Why I use a MacBook for the past decade – My MacBook Journey part one

2017 is a special year for me. It meant a personal Mac milestone: 10 years of owning Macs. Why do I use Apple products, when alternatives are significantly cheaper? Simply put, what makes Macs worth the extra investment? Let me elaborate by telling you my MacBook journey.

Since '07 I have been working on MacBooks for university work and for my first job. The machines I worked on are:

Mid 2007 White MacBook 13” from 2007 until 2009;

Late 2008 Unibody MacBook 13” from 2009 until 2012

Late 2012 Retina MacBook Pro 15” from 2012 until now

Late 2016 MacBook Pro 13" without TouchBar (work provided) from 2016 until now

Before my Apple decade I used windows desktops only mainly to play games. When I was in high school I chose to work in the local supermarket to fund any fun projects, which enabled me to save up some money. After high school I wanted to study Industrial Design Engineering, which required a lot of graphical design work and 3D CAD work inside SolidWorks. Sadly at the time SolidWorks is Windows only, so installing Windows was a requirement. But that could be solved with a dual boot installation.

In ’07 there was a cool offer by the Media Markt, a local retailer. They offered all laptops without tax for a week! It comes down to a 19% price reduction, due to tax percentages in Holland, resulting in a €228 cheaper Mac! MacBooks were heavily recommended by fellow students during one of my visits at university during these participation days, so I bit the bullet and I bought my first MacBook. I had my fair share of issues using Windows and was curious to what Apple could offer. Worst case scenario, I could always sell it. Before I had owned an iPod Nano first generation (2005), an iPod Shuffle second generation (2006), and an iPod Nano third generation (2007). All in all my experiences with using Apple products have been positive. The well documented halo effect kicked in and I made the switch.

The first couple of days I had lots of issues, which mainly had to do with me getting used to a whole other kind of operating system. How do I install a program? How do I uninstall a program? What programs are worth my while? Do I go for office or iWork? And much more.

Within a week I got the hang of it, and started to enjoy the experience more and more. After a week I did not want to go back to Windows, and that has not changed since.

This is the end of part one of this blog series. In the next part I will look into my time at university with my MacBook.

Pictured below is my first MacBook: