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

It's simple. That's it.

[Snowfox]

1. It's simple. Menus are uncluttered and arranged intelligently. Advanced options aren't missing, they're just not mixed in with everything else. Apple pays more attention to the user interface than anyone else, and it guides its developers in doing the same. Compare Internet Explorer or Office for both Mac and Windows. By following Apple's guidelines (to a degree), Microsoft has created superior products for the Mac despite its best Windows efforts.

2. The OS and the machines are aestheticaly pleasing. PCs tend to look dull. Macs change. They remain exciting, or at least different.

3. More focus on programming "correctness." Apple periodically reinvents the OS interface to match current needs. Old functions are dropped when using the newer APIs. Choices are limited, or directed, depending on how you want to look at it. Programs end up being simpler and have fewer bugs as a result.

4. Apple has always marketed and spoken to the individual, not the company. (This is huge.)

5. Steve Jobs, brain-controlling presentation zombie.

And Mac OS X's UNIX base is just fucking cool. This is what's finally pulling me over. I picked up an old iBook for cheap to try it out, and I'm just floored. This OS is schweet!

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:It's simple. That's it.

[foobar104]

and what "Transition" are you speaking of? I'm tired of them moving to another, barely compatible platform, including an emulator for the old OS, and calling it "compatible"

Oh, be fair. You had your 68K Mac, and then you had your PowerPC Mac, which would run 68K code in emulation. That's it. We've been using PowerPCs for, what, about 10 years now? I think one major architecture change in 18 years is just fine.

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:What is apple doing right?

[baka_boy]

I think that marketing is the one thing that's allowed Apple to keep their head above water in recent years. Have you been inside an Apple store? The internal design is open, they have machines set up and running (gasp!) actual software, just like you could do at home, and they have a bunch of attentive, friendly salespeople who know what the hell they're talking about roaming the store to answer questions, etc.

Sure, it might not appeal to a hard-core, alpha geek who prefers to build their own boxes from parts they buy at a dark, warehouse-sized discount store, but to your average consumer it's like a breath of fresh air. Also, their print ads (at least since the B&W G3s came out) have been consistently well done.

At this point, anyone other than Microsoft, IBM, and Dell who can stay in the PC game without whoring themselves out to the beige-cubicle-box market deserves some serious respect. Most Wintel manufacturers practically can't give away new PCs to home users, while Apple has actually managed to coax new customers over to their side of the fence, and keep them consistently upgrading every couple of years.

I think the secret is actually just that Apple manages to make their new designs look and feel truly new, rather than just cramming twice the clock speed and RAM into the same, boring machine. When you buy a new Mac, every part, from the case, to the OS, to the mouse, is at least slightly improved, in appearance if not in functionality, than it was on the last one.

Don't let yourself get confused about the respective roles of marketing and sales. Marketing is all about listening to what your customers are asking for, predicting trends, and shaping your product to meet their needs. The sales guys are the ones responsible for pushing the finished product to customers. Apple's level of polish and "consumer touch" in their products, stores, and ads shows that they definately understand how to market their products. If they've failed significantly, it's in the area of sales, where you pretty much have to give up on any sense of quality or design if it means you can ship a few more boxes.

Most PC manufacturers go that route; hence the total lack of attention paid to the physical design of their product. Whether you buy a Wintel from Compaq, Gateway, HP, eMachine, Dell, or some mom-and-pop clone builder, you're going to get more or less the same machine, with a nearly identical case, monitor, peripherials, software, etc.

Of course, Microsoft should get some of the blame for this; it's hard to make your product truly distinctive when you are absolutely required to make it support the newest versions of Windows and Office, no questions asked. The kind of risks that Apple takes periodically (moving to PowerPC chips, ditching the floppy drive, and totally re-writing their OS) would give any Wintel company's entire board of directors heart attacks.

Re:my question

[foobar104]

How can someone possibly think that a 7XX MHz G3 running with slow SDRAM, and a slow IDE harddrive is soo much faster than a 14XX MHz Athlon running DDRAM, and a faster IDE harddrive or a faster scuzzy drive.

My iMac is faster than any other computer I use. Why? Because it spends less time waiting on me.

When I use a PC, I spend more time than I want to futzing around. For instance, when I plug my iBook into the LAN at work, I pull down one menu item and all my network settings change. When I go to the coffee shop and use their 802.11 service, I pull down that menu again and poof! When I go home, poof!

Even in Windows 2000, location management is rudimentary at best, and in most aspects simply absent. With my Mac, I don't have to futz around with that stuff.

Within a certain set of boundaries, it's not about clock speeds, or bus speeds, or hard drive speeds, or any of that shit. It's about the computer not getting in the way when I want to do something.

It isn't possible to explain

[epepke]

Look, it isn't possible to explain this. Many metaphors have been tried, but here's another:

• Windows is like Budweiser
• Linux is like homebrew
• Mac is like hand-pumped Abbott ale

The Budweiser people who don't understand why some people like to drink Abbott ale never will, because in their minds,

1. You can get a lot of Budweiser really cheap.
2. It gets the fucking job done.
3. Everybody buys it. Look at that market share! Woohoo!

The homebrew people are a bit more flexible. They might like Abbott Ale, or they might not, but if they don't like it, it's either because they don't like it on its merits or they would rather change the recipe.

(I should also point out that Be OS is like Old Peculier poured from an elevated oak cask.)