"Is that an Apple?"
This has never happened to me before. There I was, sat in my local library doing some work away from the distractions of home, when a smartly-dressed woman approached me and said in an apologetic tone: "Excuse me, I don't wish to intrude, but is that an Apple?"
"Certainly is," I said, surprised but rather pleased that someone was sufficiently interested in my laptop to come and talk to me about it.
"Do you mind if I ask you something? Does it work on Word?"
I smiled.
"Sure, you can use Word on it. It looks a little different to the versions you'll have seen on Windows computers but it does the same job.
"Here," I added, "I can show you."
The woman moved round so she could see the screen. She pointed at my todo.txt, which I happened to be editing at the time.
"Is that it?"
"No, that's, um, something different. I don't use Word much, but I'm relatively geeky so don't worry about the stuff I'm using. Here, this is what Word looks like."
I used Quicksilver to launch Word and showed her a blank document. "It's all pretty straightforward."
My companion seemed to have made up her mind already; she just needed encouragement.
"Yes it looks great. I saw one in Selfridges in Birmingham and it was only £600, I didn't think they were that cheap. The chap said there was a new model coming out."
"There is, a new iBook, they've just announced them. But if writing Word documents is your main requirement, one of the old ones will be more than enough."
"I've always liked the look of them," she went on. "They appeal to me, I can't say why. When I decided that I needed a computer it just seemed like the right think to buy."
"Well this is three years old," I said, pointing to the iBook. "It still works fine. You might need to pay more for things like Applecare, which is an insurance scheme, and for Word itself; but the cost of the machine itself is probably going to be very good value in the long term. These machines last well and they are much easier to use."
I had to stop myself going off on an Mac evangelist rant; besides, the woman seemed to want to get away from this raving geek. And anyway, she knew what she wanted.
"Save up your pennies and get yourself one," I concluded.
She smiled.
"Thank you; you've convinced me. I shall."
