Apple PC sales get iPod boost

They are calling it the "iPod effect," where people who had never been exposed to Apple products prior to buying an iPod music player are so impressed with the device that they buy an Apple computer for their next PC.

Is it happening? According to a comprehensive study by S.G. Cowan of more than 1,400 households studied who owned iPods and planned to buy a new PC, more than 7.5 percent were going Mac. That's not a lot until you consider Apple's market share is only 3.3 percent.

For those doing the math at home, that's a doubling of the current Apple market share.

Well, count me among the pile.

I am writing this on a (so far) gleaming white iBook G4, which I have to say is pretty cool. So, yes, after 15 years of Windows computing and repairing, I am taking a left turn into wow and a right turn away from rebooting.

First impressions?

The 12-inch iBook is a work of art. What the iPod is to music, the iBook is to laptops. The screen is bright and sharp. (The 14-inch screen, by the way, just makes the pixels larger; you don't see any more information than the 12, and the 14-inch screen is more blurry to my eyes.)

So I went with the 12-inch, even though Apple wouldn't sell me a DVD-burning "SuperDrive" with it (you have to get the lesser "ComboDriver," which only burns CDs). It is odd that Apple won't offer the SuperDrive as an option.

As a lifelong Windows user, I have a bit of a learning curve here, starting from the lack of a right mouse button, which so far is the only thing that is driving me totally nuts (yes, I can program a mouse button to be a right key, but I meant natively on the keyboard).

But what has impressed me so far was that the Apple OSX fired to life out of the box and simply worked. Of course, a Windows laptop out of the box works, too, but after 50 patches from Microsoft and 10 reboots.

Anyway, I promise not to turn into one of those "i" people. I think both worlds can co-exist peacefully, like Coke and Pepsi, the Cubs and the Cards, the yin and the yang.

As for the daily use of it, I am still getting used to how to find anything; I know I have certain applications installed and as yet I can't find them, but it's only been a day or two. At the bottom, I have the handy bar that is very helpful in finding key applications. I find the Apple discussion forum at www.apple.com to be invaluable. Microsoft could emulate that in a heartbeat.