Current Electric Vehicle Landscape review

Electric Vehicle Landscape

Review

Plus: Rivian R1T detail review

Back Story:

With Gas prices continuing to grind higher (Now over $7+/Gal in CA) I’m being continually asked for my thoughts on the whole EV landscape (being a relatively early adopter).  Questions range from what vehicle should I buy?  What about range anxiety?  How do I charge? How much does charging cost? How long does it take to get one?  And many more.

I’ve owned a 2016 Tesla Model X (over 100K miles now) for 6+ Years.  I blogged about my experience with it extensively in the first few years. We also own a 2014 Chevrolet Volt. Two weeks ago, we bought a Rivian R1T.  I’ve personally test driven the Lucid Air, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volvo XC-40.  Obviously, since I bought the Rivian that is my top choice.  I will cover the reasoning in detail later.  If you’re just looking for the Rivian review jump to the end.

First let’s cover some basics:

• Purchase tax credits.  The Federal Government still offers up to $7,500 in tax credits off your taxes for the year in which you purchase the qualifying vehicle.  Be sure to check whether the vehicles you are considering qualify.  See Link here to see if your vehicle will qualify.  Some states also offer tax credits as well as other incentives like HOV lane stickers.
• Charging.  EVs are electric vehicles.  They need to be charged to operate.  Charging is not free!!  Except if you own a very early Tesla Model X where they included free charging for the life of the vehicle.  I’ve found a rule of thumb to be on a per mile basis it will cost you between 1/3^rd and ½ as much as operating a gas powered equivalent sized vehicle and heading lower.  This is electricity usage to charge v Gas to run.
• Where to charge
  • Public charging stations – They are virtually everywhere now.  If you’re just getting started looking at EV’s by the time you get on a reserve list and receive your vehicle they will be everywhere else as well.  This is not an issue now and will only get better as time goes on.  Note all “super or High speed” chargers are not the same and depending on the rate at which your EV can accept a high-speed charge, your experience will vary dramatically.  For example, Tesla has 70KW, 150kw and 300kw charging stations.  Tesla also connects two stations to one source.  So, if there are vehicles parked at both stations sharing one source your rate will be cut in half from what’s published.  I have not yet used enough non-Tesla public charging stations to know if they do the same thing.  When you first plug in your EV to a public supercharging station it will charge slowly at first while the battery is pre-conditioned and then slow again for the last 30% to not damage the battery as it nears capacity.  Note: Tesla for about 2 years had downloaded SW onto my car that limited the supercharge rate to 74kw regardless of the capacity of the charging station.  My cynical side says they did this to stave off a battery warranty claim.  They said it was to save me from myself and help preserve the life of the battery.  See list below of public charging networks rolling out in the US:
    • Here is a good overall rundown and comparison of networks
    • Tesla – Tesla only.  Pretty much everywhere along major highways nationwide
    • ChargePoint- The largest
    • Electrify America.  Born from the settlement with VW and Audi over the catalytic converter scandal.  $1B paid in.  They are almost caught up to Tesla in terms of locations and stations.
    • EVGO – Pretty much everywhere now as well.
    • Variety of proprietary newcomers (Like Rivian) building out their own networks plus utilizing partnerships with public networks.
