WPR Mac Help

I often get the question, “I have <insert Mac model here> and I’m wondering if I should upgrade my machine?” It’s hard to give a one size fits all answer to this, just considering how many different kinds of Macs there are an how many different needs there are.

Instead,we’re going to delve into the thought process I go through when I’m trying to answer such a question. (Warning: Delving into Joe’s mind may be hazardous your sanity, humor, and taste. You’ve been warned!)

Take an Inventory of You

The first thing to start considering in this process is not the computer or the software, but you. For example:

• What do you want to do with your Mac?
• How important are the things you do on your Mac to you?
• What do you see yourself doing in a year or two on your Mac?

These are tougher questions to answer than you might think. We’re all pretty good at identifying what we do today. I write lots of e-mail and surf the net more than I’d like to admit. For some of us, there are more specific things we do. Some folks work with a high end digital camera. Others want to edit movies from their digital cam-corder. (Are they still called that?)

But what do you think you’ll want to do in the future? You have to look into that crystal ball and find out. Or, ask yourself what kinds of things you’ve seen that look interesting. iPhone? Home movies? Ruling a small country?

As an example, a listener named Bill asked me about upgrading his iBook because he wanted to use TurboTax. Beyond that, he listed word processing, presentations via PowerPoint, light digital photography, e-mail, and eBay as some of the other common things he did on his iBook.

How’s that Working for You?

The next step, now that you know what you want, it to ask just how well is what you have working for you?

• Are you spending a lot of time waiting for your current Mac?
• Are there things you want to do, but can’t?
• Are you feeling frustrated trying to get something done with your current Mac?

Continuing on with the example case, it sounded like Bill was pretty satisfied with his Mac, other than he couldn’t run the most recent version of TurboTax. I got the impression that the rest of his work was clicking along rather well. I also understood that his computer was a fun pastime, but it wasn’t a mainstay in his life.

For myself, my computer is not only my business tool, it’s also something that I’ve got a large amount of my free time pursuits invested with. (Yes, I’m a bit lame in that respect.)

Take an Inventory of What you Have and What you Want

Now it’s time to start making a list of just what you have. The “System Profiler” is a great place to start with this. In OS X, you can go under the Apple menu and choose “About this Mac”. The more info button will tell you all there is to know about your Mac. Here are a couple of things that are most important to consider as you make your list:

• What processor do you have and how fast is it?
• How much memory (RAM) do you have?
• How much (maximum) RAM can you have?
• How big is your hard drive?
• How much of your drive is free?
• What version of Mac OS are you running now?
• What connections do you have? (USB? USB 2.0? Firewire?)

Then there’s the “What you want” part of the list. This is harder to put together, because you have to go to web sites to find all the details. Typically, you’re looking for system requirements.

Continuing on with Bill, TurboTax requires Mac OS X 10.4 or newer and at least 256 MB of RAM. Suppose you’re looking at a new iPod or iPhone. These require OS X 10.4.8 or newer and USB 2.0. Perhaps you’re ready to start doing some higher end movie editing with Final Cut Express? That needs a fairly fast G4, but a G5 or Intel processor will really work much better.

What’s the Cost to Upgrade?

Now you have a list of what you need to run the software you want, and you have a list of what you have. Time to start doing some math. Make a list of the differences between the two lists. Bill had 10.3.9 but needed 10.4 or newer. So 10.4 or newer had to go on his list. Memory (RAM) also had to go on his list.

Go do some shopping. If you have a pretty good grasp on things, you can find out the costs for all the stuff you need on-line. Other World Computing is a pretty good source for Mac upgrades at reasonable prices. Try to get a total of what the upgrades are going to cost. For Bill, he went to a local shop and got an estimate (parts and labor) of about $400.

What’s the Cost NOT to Upgrade?

Here’s where some of those first questions come back to haunt you. What are you giving up if you don’t upgrade? How important are the things that you wouldn’t be able to do? For Bill, this was pretty simple. He would have to pay someone else to do his taxes to the tune of about $100 per year. Everything else on his list was pretty much OK for now.

But that question can be more challenging. Let’s say you’re editing a lot of movies that you’ve shot over the years. In this case, you have to try to answer the nebulous question of “How much is the time worth that I could be saving with upgrades?”

What’s the Cost of Alternatives?

Hardware continually gets less expensive and more powerful as time marches forward. The things I can do on my iPhone today were not possible on computers even five years ago. (Watching movies in full screen? Try that on a G3!) To boot, Apple’s gotten pretty good at making their new machines pretty enticing.

Often times, a new Mac will include all the things that you’d otherwise have to upgrade on your current Mac, and they include some new things to boot. For Bill, a new Mac would include the extra memory he needed, as well as the newer version of OS X. A new laptop would cost him about $1100, but the upgrades were $400. So that laptop really was sitting around $700.

But in addition to TurboTax, he’d now be able to use the new iPods/iPhones and he’d get the newest version of iLife (iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, etc.) all for free. And he wouldn’t have to mess with any installation. It would come all ready to go.

Then there’s that intangible part. Not only do you get more features with a new Mac, but in theory you get a few more years of service from it than if you just upgrade your existing machine.

For Bill, if he upgrades his machine for $400, it’s still unlike to support the next iteration of OS X when it comes out. And chances are there will be new applications that his machine wouldn’t run. So this whole situation may come up in another year or two, and at that point it’s likely that his iBook will simply need to be replaced. With a newer machine, that point is further out.

You also have to ask yourself how much are the other features worth that come along for the ride. When upgrading to OS X 10.5, you get built in backup software, built in parental controls, and lots of other cool little goodies. What is the value, if any, of these to you?

Apple has a way of including tons of little enhancements that add up as you use the system. But they also tend to make each of these things sound like “The New Wheel”. So you have to work through some of the marketing glitz. Just how important is iChat Theater to you? To me, not so much. But iChat screen sharing is going to be invaluable for helping my Mom out of tight spots.

Adding it All Up

You’re almost done making lists. There’s one more thing you have to consider. What would you otherwise do with the money that you’d spend on either/any of your options? And how much enjoyment would you get from those other things? That’s not likely to be an actual number, but more of a “gut feeling”. In economics, they call it “Opportunity Cost”.

Now you should have several totals you can look at and decide which one is the right course of action. Some may be actual numbers, and others will be a tally of how you feel or what you think you might be interested in. None the less, it should help make things clearer.

What did Bill do?

My suggestion to Bill was to take that $400 and use it to have someone help him with his taxes. He could get four years of taxes done for that amount. (For the record, I adore my accountant.) Chances are, something else would be the driving factor in replacing his Mac before that four years was up, and he’d still be ahead financially.

In general, I find that upgrading new-ish Macs usually makes some sense. Upgrading older Macs beyond the $100 level usually doesn’t. Wait, did I just boil this all down to one point? After I made you read all that?

Me? I’m still pining away for a new Mac Book Pro, but I just can’t come up with enough of a list of things my current machine isn’t doing fabulously to justify it.