To Buy or Not to Buy—That is the Question

I can be so indecisive at times. I could list many situations where my own thoughts on what to do and/or how to proceed have bounced back and forth so many times it almost made me dizzy. One good example is what to do since my Mac is getting on in years.

Every so often over the past year or so the thought kept popping into my mind about buying a new Mac. I'd think about how I'd like one, then think about it some more, then eventually decide against it. But a month or two ago I started thinking even more about the idea. As a result, I made up my mind that I definitely would buy one finally. Since the statistics indicated that it was very likely that the iMac line could get some sort of refresh at any time, I told myself I would just wait until they got updated in some way then buy one. But I was for sure going to get one, no doubt about it.

While waiting a few weeks for the hoped-for update I had the chance to think about it some more, and decided that I didn't really need a new Mac after all. I even wrote about it a couple weeks ago. And then it happened. Earlier this week, Apple refreshed the iMac line. Nothing too fancy, like the times they've changed its physical appearance in some way, just replacing some of the components with higher-powered ones while leaving the price the same.

But it was still an update. Almost instantly, the “Hey, a newly refreshed iMac. Should I buy one now?” question popped back into my mind. And I might have gone ahead and ordered one, except that I had recently read rumours that a new version of Apple's iLife software package, which is bundled with all their Macs, is going to be announced in the next couple weeks. So, of course, if I know that waiting a few weeks means there's a chance that I could get the newest versions of everything without having to pay for an upgrade (since this would be a major version change, not a minor update that gets downloaded for free), I'm going to wait until I know for sure.

But knowing me, maybe after having a couple more weeks to mull it over I'll once again decide that I don't really need a new Mac yet after all, and can wait longer. And of course, should iLife '11 actually end up being announced as rumoured I'll again suddenly decide I do want it and will be ready to whip out my credit card and send some money Apple's way right away. Assuming by then I haven't heard some new rumour like that Mac OS X 10.7 might be released in January, that is.

You know, if anyone wants to help me with this decision there's one really simple thing you could do. If you have a bunch of money burning a hole in your pocket you could always buy one for me as a gift. My birthday's coming up in a few weeks, after all... Order it now, and it should be here in plenty of time!