  • Home charging.  Obviously the most convenient and usually the least expensive on a $/kw basis.  Most vehicles coming out now can be charged off one of the following plug sources:
    • 120V, 240V or wall installed unit from the manufacturer.  Some wall installed units plug directly into a 240V outlet and some require hard wiring directly into your home electrical panel (requires an electrician).  The charge rate varies by plug source type.  120V = 2-3 MPH of charging time.  240V can go up to around 20 MPH and with a wall Unit up to maybe around 30 MPH
    • For me, I’ve found the 240V outlet to be good enough.  The Tesla charges at around 20MPH and the Rivian around 18MPH.  Both are adequate for my use style.  For the volt we have a Bosch wall unit, and it charges at a rate of around 13MPH
• Range.  The distance you can travel on a full charge.  Seems like a simple issue, right?  Wrong!!
  • Headlines coming from the manufacturer are assuming a full charge and perfect conditions.  The standard now is 270+, some options at the 315 level and very few 400+, 1 or 2 500+.  This will continue to improve in lock step with Battery tech.
  • Now comes the complications.  How to convert the manufactured stated range (MSR) to real road driven miles range.  Let’s look at the factors in descending order of impact:
    • Most manufacturers “suggest” you not charge beyond 80% capacity nor let it drop below 20% capacity to protect the life of the battery.  If you abide by this, you knock off 40% of the range right there.  I don’t abide by this.  I’ve run the battery down to 1-2% and if I’m going on a trip and I need the full charge I always fully charge to 100%.  So far, with the Tesla the capacity of the battery has dropped from 250 Miles when new to 220 now.  Not bad for 6 years and over 100K miles.
    • Elevation climbing.  I routinely drive into the mountains.  I climb around 7K feet over a 60-mile range.  For that climb I budget 2 MSR miles for one real road mile.  The good news is for the return trip I can cover the 60 real road miles using only about 10 MSR miles.
    • Speed.  Driving above 70 MPH you will start to see degradation in range performance.  Above 80MPH even more.
    • Air temp.  Outside Air temps above 90 degrees or below 32 degrees and you will see degradation.
    • Weight of cargo.  Add 500 lbs. or more of passengers and cargo weight and the range will degrade.  Towing a trailer is a whole different story.  I have no personal experience here.
    • When on a trip you will find yourself constantly optimizing stops (minimum) with time at stops charging at highest rate.  You will get better at this as you practice.  The Vehicle NAV does not really look to optimize on your behalf.  It attempts to keep you between the 20% and 80% battery capacity.
    • When the vehicle is fully charged you will notice that in the first mile you drive, 3-5 miles will come off your range.  Might be as the battery ages as that is certainly the case for my Tesla now and as I recall was when it was new as well.
    • Bottom line:  MSR miles DO NOT = real road miles.
• Maintenance.  This is a big one!!
  • I’ve had my Tesla Model X for 6 years and over 100K miles.  Never had it serviced once.  That’s right not once.
  • The only maintenance for me has been tires, wiper blades and windshield washer fluid.  In fact, since it never rains in CA anymore, I’ve only changed the blades once and filled the washer tank twice.  I am on my fourth set of tires and they’re not cheap!  Brakes and brake pads can be a maintenance item but since I use the one pedal driving 95% of time, I rarely actually activate the brakes since the engine does the braking.  Have not changed even the pads yet.
  • I’m expecting the same experience with the Rivan.

