I released Studio Manager 8 on November 29. My earnings were not stellar for about 3 and a half months due to my devotion to development.
I wanted to reward myself in some way for my hard work and accomplishment of this major software upgrade. My only hope was that sales would be great in December. Great enough to allow me to afford a new MacBook Pro 15".
The good news is that I got a bunch of orders in the first 21 days and got enough to place my order with Apple today. Yesterday was a $7000 sales day. That put me over into I need a tax deduction land.
So, by 5 pm today, I placed my order. The delivery time is probably about 5 days since I custom-ordered a 160 gig drive. It's not going to make it by Christmas but it will be coming in sometime next week.
If I didn't feel the need to have a luxurious-sized 160 gig drive, I could have just bought a MacBook Pro last night at the Apple store. But no, I wasn't willing to settle for a 120 gig drive if it would only cost an extra $100 to get the 160.
Here's why I got the MBP. I like the bigger screen. The bigger the better as long as it doesn't get so big as to be awkward on my lap. The 17" is too big and harder to take with me. I mainly commute around my house, but I just didn't think the 17" would be comfortable for me.
My lovely little 13" MacBook is great for portability but not as good for the work I do. I need room to have more than one application and multiple windows visible at once. I copy things from one screen to another, for example. I have loved the speed of the MacBook when running FileMaker 8.5. I expect the MacBook Pro to be even faster with a big screen and yet only a few ounces heavier.
Also, I find the sharp edges of the MacBook to be a little painful. I prefer the feel of the rounded edges of my PowerBook which is similar to the new MBP. This is one of those cases where the drug of the MacBook with its great glossy screen and speed led to a hard drug, the MacBook Pro.
Reluctantly and ambivalently, I sprung for the 2.33 ghz model which sells for $2499. Ouch! I thought computers were supposed to be cheaper these days. But then, I've never bought a computer that came with 2 gigs of RAM standard.
I really didn't want to spend an extra $500 for the high-end MBP, but I did the math. The processor speed difference between the 2.16 ghz $1999 MBP and the 2.33 ghz MBP is about 7.5%. You multiply the difference times $1999 and it comes out to be $157. You get an extra meg of RAM installed for you. Apple charges $175 for that extra gig.
Finally, you get 256 mb of video RAM in the higher end model vs. 128 mb in the lower. I'm not a big gamer due to time constraints, but the way Apple has been finding ways to improve general video performance by exploiting the video card made me want the 256 and you can't upgrade the 128.
Generally speaking, it is better to go a little higher-end when you buy a notebook because they are so much harder to upgrade. You can upgrade RAM pretty easily, but the hard drive on the MBP is fairly hard to replace. You are stuck with whatever comes in the machine. Right now, if you want a new 15" Mac notebook, you are going to spend some money.
Good thing I got $7k in sales yesterday. Good thing these notebooks are really, really good.
I went over to the Apple store last night so i could see if they happened to have a 160 gig glossy 15" in their inventory. No luck. They only add RAM, not hard drives. I spent a quality 20 minutes with a glossy 15". It has 1440 x 900 pixels, a nice bump up from my little Blackbook at 1280 x 800. A good computer for getting my work done.
I'm expecting to be quite pleased on Christmas day even without the MBP arriving by miracle. Knowing it is on the way is going to make me pretty smug that day. I can pay attention to the non-material aspects of the day knowing the material aspects are taken care of.
I know I'm spoiled. But, it's the principal tool of my trade. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!