Jessica McFarland

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thine mp3 player shalt surely be incompatible, and thy printer shall lose functionality.” (Genesis 2:17, King Jobs Version)

The ipad hit Britain yesterday, in a flurry of wall-sized ads at Underground stations and a wave of general lust. This seems like as good an excuse as any to weigh in on the minor religion that is Apple.

I should begin by saying, I am a Mac User, and I have been for just over a year (after all, admission of the problem is the first step to recovery). Well, of course I have a Mac. I’m a musician. And I write a blog. I should really have two Macs, one for home and one for Starbucks, where I can brandish my shiny silver laptop and be seen to be writing.

So yes, I own one (a 15″ MacBook Pro). And yes, the screen is wonderfully clear and the keys fit together well enough that I can’t drop biscuit crumbs between them, and the touch pad has nifty shortcuts and it boots up and shuts down quickly. It runs all of my music software and looks good doing it.

In spite of these things, I’m still not a fan of Apple, as I’m not a fan of any clique.

Basically, the rest of my equipment isn’t ‘cool’ enough to eat at the same lunch table.

The machine that was intended to make my life easier refused to acknowledge the scanning function on my last printer/scanner/copier, turning its delicate nose up at the ancient device and its out-of-fashion drivers. It completely ignored the possible existence of mini CDs, meaning I couldn’t even begin to load the software for my (non-Apple, what nerve!) smart phone (found that out the hard way, after getting the small disc lodged into the disc drive, whoops).

And forget about mp3 players. My Sansa Clip is loaded with music from someone else’s PC, and those are the songs I’m stuck with, because its name doesn’t begin with the letter ‘i’.

My computer will only play with the cool kids, and those kids are very, very expensive. (Like, seriously. When I found out how much an iphone without a contract actually costs I had to sit down).

So you spend a bit of money, and then more, and then more, until Apple owns you, your bank account, and eventually, your soul.

I’ve been holding out as long as I can. But though I’ve fixed the printer situation by getting a newer one and the phone is no longer an issue, one day, I shall have to get an ipod. There simply won’t be any other option. And then it’s only a matter of time before I am lost.