Choosing an EV

EV Manufacturers are coming out with all shapes and sizes.  I’m mostly going to stick to my own experience with some generalizing applied.  I don’t want to pretend I’ve thoroughly evaluated everything out there.  Mainly I see the manufacturers balancing the style of vehicle the public wants with the type of vehicle that lends itself best to being all electric.  That’s why you see more SUVs and Pick-up trucks coming out first as that’s what the public is buying and with the larger frame dimensions there is more room to store batteries and increase range.

EV features to focus on:

• Range range range!  Range anxiety is real thing.  Don’t underestimate it!!  Just ask my oldest daughter, her husband and then 3-month-old Liam as it took us 17 hours to get home from the mountains last Christmas.  Oh Boy!!!
• Performance.  In my opinion, this should not be much of a consideration.  I don’t need 0-60 in less than 2 seconds.  Most EVs out now are so much higher performing than any Combustion engine car getting to sub 2 seconds does not really matter.  Most EVs do a smooth 0-60 in 3-5 seconds.  And I mean smooth.  100% linear acceleration.  No more going through gears.
• One pedal regenerative driving.  No more using the brake pedal.  Just let off the accelerator and the car brakes.  All the way to a stop with the Rivian.  Not quite to a stop with the 2016 Tesla Model X.  Plus, using the engine to brake rather than the actual brake on the wheels adds energy to the battery and saves having to ever replace brake pads or brakes themselves.
• Driver assist features.
  • Fully autonomous driving mode.  I’m NOT a fan of this.  I used it initially when I got the Tesla to just demonstrate it to passengers as the future of driving (less).  Way too many close calls.  Eventually the NTSB mandated Tesla tighten up on its proof the driver was paying attention and made the whole feature essentially useless.
  • Dynamic cruise is awesome.  Both the Tesla and the Rivian.  I use it 95% of the time I’m on the highway.  All you do is steer.  Choose the car lengths you want to be kept from the car in front and that’s it.
• Cabin noise when driving.  When you test drive the vehicle pay attention to how much noise you hear.  Tire/road noise, wind noise.  Rattling’s.  The Tesla has them all.  Rivian just wind noise.  With no engine noise drowning out all other noises these other noise sources become more pronounced.
• Effective and usable storage.  With the manufactures trying to add every possible additional battery into the vehicle for range purposes, storage can become a premium.  Tesla has good storage; Rivian has great storage.  Ford Mach-E, Volvo not so much.
• Getting in and out.  For whatever reason I’ve found EVs to be harder than old style vehicles to get into and out of.  I waited for the Model X because I found the Model S way to hard to get into and out of.  I still find the Lucid way to hard to get into and out of.  Even the sales guy warned me to duck as I slid into the driver seat.  He was totally right.  I will likely take myself off that list shortly.  Tesla is easiest to access once all doors are fully open.  Fully opening them is the challenge in the Model X.  The Falcon Wing doors are way cool but completely impractical in so many ways I can’t list them all here.  Rarely do they fully open thanks to the overly sensitive sensors.  When they’re open and it’s raining the water just runs right down and into the cabin.  I can go on!!  Oh, one more.  Because there is no frame around the front doors if you open the window while on the freeway and then try and close it, the wind draft prevents it from slotting into the rubber seal on the car frame.  It just runs right up the outside and feels like it will be ripped off the car from the wind force.  After 6 years and I can’t count how many attempts to fix it, they have not been able to fix it.  I never open the window while driving.  Point being, make sure you are comfortable with getting in and out and any price you might have to pay for ease of access.  The Rivian nailed it.  By far the easiest to get in and out of and NO compromising anything to do it.

Rivian R1T review:

