Why So Many Mac Fanatics?

daeley writes "NewsFactor has published an article, Cult of the Mac - Why So Many Mac Fanatics? -- looking for answers to '...what is it about the Mac that commands such loyalty? An even better question might be, what is Apple doing right?'"

Comments

What I don't get

[Otter]

What I've never understood is why people can get so emotionally attached to companies that make CPUs or graphics cards 5% faster than the ones they made the year before. Or to the companies that make first person shooters that push 5% more pixels through that hardware.

Enthusiasm about a company that tries to make computers qualitatively better -- that I don't have trouble understanding.

Funny timing

[rjamestaylor]

I need a new laptop. My Toshiba 2805-202s is over a year old and has put in meritorious service (having survived a shorting power supply, replaced under warranty, and a motherboard-damaging fall, also replaced under warranty free-of-charge), running WinME (for DVD entertainment for the wife and I) and Linux (SuSE then RedHat 7.2; for work), but needs to be replaced.

This time my employer will purchase a laptop for me -- I just have to choose which one. Since the low end Toshibas no longer come with the point-stick (*sigh*) I'm considering alternatives. Suffice it to say I am torn between an IBM A-series or an Apple Titanium.

I'm leaning toward the Titanium. And, it's funny, but I feel like I'm returning to a first love... I started with an Apple ][+ in 1979 (I was 12) and eventually had a Apple //e, Apple //c, and, later, a Mac Plus. In the meantime I was using UNIX and DOS. I always hated DOS. Then OS/2 -- it was Ok, but...well...stiff. Then I had the opportunity, as a salesman for Businessland/ComputerCraft, to experience the NeXT -- it was slick and satisfying but unaccessible 'cause of price. But I had to bow to Windows, since I had to support my clients who used a WinTel desktop to access our UNIX accounting package. Eventually I started writing business apps in VB, Access, Paradox...that was an unhappy period. Happily, I found Linux and felt better ('cause I like server-side programming).

Mac OS X is NeXT but backward Mac compatible and at a reasonable price. That's my take. Playing with the Titanium at Fry's has been enjoyable -- sometimes frustrating, honestly -- and the underlying UNIX is accessible and tempting. Hey - it beats Win4Lin for using Internet Explorer for client-side testing (and I like Win4Lin and won't run Linux without it).

So I guess I'm getting sucked into the Mac Cult. Blame it on early conditioning...

My weirdo co-worker is also going get the Titanium but will scrap OS X and install PPC Linux. Honestly, I have no idea why.

Re:It's simple. That's it.

[foobar104]

But should I get the 68k library or the PPC library?

Criticize all you want. The transition from 68K to PowerPC wasn't without bumps. But you know what? It worked. I had one of the first Power Mac 8100s on my desk at work, and all of my applications worked perfectly. Sure, running 68K apps was a little slow, but that problem went away as the big names (Photoshop, QuarkXPress, and so on) came out in PowerPC versions.

Apple was able to pull off the PowerPC transition. The fact that they did it at all was pretty amazing.

Plus which, don't forget the Fat Binary: a single executable that contains both 68K and PowerPC object code. Runs in native mode on either architecture. Great idea, just brilliant. That was an Apple thing.

Oh wait, it says that this text editor isn't compatible with my 5200's SCSI bus when it's not actively terminated.

Oh, wait. I just realized that you're one of those chatbots, aren't you? This sentence was clearly strung together from words and phrases pulled at random out of a dictionary.

Oh, well.

Re:Here's why

[medcalf]

Exactly. This is why I love my mac. At most times, for most things, it just works. If I want to reconfigure it, it works also. No secret knowledge required. You don't have to be a card carrying unix weenie.

And said weenies love to mock you just becuase you're not familar with an throwback interface full of archane details, largely undocumented, convoluted and anything but intuative. More likely they should be mocked.

As a UNIX weenie, I'd like to inform you that many UNIX weenies have been Mac heads for years (in my case, since 1988). Along with the Windows people, it's some of the Linux guys - many of whom come from the PC camp, which seems to believe that if your computer isn't disassembled regularly you don't know enough about it or haven't been pushing it enough - who regularly bash Macs. I like Linux OK for low-end hardware, though I prefer AIX or *BSD when I can get it, but it's a different breed from the professional UNIX types.

-jeff

On again, off again, on again...

[weave]

I was a big mac fanatic from 1984 until about 1996. It ruled, was years ahead of the competition. But Apple pretty much was stuck for ages and Microsoft caught up (with win 95), then surpassed them (with Windows NT). So I switched.

How dare you say? OK, I was annoyed by the Windows GUI but let's face it, the Mac OS was still running what was basically 1985 Andy Hertzfeld "Switcher" technology. While there were OS hacks to permit apps to be kind to CPU cycles (co-operative multitasking) and allocating memory from the system space instead of requiring fixed memory size per app, it was still just kludge upon kludge.

But now I'm heading back. OS X is what I've been wanting for years. The stability and usefulness of UNIX with the user interface that only Apple can do right. I've got my order in for a new iMac to get my toes wet again and if I love it as much as I expect to, I'll be dishing out for a dual G4 in the not too distant future for my main powerbox (It's currently a 2GHZ Intel box running XP Pro).

I've used them all, so when I get to the point where I will say again that Macs are the best computers out there, it will be an informed opinion!

(Note to Apple, please bump my iMac order up in the queue... :-)