Apple.

On May 8, I will be celebrating my second year of owning Snowy. I know it’s sort of ridiculous, because Snowy isn’t a pet. Snowy’s a laptop -- a 13-inch MacBook Pro. She was given to me by my aunt in 2011, and I’ve been forever grateful. 

I’m lucky enough to have such a generous aunt, and what makes me luckier is the fact that she’s a Mac enthusiast. She’s influenced me and my cousins just as well.

I’ve betrayed Windows in almost all aspects because since owning a Mac, I’ve seen and experienced better. I’m here to give you reasons why you should own a Mac, too.

1. Quality. Apple Inc. has been very specific with the structure, function, and whatnots of their products. Sleek and sexy, Apple gadgets are unlike any other. For the laptops, they come in either white or silver. iPod nanos and shuffles have different colours (if I’m not mistaken, there’s 7 colours to choose from. iPods, iPhones, and iPads are either black or white. In my opinion, these laptops aren’t much of a burden when travelling with them, especially the MacBook Air.

In choosing what laptop to buy, I highly recommend buying a MacBook Pro. MacBook Air may be as light as a feather, but you will need an external drive for USB ports and CD slots. That means more spending, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid when buying Apple products.

2. Storage. Introduced in late 2011 by Apple, their products contain iCloud. iCloud is a cool and convenient way of storing pictures, music, videos, and other files without having to connect one device to another. Aside from more than 1 Apple gadget, you will need an Apple ID so you’d be good to go. (Read more about iCloud here.)

3. Features. As they say, it’s not about what’s on the outside -- it’s about what’s on the inside. Macs are beautiful inside out, trust me. Below are some features of a Mac:

• iPhoto - it’s a cool way of storing photos. You can create events and name them… stuff like that. It also detects faces, which is a cool thing about iPhoto.

• Spotlight - It’s got a magnifying glass for an icon on the menu bar and you can search for just about anything. Files from last week, last month… anything. Just type in keywords or the title of the file itself.

• Spaces - The previous version are last seen in the previous OS, OS X Snow Leopard. 

  What’s an OS?  Operating System for short, I call them the ultimate upgrade. Apple’s operating system names are from the cat family. The latest OS is OS X Mountain Lion.

  These are square tiles where you can put the apps to avoid ‘bulkiness’ in a certain desktop. The OS X Snow Leopard version looks like this: 
  
  
  
  
  
  While the OS X Lion or later version looks like this:
  
  

  

  
  

• Hot Corners - The corners of the desktop are called hot corners, and each time you move your cursor to a hot corner, it does a certain action, like it could show the desktop, show the spaces (image above), show the dashboard, and more.

• Dashboard - This contains different kinds of useful widgets. You can add widgets and customise your dashboard. 

• Gestures - Apple laptops have these certain gestures you could do to make your use more convenient. Pinch is a basic gesture to zoom in or out. Here are the gestures available: 

[salesman voice] But wait, there’s more! Since most laptops are virus-prone, Macs are less prone to viruses. That means less spends on anti-virus stuff like McAfee. 

Also, Macs mean less hassle, because they don’t get destroyed that easily (unless you’re really clumsy). Did I mention auto-save? Yes, Macs have that. When you create a document or edit a file, Macs automatically save the information in case you forget to do so.

I wouldn’t be completely fair if I didn’t state the cons of a Mac, based on my own experience. Worry not, because it’s not a handful of cons.

1. Macs are quite pricey (sigh)… unless you buy it in Hong Kong or in the United States. Try converting its price in Hong Kong to Philippine Pesos and compare it to its price here in the Philippines. 
2. If you use laptops for gaming purposes, then let me tell you that that’s kind of like a Mac’s weakness. I bought The Sims 3 for Mac once and I needed an IT to help me. It took about a week to get it right -- like for my Mac to read the disc properly and stuff like that.
3. iWork is cool, since it’s Apple’s counterpart for Windows’ Microsoft Office. Using iWork to create documents and presentations and having them printed in a Windows-powered computer shop… two words: not compatible. But my younger sister claimed that she got Keynote (Apple’s PowerPoint) to work on her teacher’s non-Apple laptop. I’m still trying to figure that out.

Choosing Mac over Windows was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made. Macs give you quality and quantity. Trust me, that’s something worth spending your money on. I haven’t completely forgotten about Windows -- I still study about it in school. One thing I’ve learned in computers and technology is that you need to be knowledgeable with both systems. It’s quite handy.