• I put my name on the reserve list in February of 2019.  Very early but not as early as I was with the Tesla Model X.  If I compare the experience of the Rivian at the early stage with the tesla Model X at a similar early stage, it’s like night and day!  The Tesla simply was not ready to be released.  The Rivian was.
• I’ve had the R1T for about 3 weeks.  Absolutely love it!  Honestly, I was not sure about a pick-up truck before I took delivery.  Totally sold on it now.  It took some practice parking it in tight spots but now I take it everywhere.
• It feels and drives like a slightly oversized SUV.  But you get a very comfortable 5 passenger seating and massive amounts of storage.  The front Trunk is 50% larger than the Tesla.  Golf clubs easily fit in it.  The Tunnel storage is also very handy and spacious.  The truck bed is well, a truck bed.  Stores tons of stuff with the cover closed and even more with it open and a cargo net holding everything down.  There is also a very handy storage area under the floor of the truck bed which I use for a full size spare but can also be used as a cooler or anything else for that matter.  Has a drain.
• Purchase cost.  For people new to the reserve list figure around $85K – $90K Plus local sales tax and fees.  take $10K off this for early reservations before price increase.  Although a lot of money it’s still 40% less than the Tesla Model X.  This does not factor in the tax incentives.
• Range.  Again awesome.  The range was advertised as 317 Miles per full charge.  I’m getting 330 and still have not hit the break-in point.  I expect to get even more once the battery is fully broken in.  The battery capacity is 135kW v 90kW in my Model X which topped out at 250 when new and now 225.  Comparable curb weights.
• One pedal driving.  Awesome.  You can bring the car to a complete hold stop.  Couldn’t do that with the Tesla.  Only downside is you can’t turn this feature off in favor of creep.  They say it’s coming in a future download.
• Bi-direction energy flow not there yet but coming via a SW update soon.  Can’t currently use the car as a back-up power source for our home.  Key feature.  Looking forward to it SOON!
• Charging rate at home off a 240-volt outlet (NO wall charging unit) is acceptable but not as high as the Tesla.  I’m getting a rate of 18MPH v the Tesla of 22MPH.  I have not installed the wall charging unit yet and most likely will not.  The wall unit must be hard wired to the main electrical panel.  Rivian says you get 25 MPH with the wall unit.  I can live with 18MPH.
• The Rivian charging cable should have been made a few feet longer.  It’s much easier to back into a parking spot in our garage than to pull front in.  The charging port on the Rivian is front left.  This means a long distance from the outlet (on the wall perpendicular to the car when parked) to the charge port when backed in.  Does not reach.  Forcing me to park front in.
• Rivian does not include any useable free super charging.  They include one year of charging in their own network but the only location on the west coast is in Yosemite.  With my Tesla Model X, I got unlimited free charging for the life of the car in the Tesla network.  I have not yet had to charge the Rivian at any of the partner charging networks so can’t report on cost, speed, or availability.  I’m sure they will be fine.  For most of the time owning the Model X the Tesla network has been great.  Lately, with so many more cars shipped and, on the road, it’s showing signs of overload.  More and more out of service stations, more times I have had to wait for a station.  More frequently splitting charge rate with a car beside me.
• Super easy to get in and out.  Tons of leg room in both rows of seats.  Also, huge headroom.  Seats are extremely well designed ergonomically.  Long drives are no problem.
• Great sound system!  Best!!  Audio quality when talking on the phone also the best.  People on the other end cannot tell I’m in a car (Well Truck).  No built in XM Satellite Radio though.  I must stream it from my phone app.  Cheaper, no extra subscription but not as convenient.  I’m getting used to it.
• One interesting feature which I’m not sure of the actual value yet is what they call “gear guard”.  Essentially, this is the cameras remaining on while the vehicle is parked and when any camera senses motion it records the motion and stores it locally for when you return to the vehicle.  It’s supposed to be a security feature in case someone tries to steel your gear or break into the vehicle.  Until it becomes more widely known this feature exists and is running, I doubt it will serve as much of a deterrent.  It also comes with a downside.  While the cameras are running it drains the battery by around 8-10 miles of range every 24 hours.  This feature comes standard in the activated toggle position.  It took me a few conversations with Rivian support to figure out the connection between the battery drain I was experiencing and the Gear Guard feature.
• Great NAV system.  Not google maps like Tesla uses.  Must be their own.  Not sure if they OEM it from someone but it’s fabulous.
• The info-entertainment screen is set horizontally not vertically like Tesla and others.  Took a little getting used to but I like it better that way.  From an aesthetic point of view, I would rather it more “embedded” in the dash than set against the dash.  But that’s a very minor complaint.
• Blind spot monitoring and lane keep assist are excellent.  The Tesla did not have blind spot monitoring and its lane keep assist was almost useless.  Just created a slight vibration in the steering wheel when you veered out of your lane.
• One minor complaint I have which surprised me is that there is no traditional Glove Box under the dash in front of the front passenger.  You will need to find other places to put things that traditionally go in the glove box.  There is a deep center console storage area as well as flip down shallow storage things under each of the front seats.  Only one double pop out drink holder in the front and back.  Small drink containers only.
• Tons of outlets to run power to various things like phones, power tools etc.  3 120 Volt outlets.  I will be providing the power for my daughters up coming wedding.  Wireless phone charging pad (very slow).
• Very handy Air compressor for pumping up anything.  Water rafts, bike tires, car tires, scooter tires.  Works great!!  Nice long hose to reach the items around the truck.  Easy to use control panel so not to overinflate anything.
• I’m not a big off road, wilderness camper so can’t comment on my experience there.  But I’m sure those that are will be thrilled with all the well thought out attachments and standard built in features for off roading and wilderness exploring.
• The Rivian mobile app needs a lot of work.  Very much a version 1.0.  Very poor UX design and missing key capabilities like setting of charge capacity.  Tesla is miles ahead in their mobile app.  The Rivian mobile app does also serve as one key option which Tesla does not have.  Rivian offers three key options.  The mobile app, an actual key and then a card fob sort of thing.  I just use the mobile app.

