There are those moments in life when you witness something truly amazing. The birth of a child. The Grand Canyon. An incredible artistic performance. Today I had one of those moments.
My laptop was declared unfit for use by Tom after he grabbed it to quickly look something up and sat watching the little spinning globe for a few minutes. I suppose I had gotten used to its turtle pace. And the keyboard that sticks on about half the letters. And the big ding in the corner from where we dropped it. It has served us well, but I suppose it’s seen better days.
So we got a new laptop. Now, when you start up a new Apple, it’s always a pleasant experience. It greets you with a whole welcome slideshow, and helps you get all your ducks in a row. “Welcome!” it said to me. And then it asked if I was a first-time Mac buyer, or if I was upgrading from an older machine. “Well, aren’t they curious?” I thought to myself, and clicked the upgrade option.
“Would you like to transfer your information from your old computer?” it asked. What did this mean? I assumed it meant all my settings…my internet access, email passwords, keychain, etc. “Sure,” I thought. “That would save me some time.” Then comes the dialog box asking me what I’d like to transfer. I can hardly believe my eyes. All of a sudden I realize it’s going to transfer everything from one laptop to another…preferencences, settings, mail, files, and even my applications! EVERYTHING.
This seemed too good to be true. Transferring to a new machine is always a week-long process. First, you have to painstakingly copy files from one machine to a portable drive, and then place them on the new laptop in exactly the right place. Then you have to reinstall all your applications. And fonts. And set your preferences. And then there are the inevitable files you forgot, but realize you don’t have when something goes haywire.
I wasn’t going to believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.
I connected my firewire cable, rebooted, and watched the copying begin. It told me in three and a half hours, I’d be done. But in a little over an hour, it declared itself finished. And there I was, staring at a carbon copy of my old machine, but on a shiny, new, zippy machine.
I am dumbfounded. And speechless. This is quite possibly the greatest thing Apple has ever done. Kudos to you, Steve Jobs. It’s gonna be hard to top this.