It takes a phone to sell a computer…..iPhone that is

Morning Folks!!


I often tout patience as the key to the domain industry. Some ask how patient should we be? Well let me take a moment to calibrate your mind. In 1876 Alexander Grahm Bell invented the telephone. It wasn't until some 131 years later that the iPhone was invented. So that is a little longer than most of us can afford to be patient. So my job, our job is to accelerate things the best we can. Now on to the subject of the post.


Iphone_home
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Funny thing, a few weeks ago I was seriously thinking for the first time to change to a Mac from IBM. Sony's are slick but support is as bad as it gets. Dell is solid, but the XPS I have is weird and they always seems to be a little behind the curve. HP? Just too many horror stories out there to buy one. IBM? Toshiba? Not too exciting. So I decided I was going into the Apple store and see if this was going to be easy or a root canal.


Then I was reading Michael Berkens blog post http://www.thedomains.com/2009/03/09/i-swtiched-from-a-pc-to-a-mac-under-4-hours-heres-how/


on his new Apple Laptop a couple days later and see I am not the only one thinking the same thing.


I have been considering the Mac for one reason and one reason only as I have tried it many times over the years and never had a good result. However the iPhone has made me a believer. If folks are still using your beloved blackberry, get an iphone just to play with. It won't take long to win you over. The iPhone is so over the top that I believe that alone will be responsible for giving Apple a much bigger market share. I am proof. I am such an iPhone fan and now it is spilling over to their other products. I think I am one of millions like that. One of more millions to come. Talk about a solid company. This is it.


No matter where I am the Apple Store is always packed. The energy level is always high. I have had 2 Macs and it just must be which side of the brain we use or something. I failed both times to make the leap. They say the 3rd is a charm. I don't have a very developed artistic side. I was probably the only one in history to flunk art in college. I think the choice was dropping the course or getting an F. I think I dropped the course and not long after dropped out all together. I mean how do you flunk art? I showed up. I think I showed up. It's a long time ago, maybe I forgot to show up kinda like forgetting now or forgetting the subject matter at hand. Point is my artistic side is not as developed as my analytical side and I believe that is what is responsible for my failure to embrace an Apple computer. But the iphone has won me over. I am a big iPhone fan. I really love the device. The ease and power is really over the top. Other devices do the same thing 'Most of the time' but the iphone does things fast and seamlessly. I can stop at a red light. Check my email, check the market, check stats. Answer an email and more just at that light. I can't get that far with my Blackberry. The Blackberry sitting and collecting dust. I think we need a World Championship of handheld devices. Put them thru a battery of real world tests and have folks compete. Actually, there is really no need, iPhone will walk away and we can get a beer while the Blackberry is still trying to get to the first link.


So I am poised to go to the dark side and go into the Apple Store with the intention of buying one. If successful, it will be gratifying and I will feel I finally passed that art course. But I still realize the challenge at hand. This is going to be like a 12 step switch. I can't go cold turkey. First I will use it to do browsing and then transfer a few files and see if I can work with them. I want the same experience I have with my iphone in a laptop. I am ready for the experience! lol


So the journey begins.


ok, that part of the post was written 10 days ago. I ordered my Mac from Mac Mall with vmware's fusion software preinstalled. ok, booted up and connected to the net. Hurdle one done! I am not a cold turkey kinda guy like Mike. I am more of a migrator. I do it a little bit at a time. So with Mike's post as a guide book I was able to find a few answers with no pain at all. I am about 85% through it and most of the rest is pretty easy. The migration was really no different than buying any other new computer. There were a few things to learn on the mac. The command key for one. The keyboard is the best I have ever used. Period. The feel is good and mistypes have been reduced a whopping 90%. That really helps the time and frustration of goofing up all the time.


So far the only program not behaving well is there seems to be no utility to convert Quicken files from IBM to Mac. So until that changes, it's really no biggie as Fusion makes windows run seamlessly. So who cares?