There are many other options coming:

• I’m on the wait list for the Ford Mustang Mach-e, Ford F150 Lightning, Volvo SC40, Lucid (likely will pull off).  Our Chevy volt is now 9 years old and getting long in the tooth.
• There are many others coming.  Kia and Hyundai look to have solid offerings in the entry level price range.  GM has the Hummer and soon pick-up truck.  Porsche, BMW, Cadillac and Mercedes have their high-end sedans.  Volvo owned Polestar is out there.  VW and Audi also out with initial vehicles.  Lots of choices and more to come.  Tesla finally has competition!  Most of the top-quality options come with wait lists.

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New tech tips from recent experience

Firstly, my apologies for the long delay between Blog posts.  I’ve literally received 100’s of complaints.

In this Blog:

• Home WiFi Networking
• My latest Apple disaster and a major tip for getting inside the Mac.
• Blu-Ray note

Let’s start with Home Networking

Lately I’ve been getting numerous complaints from inside the family and out, that usually  takes the form of  “The Internet has stopped working DAD!!” or “I’m getting this weird Timeout message in my browser DAD!” or “it says the printer is offline DAD!”.  Somehow the verbal emphasis is always on the word DAD, like it’s obviously my fault.  Any of this sound familiar?  Oh and by the way the same quotes above come from outside the house as well just substituting the word “Kent” in for “Dad”.  Same verbal emphasis on Kent, again of course like it’s my fault.

Okay, when this happens the problem quickly becomes determining where the problem is.  Is it with the WiFi network device you’re using?   The router it’s connecting to, the Internet access modem or maybe the device itself is busted?  Who knows.

My home network is as follows;  We use Comcast for all three (Internet, TV & Phone) so we have a Comcast Cable modem piping the Internet into the house.  The Cable Modem is then wired directly to an 8 Port Cisco router.  From that router run 8 Ethernet cables to various spots in the house.  Connected to those 8 Ethernet connections are the following;  2 WiFi Access points, one WiFi Apple Time Capsule (UGGHH!), one powerline connector to connect to our Solar energy system to record stats on energy generation and usage and one directly to a laser printer.  Devices connected via WiFi to the various WiFi receivers are the following;  5 Apple Macs (only one with a cracked screen right now), 3 Apple iPads, anywhere between 1 and 5 iPhones (anywhere between 1 and 3 with cracked screens at any given time), one Lenovo laptop (Yes, that’s mine and yes it’s the only one that works all the time), one multifunction HP printer/scanner/fax, and one XBox.  Sounds like a mess doesn’t it but it actually works 99% of the time.

When it doesn’t work…

Firstly, you can be sure that if it’s not fixed immediately the world is going to end!!  Just like the Mayans predicted 🙂

My experience is that when anything that could be related to the network is not working the following is the easiest way to fix it for sure (Well with 99% confidence):

1. Go around to all the networking devices (including the Cable modem or DSL Modem, the Router and all WiFi access points) and unplug them from the power source.  Be sure to also remove the backup battery from the Cable Modem if it has one.  If you have phone service from the Internet access provider it will have one.
2. With them all unplugged start to plug them back in but STOP!  They must be plugged back in the following order.  Very important!
3. Start with the Cable modem or DSL modem along with the backup battery if you previously removed it.
4. Then start moving your way from the middle to the edge of your network
5. Next plug in the Router
6. Then plug in all your WiFi access points
7. Now reconnect to your WiFi hot spots and test.  Most devices will automatically reconnect.
8. This routine should fix 99% of the problems.  If it doesn’t call your internet provider and see if there’s an outage.  If no outage you may well have a hardware problem with one of the devices in your network.  Since hardware rarely fails (unless of course if it’s an Apple product) I will not attempt to delve into how to determine which bit failed.  You’re on your own from there.
9. Note:  more than 50% of the time I find the problem is local to the WiFi access point device and simply power cycling that device will fix the problem.  Call this the quick and dirty fist thing to try.
10. Even if you’re not having any problems this set of steps above should be done every 3 to 6 months just to shake out the gremlins that build up over time in a network.  Sort of like the need to re-boot the computer even when it’s not having any problems, once in awhile.

