Week 49: Why I may go full Apple.

I’ve thought about this for a while, and I may just go full Apple this coming year.  Now don’t get me wrong, it won’t be cheap!  I’ll have to pay quite a bit to do this, but that’s why I go to work, isn’t it?  I’ve got a bit of money saved up.  I’m still thinking this through. 

I had another little “adventure” with my PC today.  It decided it had to download some updates and that’s fine!  I can respect it needing updates now and then.  So I let it do its thing and the download went on for a while.  When it was finally finished, the PC needed to be restarted.  Ok, so I restarted it.  First it was stuck on a “bios” screen and the keyboard wouldn’t work.  Oh no, not another problem!  I forced a shutdown and restarted the computer.  That should fix things, right?  Then all I got was the PC doing something, but nothing on my monitor.  I fretted for a bit and then tried another restart.  Again, nothing on the monitor and the computer seemingly doing something.  Well, maybe if I just went out and got some groceries things would be fine when I returned. 

I was pretty sure that when I got back from getting groceries the PC would still have nothing on the screen and be not working at all.  I checked, and it was fine.  I guess it just needed to install some things before it showed anything on the screen.  That seemed so unusual to me, though. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my PC!  I would have been heartbroken if something else was wrong!  I’ve had it for so long now!  If we go back a few blogs, I’ve even replaced the power supply in it all by myself.  I’m quite proud that I did that, by the way!  But let’s think this through.  I am planning on moving on to videos next year instead of written blogs and Apple products are pretty good at editing video.  A new iMac would also connect with my iPhone and iPad.  Hmm, now that’s something to think about.  My PC is pretty nice, but it really doesn’t connect to anything besides the internet.  I’d still have my PC, but would have something nice to edit video with.  Choices, choices, hmm.

There is something new coming called an iMac Pro.  The small bit of info I found says it will be released in December.  It’s December now.  So when do I get to see the overblown prices?  *chuckle*  Being serious though, I’ve had a MacBook for years and never really had any problems with it.  I still have it and the battery for it is no good so if I want to use it, it has to be plugged into an outlet.  But it does still work.  And it always was really nice to edit video with the few times I did it with the MacBook.  The big concern here is the price.  I’m going to have to probably pay around $2,000 or more, maybe even up to $3,000 for an iMac Pro when they come out.  Would it be worth that price?

Now you can get a “fusion drive” with an iMac.  That sounds so neat!  Does it work better than a regular hard drive?  If you ask Apple people they will tell it does.  I’m very curious about this.  It has to do with “flash drive” stuff.  It all sounds fantastic.  Again, this will come down to money.  Will I be willing to spend a few thousand dollars on something like this?  A lot of my life revolves around computers and electronic things at the moment.  I really would like something like this.  Again, this will take a lot of thought.  We'll see what happens.

At the moment I’m thrilled with fast food places that let me place an order with my phone, iPad, or PC and then just drive over and pick up the food.  And if I decide to buy an iMac I can just drive over to a nearby Apple store and pick it up.  I ordered and picked up my iPad Pro at the Apple store and that was actually pretty fun. 

Lots of thoughts in my head now.  It’s the end of the year and soon it will be tax return time.  That will give me a bit of extra money with my tax refund.  Is it time to go full Apple?  I wanted to buy a video camera with a microphone (still haven’t decided on one) for my videos next year so I could make sure I have good sound on the videos.  Why not make sure I have something that will help me edit things in a somewhat professional fashion?  I’ve been always been told over and over that the best thing to edit video on is always an Apple. 

Much thought will go into this as I continue to order Christmas things on Amazon.  I love ordering things online!  Until I figure all of this out, keep asking why.

Week 13: Why Apple?

I’m electronically spoiled.  I’ll admit that.  And my first vacation of this year is coming up soon.  Where will I go?  What will I do?  Well, instead of taking a trip somewhere I decided to spend my vacation money on an iPad.  And not just an iPad, but an iPad Pro!  Before I get into that, let’s go back a bit…

Seven years ago or so I saw that Apple was coming out with a second iPad that had a camera.  Actually, it had a front and back camera.  I didn’t have an iPad, but I did have an iPod.  It was a tiny little toy that I was enjoying and I thought getting a larger version of that might be really fun!  My little iPod didn’t have a camera and so a new iPad with a camera might be great!

And so I preordered an iPad 2.  This was the newest thing coming out and would be fantastic!  I had to wait a bit after release day for my iPad 2 because I was having my name engraved on it.  No problem, sometimes anticipation is better than the real event!  And so I waited and waited…

Finally my iPad arrived via FedEx.  I opened the box and was thrilled with it!  I learned to watch videos, check my email, and do quite a few other things with it.  Using my iPad got to be a daily thing.  But it was just the beginning back in 2010.

I was trying to use Facebook, but at first the Facebook app really didn’t work.  Years later that was fixed, but back then I couldn’t really do much with it.  And to tell the truth, Facebook was just getting going, too.  So that wasn’t as much a big deal.  But as time went on, I did find myself using this new toy every day.

As things are now, I wake up and check the news on my iPad.  I’ll also look at Facebook.  I order things from Amazon. I do all kinds of things.  It’s starting to slow down, though.  Suddenly my iPad is getting a bit frustrating sometimes.  Things are taking longer and longer to load.  My poor friend is just getting outdated.

And so I thought maybe instead of going on some fancy trip that would only last me one fleeting week, if that, maybe I should spend my vacation money on a new iPad?  I could check the Apple app on my iPad 2 and see what they have.

That didn’t quite work out because now for the Apple app to work on an iPad or iPhone you now need at least iOS 10.0.  My poor little iPad 2 won’t update beyond iOS 9 something!  Damn!  So I just looked up the Apple store online and luckily that worked.  They now have something called an iPad Pro.  There is a version that is 12.9 inches.  That’s huge!  Well actually just three inches or so bigger than my iPad 2.  But huge always seems to be good.  I want huge now!

Instead of impulse buying though, I figured I’d do a little research.  There is also a regular 9.7 inch iPad Pro.  That’s the same size as my iPad 2, but why get a regular sized one when I can have huge?  Huge seemed better until I looked a bit closer.

The 9.7 iPad Pro has a better camera and can film in 46K.  I have no idea what 46K is, but maybe I need that instead of huge?  Actually I do know that 46K is some kind of resolution that people would only be able to see if they had a 46K television, or computer screen, or whatever, but what the hell, right?  Maybe I need 46K instead of huge? (There's a bit more to it than just 46K, but it's fun to just make fun of that!)

Now I have to look closer.  Huge graphics or 46K?  I finally decided that I want the better camera.  I don’t understand why the huge one doesn’t come with the better camera.  If it’s bigger, why can’t you be putting the better stuff into it?  Come on, Apple!  And so I made my decision, I would get an iPad Pro 9.7.  They do offer free engraving, but you have to wait longer to get the iPad while it’s engraved in some obscure Chinese city, or Timbuktu, or where ever.  I can be patient.  I think I need my name on the new iPad Pro.  And so I ordered it.  Now my new iPad Pro will be my vacation toy.  I’ll have to take some 46K video and see where I can upload it. 

The new iPad will be here in about a week.  Actually not here, but at an Apple store and I’ll go pick it up from there.  That way I don’t have to wait all day for a FedEx guy. 

So why Apple instead of a vacation somewhere?  Because I want faster, updated, and 46K!  *chuckle*  And I’ll be able to take my new toy along for the next vacation I save up for.  Vacation videos in 46K!  I like the sound of that!

Until the new iPad Pro comes, keep asking why!