. Thurrott was finally overwhelmed by the small differences between OS X and his operating system of choice, Windows. Strangely enough, for someone who has been "using Mac OS X since mid-2001," and has "had a number of Macs come and go, including, now, three iMacs" it seems peculiar that the small differences are still a problem. What of all the people who use Windows at work and a Mac at home? Do they suffer debilitating headaches caused by small differences they were unable to grasp after five years of exposure? Probably not, but then they are not in the business of actually knowing about computers and writing about them? they are just 'users'.
Interestingly enough, although the small differences made using an iMac so unbearable it just had to go, Mr. Thurrott states that he will "pick up another Intel-based Mac before mid-year, but it will almost certainly be cheaper than the iMac and will likely be a portable". One would be hard pressed to see how all those little differences between using Windows and using OS X will disappear on a portable Mac. One could be grievously mistaken, but all Macs use the same operating system, OS X. Clearly something is amiss here?
"Anyway, I'm not sure this qualifies as irony per se, but on the day I sold my iMac, someone figured out how to get Windows XP booting on that machine I had, of course, originally purchased the iMac to dual-boot between OS X and Windows. Maybe some day."
Would that 'some day' be perhaps later this year, with a portable Mac? It would seem so? with luck by that time, somebody will have Vista up and running on that Mac, so Mr. Thurrott can finally enjoy OS X.