Now lets move on to the latest Mac disaster in our house and key learning from it.  

One of my daughters started experiencing “funky” issues with her MacBook Pro.  First it was just an overall sluggishness in how the Apps performed and then the key moment was when she could no longer search using the finder.  Searching for even the most obvious phrases that normally would have returned 100’s of files found, was not finding any files.  In hindsight this was a telling symptom of some sort of corruption.  Anyway, she just powered ahead grumbling until the moment of death occurred.  The grey screen of death!  Not to be confused with the Microsoft “blue screen of death” which never occurs anymore.  The grey screen of death occurs when you restart the Mac and it stops at the screen with Apple logo in the middle and the little spinning thing down below.  When you see this you assume some big new update is installing and you just wait it out for awhile.  If you are doing updates you should wait this out for a couple hours before concluding it’s the “Grey screen of death”.  Once you conclude its the grey screen of death you can do as I did and either call Apple phone support or schedule an appointment at the local apple store genius bar (hear in the Bay Area takes at least 5 days advance notice to get an appointment.  Gee, I wonder why that is?).

After running numerous secret key sequence tests all the Apple geniuses concluded the hard drive had failed and would need to be replaced.  They referred us to 3 third party companies that might be able to save the data.  Me being the never say die sort that I am would not accept this for an answer as my daughter sitting in front of me put it “This can’t be!”.  “Tell me it isn’t so!”  I’ll cut a long story short of how I got to this point but here is the sequence of tasks I used to ultimately return the Mac to it’s good as new state:

1. Start by holding down the power button until it powers off.
2. Then depress the Command and “R” keys simultaneously and hold then down continuously.  (thought all the Apple adds convinced you only Microsoft had ctrl-alt-del kind of stuff…)
3. Press the power button to turn on the Mac.
4. The grey screen of death will come on.  Just wait still holding the two keys down until the disk utility menu comes up.  This may take up to a minute or 2.  If it does not come up you likely do have a hardware problem.
5. Once the Disk Utility comes on screen select the Mac HD drive and click on “repair”.  Hopefully this utility will run to completion and repair the issue.  If it finishes with no problems it will prompt you to restart the computer.  Restart the computer and see if it boots to the desktop screen and runs normally.  If the repair routine fails for any reason just run it again and again until hopefully it completes with no errors.  This is the secret trick.  Often it does the repair in increments.  The apple tech following the onscreen trouble shooting DB will tell you it’s a hardware problem if the repair utility fails initially.
6. If, when you restart the computer it returns to the grey screen of death then repeat step #1 & #2 but this time (assuming you have run the repair utility with no failure notice of any kind) select re-install the OS rather than repair the disk from the disk utility menu.  Begin the OS installation process.  This may take several hours depending on Internet access speed.  The computer will be re-installing from a download site.  Once this process completes restart the computer again and see if you get to the desktop and resume normal operation.
7. If, once again you’re back at the grey screen of death you have bigger problems than I can help you solve.  Either you have software corruption problems beyond the OS or you really do have a hardware problem and will need to replace the hard drive.

Now on to the Blu-Ray note

I discovered recently (maybe all of you knew this already) but the Blu-Ray standard has changed in the last 3 years and I assume it happened quite recently.  We have Samsung Blu-Ray players purchased 3 years ago.  Recently purchased Blu-Ray discs no longer play properly on them.  I suspect this problem is more widespread than just Samsung.  The fix is to upgrade the firmware on your Blu-Ray player.  Yikes!! I said when I heard this.  It actually turned out to be much easier than it initially appeared.  If you are experiencing the same problem I describe then follow these steps:

1. Find out the make and model number of the player in question.
2. Go to the support site for the manufacturer of that player and find the download for the firmware upgrade
3. Download it to your computer and copy the file to a thumb drive.
4. Take the thumb drive and plug it into the USB port on the player and follow the instructions on the display or on the TV and in a few minutes it will do the upgrade.  Make sure there is no disk in the player when you do this and that the player is powered on.
5. Alternatively you could wait  a few more years for all video content to come via the web and there’s no further need for DVD players or DVDs.  Up to you.

