Multi-Computer

I watched the new iMac launch yesterday and it left me thinking, "why not". I am working with a University that has just agreed to outfit some of their labs with iMacs. The reason, because it can run Windows seemingly as well as a Dell. This has got me thinking, "Are the iMacs pointing us to the future?"

My father went to work for GE back in the late 60's/early 70's after getting out of the Air Force (I promise this is relevant). One of the perks of the job was that he always got to bring home the latest appliances because that was the section he worked in. I remember when the side-by-side refrigerators came into fashion. There were a lot of factors that pushed it. 1) More and more food had preservatives in them and didn't need to be refrigerated so there was less space needed to store cold food. 2) Families grew smaller and didn't need as much storage. 3) The average house wasn't even close to the square footage as it is today so space mattered. People saw that they could get rid of their old freezer and refrigerator and get a combination that fit in the same amount of space as just one of their old appliances.

So how the heck is this relevant? Well I think it shows a trend that people often apply to only computing technology. That is individuals want less physical things that can do more functions. Look at cell phones, Phone + PDA + Camera + GPS device. Part of the problem in my opinion though is that different OS's are better for different types of activities. I think Vista has proven that for me because I bought the Home Premium and it is still just Windows. I know there are a lot of cool things underneath Vista, but at the end of the day even with my $600 vid card for my on-line gaming fix, it still isn't better than the Wii for gaming. Some of that is hardware but a lot of that is simply OS. The new iMac though showed me that hardware is no longer the factor with a single chip set, multiple OS's can be ran on a device. Wouldn't it be cool to have a single computing device that was good for business applications and great for on-demand media and great for music composition and great for gaming. Wouldn't it be cool to have a cool new smart phone that also was a great mobile gaming device (I am talking DS or DS lite cool not Live Search club cool). Well I think the iMac is showing us that this is and should be possible.