Apple v. Wintel(ish)

Hugh asked for a response (in comments here) to some folks rhapsodizing about Macs over at Diane’s Stuff, at her rant about Internet Exploder. I can think of a lot of responses, but here’s a repeat of something I said when commenting on the Apple Imac Dual core INTEL PC,

Let me be clear: the Mac OS is fine… for Great Aunt Tilly. After all, since it is the ultimate “training wheels” OS, it does prevent people from easily messing about in its innards and doing wild things to screw it up. Which also means it is inordinately difficult to get anything done any way EXCEPT “the Mac way”. Amusing—and true—story. Was once part of a small office where each of us used our own computers at work. Right. Very small office. I had a coworker—a devoted Macrophile who had run the all-Mac computer lab in college—who was constantly coming to me and asking to borrow the use of my computer to do things he was unable to do with his Mac. Yeh, largely the result of being the only Macuser in the office and needing to manipulate PC files, a task never quite as easy [on a Mac] as Apple claims. He also continually complained that my PC was too hard to use because it didn’t do things the way he was used to… on his Mac. Each time, I’d show him how to do things: “See? Just push this little button on the CDROM drive. You don’t have to drag the CD to the trash bin… ” “Your CDROM drive has a button?!?!? Amazing!” etc. *sigh* Inflexible, almost unteachable. Mac user. Needed his “training wheels” OS. Never “got” it that I liked doing some things at a command line (still do). Windows ain’t all that great, but at least it’s not like using a computer while wearing a straightjacket.

And that pretty much sums up my response to the Mac vs. PC wars. With the Intel Macs now available and Apple making it easier to run Windows (NOT just Windows apps) on Macs, the PC-Mac war really has ended with the 5% market share Macs surrendering.

There’ll always be a niche market for Macs, and rightly so. But the Intel-based Macs (which folks had running Windows in no time, inspite of Apple’s attempts to prevent that at first) and Apple’s software solution allowing dualk boots, now, between Mac OSX and Windows, the recent Mac ads on TV strike me as particularly silly. Especially since the representations in those ads a that Wintel computers are crippled and Wintel users are clueless, while Mac computers “just work” and Mac users are “with it” fly in the face of the facts.

I don’t need Macs on my home network, but my Wintel and Linux compouters all coexist happily, no snags, no hassles. Wireless additions, ad hoc? As long as they have the security key, sure. Peripherals? A couple of minor examples should suffice to lay the ads’ lies to rest:

1.) No name crapola digital camera. Plugged into USB on an “old” (8-year-old mobo/CPU, etc. Nearly 6-year old Win2K) computer and it just worked. Downloaded photos in Irfanview (FREE) and away I went.
2.) Took an old (maybe 7 years) scanner down to my son’s WinXP computer and plugged it in. Manufacturer has even phased it out of “life”. WinXP recognized it and popped up asking if I wanted to scan something, with the diualog allowing a scan right then and there.

Will any of these computers automagically recognize an iPod device? We’ll never know, since I’ll never have somethiung so straightjacketed by proprietary formats as an iPod. But for just any old interface/peripheral I want to plug in, an autosearch of Microsoft’s online repository of drivers (if there isn’t a standard driver built in that’ll work) almost always results in just plugging the stuff in and going on about my business.

Can folks screw that easy process up? Sure. And I’d suggest that folks who are too dumb or lazy or technophobic to click the default prompts (if asked to) probably do need the training wheels a Mac offers. (Of course there are fairly smart, hard-working technophiles who use Macs, too, cos their area of interest or work pretty much insists they use niche software made for Macs.)

In closing… *heh* here’s a parody of an earlier round of Apple commercials (coupla years ago), filmed by a Mac user, who, well, let’s take the words of the site currently hosting the video:

Ok, a few points…
First, EVERYTHING in the parody actually happened. Second, we don’t hate Macs. And finally, Hunter [Cressall], the guy in the spot, uses a Mac professionally so he’s tired of being called a Windows apologist. Hunter would like to point out that he still owns two working Apple IIe ‘s and has used Macs in one incarnation or another since 1982. He hastens to add ‘Nyaa’.

And from the comments section on the page linked above, Hunter Cressall responds to a Macrophilliac with,

…there isn’t anyone more Mac than I am. I just don’t like their advertising campaign which claims that just because one embeds a Unix kernel under a redundant operating system that such an operating system is uncrashable. We edit HD broadcast television. You want a dead Mac? Give us twenty minutes and a deadline.

Since I haven’t yet asked about hosting the video myself, and I want to honor Hunter Cressall’s copyrights, here’s the link to view it yourself:

Apple Ad Parody

Oh, and crashing computers? I typically leave my Win2K comps on 24X7, absent really bad storms or a hardware install that requires opening the case. Windows/software crashes? Maybe a couple of times a year. But it does still happen.

And I can have as many mouse buttons as I want.

🙂