I hope some of these were helpful.  Next up for my blog will be taxes.  I’m planning on tackling all my own tax returns this year and will communicate back to all of you what I learn.

Stay tuned

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Windows to Mac and back to Windows

Yes, I guess it’s true!  I’m just not meant to be cool.  I tried to be cool but it just didn’t suit me!!

What follows is my diary of my move from a PC/Windows/Blackberry world to an all Apple world and eventually back.  I admit I just wanted to be cool.  I really saw no obvious reason to switch other than the rest of my family was on Mac and many of my cool friends were on the Mac, and they all seemed to love it.  I include numerous lessons learned and offer numerous bits of advice as I move you through this experience.  Mainly, I hope none of you de-connect me from your Linkedin as a result of these revelations.

This story begins around 9 months ago after I just purchased the 5th Mac and 4th iPhone for members of my family.  I absolutely love the buying experience Apple has created from the website to the physical stores, the Genius Bar and finally the packaging each Apple product comes in.  The buying experience is right out of the old Ford Model T days of “you can have it in any color you want sir as long as it’s black”.  Same now with Apple except it’s “White” not black.  I love the idea that I don’t have to make 50 or more decisions when buying the Apple product.  Compare this to the Lenovo experience where you first choose a model line, then a series, then a config category then you choose every component from a list of at least 3 options.  Yikes!!!  The Apple stores are brilliant.  You can just go down there and try everything for as long as you like with no high pressure sales tactics.  See if you can find a place to go try a Lenovo in the configuration you’re looking for.  Best Buy?  Visit and you’ll quickly see why they’re going down the tubes just behind CompUSA, Computerland and numerous others.

Once you’ve ordered the Apple product and it arrives (always on time), Wow! what an experience it is to unpack it.  Makes you really feel like you’ve bought something of grand and unique value.  Sometimes I wonder if the packing materials cost more than the device it so neatly envelopes.  From the perfect fit of the packaging, to the creative ways it all comes together and comes apart, and the elegance of the materials themselves just makes you feel so good you don’t bother to think for a minute you’ve over paid by at least 30% for the functional value of the product.  It wouldn’t surprise me to hear someday that Apple spends almost as much in R&D on the packaging as it does the products themselves.

Up to 9 months ago I had only experienced the” buying experience” and had never actually had the opportunity to use a Mac laptop or iPhone or IPad.  I assumed I had been missing out on the most exhilarating, exciting, cool and self actualizing part of the Apple experience.  The using it part…  I was feeling deprived and oh so uncool.  That’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Get rid of the gray, lose 25 pounds, get into top fighting shape and go all in on a Mac, iPhone and iPad.  Ditch the PC/Windows/BB.  I was going to be cool.  In fact, I didn’t lose the Gray or the 25 pounds and I’m still not in fighting shape as I figured just carrying around the sleek white mac would trump all that stuff.

Starting with the MacBook Air it’s time for some reality…

No matter what hardware I’m running I can’t do without Outlook.  From all I could tell initially this would not be a problem since Outlook was also available on the Mac.  Once I finished the self actualizing step of unpacking my very own Mac and starting it up I proceeded to load Outlook.  Yikes!!  I barely recognized it once it was installed.  It looked nothing like the outlook I knew and loved from the PC.  After doing some digging I discovered it’s at least 2 versions behind the latest version for the PC and maybe more depending on your definition of “version”.  All components of Outlook (eMail, Calendar and contact DB) where from the stone age.  Initially I said to myself “well you didn’t think being cool was going to come for free did you?” and I soldiered on to the Outlook migration step.  Getting my Outlook data migrated over to the Mac.  Sounds simple right?  It’s all Outlook.  Wrong!  Mac requires the outlook data source files be converted into it’s proprietary format called .OLM.  I found out later that’s because it’s virtually impossible to convert from OLM to anything non Mac.  Yikes!  I won’t bore you with all the details surrounding this process but suffice it to say at least 10 hours of time was sunk into this conversion.

