More Flame Bait — (Why Mac)

Charlie's Diary ^ | 01/17/2010 | Charles Stross

[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.

[discostu]

Actually the key to good Windows use is to NOT know the ins and outs. Tweaking around with Windows tends to make it unstable. I’ve been on Windows for almost as long as there’s been Windows and the only times I had major problems was when I was in my “let’s re-arrange the memory and juice the performance” stage, once I stopped $%^&ing with it (which was about 6 months before 95 came out, and about 12 months before I switched to it) Windows usablity improved dramatically.

If you like your iMac great. I think they’re kind of ugly, I’ve found every generation of them ugly. Even if I didn’t find them ugly though i dno’t want to spend the extra for aesthetics on the box (or box/ monitor in the case of iMacs). I don’t really care how my fridge, microwave or car looks either, I want them to get the job done.

[PA Engineer]

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

Never had a problem. Been running a home network for ten years, since the first airport was released. What Macs are you running?

[BunnySlippers]

It’s simple ... he’s a homo. /sarc

[avenir]

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."

He's right that Mac has good industrial design. So does Sony. Why no love for the VAIO? A friend bought one recently, has a Blu-Ray player and a KILLER screen (I think it's the F series). I am not even a laptop fan and seeing it and using it in person made me want one more than any Mac laptop has. Could he not put Linux on it?

I read an almost verbatim argument to Strauss' in a textbook on graphic design. "We use the Mac because it is very important that an artist be surrounded by order and beauty and"...blah, blah, blah. I find that embarrassing and silly.

[DesertSapper]

Commodore 64 FTW!!!

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>Ever try to make a Mac work with a home network?

Yes. Turned on the MacBook pro, and all my existing shared resources on windows machines were just there - all I had to do to use them was authenticate.

[Richard Kimball]

Windows tattoos are too much trouble.

[Revelation 911]

made the switch last year - managed to find an imac floor model - full warranty - 24” - $900 w/ ilife & iwork

[Revelation 911]

im no pc wizrd - but managed to set up my wifes macbook and my imac no problems...even set up my printer wirelessly to share...was actually pretty intuitive

[Richard Kimball]

Sony makes a good laptop, and is the only PC manufacturer that tries to differentiate by quality.

[WVKayaker]

Ever try to make a Mac work with a home network?

Yep, since 1987, using Appletalk at first. It has never taken much time or effort in my house. Apple always make things that work, and usually without reading the manual for a week. It's as easy as cutting a chocolate pie.

With OSX, you just click on the Sys Prefs menu, click on sharing, and answer a couple of prompts. You can password everything along the way. DOD has finally wised up to their security and ease of use. I doubt it takes a fifth grader to accomplish the task. My grandson got a new (old) G3 iMac, and it has 10.4. We hooked it into my home network, where I use an old G4 tower as a server (OSX 10.4 server), and loaded him up with everything he needs. He's 8.

My MacBook was watching (and listening) to some Classic Queen and stuff on YouTube, while he played and did his thing. He only asked where something was on the server, he couldn't find. My "baby" daughter is now 28, and first used 'Stickybears' on a Mac when she was around 4.

Mac. It's what people use when they value their work time... and their leisure time is worth even more!

I gotta get one of them minis...

[martin_fierro]

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.

$300 Laptop + and you're well on your way!

[Terpfen]

A solid article, but the author misses the fact that Apple’s industrial designs are not just pretty, but functional. Aluminum is shiny, but also sturdy and lightweight. The trackpad is huge and eye-catching, but also there to help you get stuff done.

I’m dulled to the prettiness of Apple’s styling. I use a unibody MacBook and an iPhone because they’re functional.

[Terpfen]

Ever try to make a Mac work with a home network?

Yes. I'm typing on a unibody MacBook connected to a Netgear WNDR3700 on a home LAN including multiple notebooks and Windows PCs, plus three iPhones. All work well together. The most annoying part to set up was network sharing between the Macs and PCs, but that was five minutes of work between all of them. Quite ridiculously simple.

[Terpfen]

[stainlessbanner]

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.

Wow - he pays out the nose for Apple products....

[Gomez]

Vi?

Edlin?

[Crusher138]

I have VMWare Fusion running on all of my Macs (between work and home I have 3 Macs and 3 PC's). Fusion lets me run Windows on my Mac SIMULTANEOUSLY with OSX. They even have three modes: Windows desktop only, Windows desktop in a window, or “Unity” where Windows programs look like Mac programs when they are running. In the two years I have been using this set up Windows has crashed once - and that was due to an automatic update gone bad. Windows runs faster and with more stability on my Macs.

You do understand that you can use almost any USB mouse or keyboard modern Macs. I really like Logitech wireless keyboards and mice and they work just fine with my Mac Pro.

[chris_bdba]

All of our macs play well together the only one that refused was the old Dell with XP but it’s dead now and not a problem. :)

[Swordmaker]

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.

Yes, you turn it on.

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.

Thanks for admitting you don't know what you're talking about.

And the approximately 25 million Americans who use Macs might disagree with you about not seeing Macs.