"It just works"

"It just works" is the slogan of Apple's products. The Apple fanboys will go on and on about how the idevices are virus and crash free. Now, I can tell you that I own a windows desktop, an iPad, and an iPhone. Until I bought my iPad last February and my iPhone in December, I had never before owned an Apple product, nor had I used one (with the exception of a former significant other's machine). I had almost exclusively been a windows person. In fact, I had owned a windows machine (or three) since the days of Windows 3.0, when I bought an Intel 286 machine. We go way back.

So after a year of testing, how true is the claim? Not very. I use my iPad for note taking, and it occasionally needs a reboot. Some software compatibility issues require some tweaking, and there ARE viruses out there that affect Apple equipment. However, I have not had a virus on any machine that I have owned (including my Windows and Apple devices) in over ten years, mostly through some common sense web practices, despite not having any virus protection software running. (Spyware is a different story: but I eventually got a handle on that as well.)

With all of that said, the iPhone 4S is not my first smart phone, but it has been the best one I have had, and I have often wondered during the 2 months that I have had it how I ever got along without it. The iPad is great for taking notes during lectures (I use it to write directly on the Professor's Powerpoint slides. There is an app that allows you to highlight, write notes, and mark up the slides on your iPad, using only your finger, but that is a post for another day.

So yes, Apple products are good, but bot the evolutionary leap forward that so many claim it is. They and Windows devices, IMO, are on par with each other.