I've taken the plunge. Earlier today, I ordered my first Apple Mac.

I’ve wanted a Mac for years. I nearly got one when we bought our laptop two years ago. But I decided to stick to Windows, with the lure of nearly-new Vista, and a HP Pavilion dv9500. A seriously bad mistake. The HP is a nice machine, but the combination of Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 is a truly horrible one: painfully slow, with a constant barrage of ‘program not responding’ messages. (Shameful, when you’d expect Microsoft’s latest programs to work together.) And, to cap it all, the frustration of weekly updates to try to stem the tide of security loopholes. (Imagine if you got a weekly visit from a car dealer telling you your car needed yet another update to stop it skidding off the road! Can you imagine ever buying another vehicle from him?)

The other prompt was my iPhone. I used to like my old Sony Ericsson phone, but living with the iPhone (see my six month review) has shown how much better life is when something is designed to be a pleasure to use. If Apple are this good at phones, I can't wait to experience my new Mac!

PS: I was intrigued to find out why they're called Apple Macintosh. Apparently, the McIntosh is a type of apple common in North America. One of Apple's founders loved the apple so much he adopted the name, but with a slightly different spelling for legal reasons.