Mac, a Science Fiction Author's Choice Ping!
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Posted on 01/21/2010 1:54:46 PM PST by Swordmaker
This is an oldie but a goodie, and I haven't written about it before — at least, not on my blog.
I'm writing this entry sitting on a sofa and using a Macbook Air. The desktop computer in my office is also a Mac. Why?
There are several good arguments for not using Apple's computers. For one thing, they're expensive; no cheap netbooks here. If money was all there was to it, I'd stick to generic cheap PCs — and indeed, I have run PCs in the past.
I'm on the public record as being a UNIX bigot. Although Mac OS X is BSD UNIX based, these days the various flavours of Linux will turn just about any PC (except for a few portables with exotic hardware) into a decent workstation. If it was just about the UNIX experience, I'd be running Linux on commodity PCs.
The reason I choose to pay through the nose for my computers is very simple: unlike just about every other manufacturer in the business, Apple appreciate the importance of good industrial design.
Most of the major computer vendors were started by salesmen or engineering executives. Over time, marketing took over as the main driving force. Design doesn't get much of a look in edgeways — with the intermittent exception of Sony's high-end kit, most PC vendors wouldn't know good industrial design if you hit them over the head with it. Apple, however, is different.
There is a focus on industrial design at Apple that is ubiquitous in other business sectors but absent from the rest of the personal computing industry. Automobile marketing is almost entirely design- and fashion-driven these days, followed by technology in second place. The PC business isn't; what passes for design is a choice of differently-coloured injection-molded plastic cases stuffed full of badly-integrated cruft. There are wires everywhere, bad ergonomics (did I rant yet about the iniquities of far eastern keyboard designers and their contempt for the right-shift key?), and to cap it all there's Windows — a dog's dinner of an operating system — plus lashings of try-before-you-buy junkware. Sure you can get decently designed PCs, but you'll end up paying as much as you would for a Mac: and you still have to scrape the crud off them to get a halfway acceptable experience.
Worse: for the most part, PC people don't understand the value of good design. The value of good design is simple, literally: stuff that's well designed is easy to use, fit for purpose, and doesn't put obstructions in the way of you using it to get stuff done. Design, in the computing biz, is all too often confused with technology, which is something entirely different. Yes, there is a place for advanced technology: but it shouldn't be getting in your face. All too often, PC vendors market their products by over-emphasizing the technology that goes into them, rather than by making the damn things useful. And then they look down their nose at anyone who complains that this stuff is hard.
I use Macs because I appreciate good industrial design when I see it; I work sitting in an Aeron chair in front of a 1970s vintage Swedish desk, and I don't want to spend sixty hours a week sitting at that desk staring at something that looks like it was thrown together from the spare parts bin. I want an operating system descended from UNIX under the hood, because I have twenty-plus years experience of bossing UNIX systems around (and UNIX, in my opinion, exhibits a degree of basic design consistency in its userland experience that is missing from the Microsoft world). I like the Mac OS X graphical experience because it looks good, (as it should, because before it could be released it had to satisfy a fanatical design perfectionist obsessed with caligraphy). And I am sitting in front of this thing for sixty hours a week. I have better things to do with my time than nurse a balky, badly-designed system that shits itself all over my hard disk on a regular basis, or spends half its time running urgent maintenance tasks that stop me getting stuff done.
I could write while sitting on a cheap IKEA stool in front of a kitchen table, banging away on a netbook loaded with Windows XP. But after a week, my back and my wrists would hurt and I'd be bleeding from the eyeballs every time I looked at the screen. It'd be like spending sixty hours a week driving a cheap Chevrolet Shitweasel instead of a Mercedes: sure, think of the savings — but the pain will get to you in the end.
Let the average price of a laptop PC (when you add in the necessary applications) be £600, and the average price of a Macbook Pro be £1200. Amortized over a year, I'm paying about £2 a day for a decent working environment. That's the price of a cup of coffee in Starbucks. If you drive to and from your day job for an hour a day, you'd seriously consider buying a more comfortable car. A better, more comfortable computing environment costs peanuts in comparison.
One day, I hope, the entire PC industry will cotton on to the value of good industrial design and start taking it as seriously as Apple; or that those companies who don't will go bust. I'll spend less of my time answering questions from confused friends and family. Maybe it'll mean less employment for technical support staff. But for the rest of us, it'll mean more time to do the things we consider to be important.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
If it could have 100% the feel and look of XP at the keyboard/mouse without the crappy running ability, I’ll switch as soon as I’m able to pony up $1000 for a computer.
And Unix, the underlying OS for OS X, isn't? Grep? Vi? Hello? Is anyone out there?
Ever try to make a Mac work with a home network? The Apple technicians will swear up and down that it's a problem with your ISP, or that you need a new router, or whatever. It can never be the Mac's fault. Oh, no.
I'll stick with the dog's breakfast OS, thank you very much. I've got two neighbors who know more about Windows than I do. Most people have never even seen a Mac. The knowledge base is important, something that everyone seems to miss when it comes to this topic.
Unless it's a Shitweasel SS.
“Ever try to make a Mac work with a home network? The Apple technicians will swear up and down that it’s a problem with your ISP, or that you need a new router, or whatever. It can never be the Mac’s fault. Oh, no.
Been there, done it. No problems.
Never had to try more than once. I've got 6 all playing nicely.
Are you trying to start a war?
Just kidding.
Remember, the OS is only as good as the idiot sitting behind the keyboard.
I am a graphic artist using a PC vs. another co-worker using a Mac.
When the fit hits the shan, they always call on me...and sometimes that’s not a good thing....
Ha! A FICTION writer! I knew this whole post was made up.
I grew wanting a Chevy Shitweasel SS as a kid. The Chevy Shitweasel SS is a classic. Although prone to transmission problems and a pounding suspension it was every kids dream. I see them at car shows occasionally and think what if? But they are for people who have the mechanical ability and time to keep the thing running. I need dependable and affordable transportation and that ain't the Chevy Shitweasel SS. I grew up and moved on to more practical pursuits and never regretted it.
Turned on my new MAC. It said “Join network? Y/N. I clicked yes and was on the network. It was a lucky guess.
If you’re spending more time looking at the computer than what’s ON the computer then you’re not only not being productive, you’re not even goofing off well. I like the fact that PCs are bland boxes, I don’t want to spend 1 penny on a pretty box for the computer I want all the money to go INTO it. Give me a nice bland boring box with kick ass parts and good software, “industrial design” is for ego boosting at the coffee shop I prefer to actually USE the computer.
Just goto: Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities/Terminal
and WALLA - you can grep, vi and hello all you want.
C’mon, you had a 50/50 shot at getting it right, even if your cat had walked across the keyboard.
I absolutely love my iMac. I have had it for almost a year now, and it is a wonderful piece of machinery. I am not going to say that Windows is pure crap, but it has given me a thousand more times trouble than my Mac. Maybe if you’re savvy enough to know the ins-and-outs, you can effectively use a Windows box. I just am too ignorant, I guess, to keep one running cleanly.
Running a 3 yr old Macbook and a 2010 Mac Mini. Both see each other on the network perfectly. Wife runs windows 7 on a decent Toshiba. While she could connect to the internet she couldn’t share any of her folders or her printer. Bought a Time Capsule and all 3 machines share a printer and files now with no issue.
I get everything I want to do done on my Macs without ANY operating system issues. Recorded a music CD on the Macbook. This year I hope to release 2 CD’s, both recorded on the Mini. Mac’s ROCK!!!
One day, wife will come around :)
Yep. Same here.
MAC technicians swore up and down it wasn’t the computer.
Bullsh!t.
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