After all the hoo-ha about the resignation of Steve Jobs (someone on Twitter remarked that "anyone would think he was dead") and having read recently about the new store that Apple wants to open at 100 Cheapside in the city of London, I'm once again wondering at the appeal of Apple.
In about 1998 I was working at adidas in the US and the cool people on the design team were real Apple heads. They tried to persuade me that a Mac was way more desirable than a PC. Hey, I came close to switching – I quite fancied one of those blueberry iBooks when they came out… but they were hellish expensive, so I stuck with PCs for another few years. Until about 2008 that is, when I finally succumbed to the peer pressure (or marketing?) and bought a 24" iMac with its beautiful glass screen.
Was it a revelation? Not really. Learning how to use a Mac took some weeks, just to master the basics, and being more or less self taught I'm aware that I probably only know about 10% of what I could usefully know. But everyone used to say it was so intuitive! That I'd never want to go back! In reality I was struck by how rigid everything was, how inflexible, how it was impossible to get 'under the hood' of a Mac, how you have to do things a certain way, usually unguessable and random. For some reason I then went and bought an iPhone, and realised how totally on the Steve Jobs path to 'computer says no' hell I was.
I went from being reasonably interested in computers and tolerant of their shortcomings, to just another frustrated user moaning about her machine/gadgets. The irony is of course that by the time I switched over to Macs, PCs had come on apace, the dreaded Windows XP was on its way out and PCs were even starting to look like Macs.
I would love to be free of Apple, but it's hard – it feels like I'm in a relationship and it's not a healthy one. And yet so many people still really love Apple. I'm in awe of how it styled itself into the 'good guy' opposite the 'evil' Bill Gates and Microsoft. I used to think it was about the products, but it has to be way, way more than that. Doesn't it?
I’ve never been that fussed about Apple personally and I don’t actually own one Apple product.
I use a Sony MP3 player as the reviews said it was better than an ipod (plus it looked sturdier!) I’ve always used PC’s so I prefer to stick to what I know and all my clients use PCs anyway so it’s never been a problem. And I’ve only ever used an Android smart phone so know no difference.
People I know who’ve had iphones say the Android one is much more adaptable and they like they can download apps without having to go to the Apple store – which seems to be the bane of a lot of lives! And now after reading your post I don’t feel like I’ve been missing out on anything!
Thanks Jo. Yes, I remember having an early MP3 player before the ipod came out and it was great. The thing I personally hate is being ‘tethered’ to iTunes. Grrr!
Wooohooooo, time to get something off my chest!
I’m with you 100%. The kit is certainly premium-priced – yet I can use it the Jobs way, or not at all. If I drop a grand of my hard-earned on some gadget, I want to bust it up any way I choose, run any software on it I can legally acquire. On that one at least, Microsoft are showing the way with the Kinect.
On the mobile platform, I love the way Android devs can hack stuff together and share apps around. I see the equivalent pain iOS developers go through, I wonder why they stick with it – especially based on the pseudo-slavery T&C’s of the iStore (more here: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/iphone-developer-program-license-agreement-all )
Finally – looking at the start-up firms riding off platforms like Twitter and Facebook, I’d say we’re coming into the age of API’s. Exchangable data, open platforms, mass collaboration. Find me, if you will, a firm more closed and controlling than our friends from Cupertino…! Nice post Robin, thanks!
Ha! Excellent points James, I like your style. I’m too scared to even follow that link to the T&Cs but can imagine…thanks for commenting so juicily.
Actually, if you want to get under the hood, then you need to explore Terminal, and X11. You’ll find more there in the BSD Unix, and with far more flexibility and logic than you ever will in Windows. I use that stuff a lot for work, but for my basic desktop needs, I’m quite happy without going there.
Why do people develop on MacOSX? Well, I’ve seen numerous devs say thing like “this took me a week, on Windows it might take me six months”. That’s because Apple provide excellent APIs, and why you see things like text editing are consistent between applications. There’s never been an application on Apple that didn’t use “command-zxcv” for undo, cut, copy and paste, for example.
Thanks Ian – interesting riposte to James… but I’m looking at it from the layman’s POV I guess. There must be plenty of people like me who aren’t developers but who would like a reasonable amount of autonomy in how they use and configure their gadgetry. I feel like I’m being told ‘don’t you worry your little head about it, just do as we say – and if you’re stuck, come and see one of our in-store geniuses’ In fact now I think about it, it’s terminology like that ‘genius’ word that reinforces the impotence of the user and reasserts the perception Apple products are somehow sacred/magical… or am I getting too fanciful now??
I guess it’s all relative, in the tech sense. PC’s & Windows I find logical and accessible. I’ve tried a variety of unix/linux type things, and have always found them to be most unfriendly (except JoliOS – kudos to those boys!).
I do agree Apple get better consistency than Windows – but that’s down to the controlling nature of the firm, which I find most unpalatable. Strikes me that Microsoft got pilloried through the 80/90′s for market abuse and monopolistic approaches – wonder when someone will be brave enough to take on the Apple Fanboys!?
Ooh, I like where you’re going with the Genius comment. That resonates!