Some little quirks. I would say less than 5 and I think they can be easily rectified with a quick call. So the things I have found are tiny in comparison to the benefits. I need no support whatsover to migrate. Mike's post was all I needed. If you love your iPhone you will love your MacBook Pro. If you work on a Mac and don't have an iPhone then you need to get immediate shock therapy or go to the store asap. It's coming on 2 years and I can absolutely say that the iPhone is the best device I have ever seen. When you think of a few improvements, it gets scary. There is no question that I would have never switched to Mac if it had not been for the iPhone. The phone that sells computers. The phone that gets market share. The phone that is hurting Dell and Sony and HP and all the rest. One company getting more market share while many companies fight over a shrinking market. Can Apple finally be on the threshold of winning the war?


Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz




13 thoughts on “It takes a phone to sell a computer…..iPhone that is

  1. owen frager

    Been on MAC and only MAC since 1983. For 25 years I had a great competitive advantage in business- I was happy the naysayers dismissed it. I could so more with less steps but bill for more hours because clients only knew the windows timetables.
    But soon everyone will knows its secret and its power.

    Reply
  2. Rob Sequin

    Rick,
    I am leaning the same way but a step behind, I don’t have an iphone yet but thinking of getting one for my wife and daughters so we’ll all be synced up.
    Do you use .mobi at all on the iphone?

    Reply
  3. Andrew

    I was sitting around with a bunch of entrepreneurs the other day. One of them was complaining about problems with his PC.
    Another, a mac user, said”well, you could just get a mac”.
    To which another person said,”Yeah, or I guess you could use a typewriter”.
    :)

    Reply
  4. Dave

    Third party apps on the iPhone will make one button mobile connecting to a live person seamless by simply entering a .tel domain in the calling field and pressing”SEND”.
    The combination of these two powerful technologies may result in more people actually speaking with other people.
    Could this possibly be the future voice of social networking?

    Reply
  5. Lda

    I’m (almost) in the same boat as Owen above (Owen did you really start with the 128K Mac ?).
    I started with the 500K ‘FatMac’ . Whopping 0.5Mb RAM and no hard drive.
    Couldn’t let go of the old Apple ][ for some years, used in parallel with the Mac. The perfect combo way back then.
    I’ve always been amused at how little the Micro$oft devotees knew about what they were missing.
    Hope the Mac doesn’t get so popular that it attracts the dark side, it’s been rather nice living sans viruses.

    Reply
  6. Graham

    As a web developer I think I’ll stick with PC and Windows and IE. I’m programming for the majority. But good luck with your Mac.

    Reply
  7. JF Mayer

    Glad to read your post!
    I switched to Mac four years ago, after the second major crash of my PC, which cost as much as a new PC to repair. The second crash happened with my PC kindly telling me:”Please, install Windows” as I opened it in the morning!
    I prepared myself well for the switch, reading an excellent book for switchersby David Pogue – and I see on Amazon that there is now an updated edition:”Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition” – it made my switch much easier.
    There were a few irritations during the first few days (old PC habits die hard), there was not yet the possibility to use PC software on Mac, but the problems were gone after a few days. It was a delight to use Mac after years on PC, and I wonder why I had waited for so long! never looked back. And there are many nice apps for Mac: explore MacUpdate.
    To put it short: I rediscovered the pleasure to work in front of a screen after my switch to Mac.

    Reply
  8. Timo Reitnauer

    All our sites were built on Macs and we love the iPhone even more!
    We’ve also developed an iPhone app for our iWantMyName service called”DomainApp” that is available in the App Store. You can search for domain availability in over 80 TLDs and even register domains directly from your iPhone.

    Reply
  9. Nico

    My Iphone is used basically as wake up alarm and web browser still use my MDA phone for everything else.
    Why?
    Not that easy to move the contacts over.
    No Cut and Paste
    No Picture Messages. I hear that is all fixed on the 3.0. Version update.
    I think it’s just what ever you get used to.
    I hated my MDA and loved my Razor until I dropped into it to the toilet while trying to pee and talk at the same time…lol
    Then went to my MDA since it was collecting dust.
    I bought the Iphone because I want to develop apps and make sure my sites look good on it. I’m sure I’ll switch over soon.

    Reply

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