Is this little diversion going to detract me from becoming cool?  Hell NO!  Despite the dreadful outgoing mail performance, the horrendous email UI, the dropped fields in the contact DB and the stone age look of the calendar I’m moving on.  Next step is to simply connect the new Mac to the multi-function Printers we have hanging off the network in the house.  This should be really easy.  Right?  Standard H-P multi-function printer/scan/fax.  After numerous back and forth with H-P I got the right printer driver downloaded but when it came to the first time I needed to scan something or print double sided I was informed “the Mac software is not yet available from H-P.  Sorry sir!”  These two words are going to repeat themselves many times as this story unfolds.  Okay, so now my double sided printer/scanner can only print single sided.  I again ask myself for the sake of being cool can I live with this?  Hell yes!  On we go.

Next we decide we will swap in an XBox (yes at the request of the kids) for our old Wii (deemed no longer state of the art).  This requires me to reprogram our universal logitech AV remote control.  Should be a simple task as the settings are all stored in the cloud at Logitech and I just need to download the desktop ap to my shiny new White MacBook Air, log in and make one simple change in the configuration and all should be fine.  Hmm, well not quite.  It turns out Logitech does not support it’s desktop application running on the MacBook Air.  After numerous requests to speak to “management” at Logitech they gave me access to an “unsupported” version of the desktop application that ran on an older Mac running an OS earlier than Lion.  Yes, several more hours of fiddling and I was able to get the remote updated so my head would remain attached to my body the next time someone wanted to use the XBox (which is a very useful piece of equipment for many reasons).  Again I pause to ask myself “how much do you really want to be cool?”.  Hmmm, my conviction is waning.

For brevity sake I’m going to skip the next 6-8 other experiences in the same vein and get to the punchline.  The final act that caused me to bail on the whole needing to be cool thing at the expense of getting anything done, was when my wife needed to download a set of digital pictures from her camera and then copy them to a thumb drive to take to her classroom.  If there’s any task that should be optimized for the Mac it would be something like this.  Well, have you ever tried to just select, copy and paste photos from iPhoto onto an external drive of any kind.  Between all of us we could never get it to work.  Fast forward, I as able to do this in 3 minutes on the PC.

The end of the road to Coolness!  Went out and bought a Lenovo laptop with 30% more of everything than my Air and at 65% the cost, and the new Nokia Lumia 900 with Windows Mobile.  The nightmare is now over.  I’m home at last.  I love the Windows Mobile UI.  Simple, fast and intuitive.  Everything works.  Nowhere near as many aps in the ap store, but with a screen 30% larger than the iPhone and a real full featured browser there is nowhere near the requirement for Aps designed for the phone only.  I’m still discovering new unique features of the Lumia.  I was driving in the car yesterday and a text message arrived.  The phone automatically asked (verbally through the Car audio) if I wanted the message read to me and who it was from.  When I verbally responded with “read it” it translated the text to speech perfectly and asked how I would like to respond.  Wow!  Try and get your iPhone to do that!

Moral of the story:  I’m not feeling cool but I am feeling productive, efficient and back home where I belong.

I won’t even mention the cracked screens (yes, very plural), failed charger connections, failed top buttons, battery decay we’ve experienced with all our Apple products.  Despite all this everyone except me in the house still loves their Mac/iPhone.  At least I can now print, use Outlook, copy pictures from a camera straight to a thumb drive and update our TV remotes.

On a more serious note one piece of important advice:  There are essentially three consumer tech ecosystems out there.  Pick one and stick with it for everything essential.  Everything essential for people like me is PC OS, eMail, Calendar, contacts/connections/friends/etc., mobile device and OS, and finally the tablet.  The three ecosystems competing in the market are Microsoft, Google and Apple.  Pick one and stick to it as much as possible.  They all make claims they are “open” and connect, and play nice with the other ecosystems out there but it’s simply not true.

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