My Tuppence Worth
I work in Art & Design and have always used macs, since way back in the PowerPC days and System 7,5. I can't stand Apple (the company) and would go Linux full-time if t'were not for the fact that none of the professional graphics software I need runs on Linux.
[Please nobody mention Gimp or Inkscape, as derisive laughter wil ensue and tea will spray from my nostrils]
I do tend to install a Linux on my old macs, once a new toy comes along, as I enjoy tinkering with it and knowing your way round Linux [and especially the command line] is a useful extra string to my bow when dealing with web design.
In my experience both working in design and also teaching in the field, the landscape is overwhelmingly Apple gear. I can't think of a single professional designer I know who uses anything else.
The college design faculties I've taught in have been 100% mac [with the exception of 3D graphics, which has never been an Apple strongpoint] and all students who treat themselves to a laptop when the student loan arrives seem to go for the MacBook Pro.
And so it ever was and ever will be...
Except...
Last week I had a teaching job in one of these new-fangled "Academies" that are springing up everywhere and, for the first time ever teaching in the design sector I found that only about a third of the students were sporting MacBooks. The rest were using... wait for it...
Surface Pros!
It sounds crazy but, if you can cope with Windows, it makes perfect sense for a design student. A Surface Pro will run Photoshop, Illustrator et al nearly as well as a MacBook Air, you can detach the keyboard and use it as a tablet for Youtube & FacePuke and –the big plus– the built-in digitiser gives you the ability to draw directly on screen without having to sell a kidney to afford a Wacom Cintiq.
All of that for less than the price of a MacBook and it's a veritable "no-brainer".
Now wouldn't that be ironic? If the shifting fortunes in the computer hardware world resulted in Apple ending up as the "resting on their laurels" incumbent, used in science and academia —and Microsoft becoming the plucky young upstart, beloved of the artistic types?
Or is that just too "parallel universe"?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
