An Apple A Day: Time To Buy
Yesterday I talked a bit about my thoughts about Mike Daisey’s monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and how those thoughts had been rattling around in my head. Today I want to take a closer look at my own ongoing bout of consumerism.
I’m a writer and a bit of a technophile. I also really like Apple products. I’ve got a Mac Mini as my home computer, a ten year-old PowerBook laptop, a 3G iPhone, and an iPod Touch … and I use all of them pretty much on a daily basis as part of my work. The urge to upgrade is strong, and surfaces every time a new product is announced. However, you’ll note that I DON’T have an iPad … or any of the other most recent versions of the machines I use. I try to only buy things when I actually need them … I try to keep my consumerism from being too rampant.
Lately I’ve been noticing that my laptop battery (the second one I’ve had for it, having replaced the original battery about 5 years ago) hasn’t been holding its charge very long. But most of the places I go to write have electrical outlets, so that’s not a big problem. Or it wasn’t, until Monday.
I was running a little early in my travel schedule and got to the site of my evening meeting a couple of hours early, so I decided to make the most of my time and do some writing while I waited. (Y’now, like a good freelancer should.) The place did not have ANY electrical outlets for patrons to use, but I only needed a couple of hours … something my battery could easily handle. Or so I thought.
It turned out that the state of my laptop was such that without an immediate source of power, I could only get about 70 minutes of use out of it. And I realized that, while this hadn’t impacted my working recently, it definitely DID limit the usefulness of the laptop … and heightened my awareness of the fact that if I kept using it so much, I was risking a bigger more systematic collapse. And that would be bad because the BIGGEST job this laptop has is being a back-up for my desktop. So needing to plug it into the wall is a decent sized inconvenience, but losing it entirely would be a big loss.
So I started considering my options, and I quickly came up with a possibility that got my consumer juices flowing. What it, instead of another laptop, I got an iPad and a wireless keyboard. A lot of writer friends of mine are doing that and they seem to be very happy with the results.
But I immediately began doubting myself. I needed to be SURE that this wasn’t about just wanting a new toy … that this was a real need I had to fill, and that this solution was the best one (or at least among the best ones). It’s no small outlay of cash (especially considering my freelance lifestyle) to get the iPad, the keyboard, the service program, and the other necessary accoutrements. Mere tech-envy was NOWHERE near a good enough reason to do this.
And, on top of that, the consumer guilt I’d been awash in since seeing the Mike Daisey performance reared up. Beyond whatever financial cost there would be to me in making the purchase, there is a very real human cost paid by the people who are making these products and keeping them in a price range that I can even CONSIDER.
I’ll be honest and say that I had a few very uncomfortable days thinking this over … weighing my needs as a professional against my consumerism against my concern for worldwide human rights against my budget. I talked to people who have the kind of set up I was considering, tried out the tech at my local Apple Store, and then went through the whole mental moral equation again.
In the end, I decided that while the purchase is not an absolute, can’t-go-on-without-it, professional NEED … it is logical and reasonable step keeping myself properly equipped and ready to do my job not just now, but in the coming months and years. And I decided that, as tight as the budget was, making this purchase now was better and quite likely less expensive than waiting to do so in an actual equipment emergency.
So just a few minutes ago, I went online to Apple.com and ordered myself an iPad, bluetooth keyboard, and a handful of ancillary equipment.
It’s done.
There’s nothing I can do about it anymore … except wait in a sheen of consumeristic glee for the bundle to be delivered sometime in the next 1-2 weeks.
I think I’ve made the right call.
Man, I HOPE I’ve made the right call.
But right now I have to take my “old,” “heavy,” need-to-plug-into-the-wall laptop out and do some writing to help pay for my incoming rig.
Originally published at The Stannex. Please leave any comments there.