Apple Wants Your Input

Johnny Mnemonic writes "Apple is asking for feedback specifically from PC users about why you might be considering a Mac purchase, or if you recently purchased a Mac for the first time, why you made the switch. A good opportunity to sound off about your Apple peeves, but also a chance to let Apple know what you think they're doing right. The Mac OS X feedback page, originally from the Public Beta, is still up and accepting feedback, also."

Comments

AOLpple

[Mike Schiraldi]

I've got a suggestion, too. Apple should merge with AOL. It makes perfect sense.

They both made their sucess by dumbing down computers to the point where anyone could use them. Their entire business models depend on making computers simple, bright, and pretty.

AOL wants a Microsoft-free Internet appliance, right? How about having the Apple hardware and UI people design it, and then AOL engineers can slap on the AOL client and Mozilla.

Think of all the money they'll save on customer support: they'll have control over every aspect of the experience, from the hardware to the OS to the client software to the server software. AOL currently spends a ton of money talking people through troubleshooting modem problems and whatnot in Windows. With their appliance, they can actually fix the crappy interface.

Reasons I haven't considered Apple yet

[WildBeast]

1 - Confusing interface
2 - One Button Mouse
3 - Customization and configuration is hard to grasp
4 - Expensive Hardware
5 - Apple is unpredictable
6 - Proprietary platform
7 - OS X is kinda slow
8 - I don't like Steve Jobs (I gotta be honest)
9 - We've heard about Apple treatening many Open Source projects (ie. Themes.org OSX theme)

Uh, no thanks

[Com2Kid]

Wow, yah, I'll just give up my $500 1ghz system (screw platform differences, it is 1ghz and it was $500, that was a year ago, now days it is 1.4ghz or more for that price!) that can run a wide variety of OSs and use a crudload of different hardware products for. . . .

a system that locks me into one OS choice (well there ARE some other OSs, depending on what model mac exactly is purchased, but all in all it is definitely NOT an open platform) where a PHYSICAL (not just a life-induced) monopoly exists (HW AND software, oh joy!) with craptacular integrated every-fucking-thing systems and a user base that makes Windows users look down right brilliant.

(yes there are smart mac users, there are also smart windows users, at least the older windows users had to at one point or another in time use DOS, and a good fraction of them actually went about and LEARNED something about the underlying system to boot. While I am sad that MS decided to all but abandon the CLI in favor of a GUI that discourages learning in the same way that the mac environment does, at least even MS PC have a legacy someplace in the past of using a CLI. Mac users have what, the Apple II, which they cannot even lay claim to since they like to brag so much about how nice and "hands off" their platform is now days. . . . )

Oh yah and did I mention the UI? IT FUCKING SUCKS

Seriously.

You REALLY begin to appreciate the design that went into the more modern versions of Windows (excluding XP which looks like a piece of shit but is otherwise functionally the same as 2k) once you have been stuck on a mac for awhile.

I do some VERY funky things with my computer and Windows keeps on going through. If needs be I could do some rather freaky things with a bunch of OTHER OSs, or thanks to x86 emulators on my, err, x86, I can run those other OSs on my computer without repartitioning.

Thanks to emulation Mac users can of course run a lot of PC software too.

Heh.

If you want to call what they do "run". ^_^

(walk maybe. . . jog perhaps for some of the smaller applications. . ." )

I can f*cking install a damn 8 disk raid array inside of my case and not have the damn thing break a sweat, or run out of room!

I have a $20 TV in card, a Matrox G400 MAX Duel Head video card that can do video out, and should I want too, I can easily purchase for a VERY reasonable price any number of prosumer grade sound cards to do damn nearly anything I want to do in THAT arena as well. (I do have a sound card, but it is just median level consumer quality. )

I have a damn f*cking Non-Linear Video Editing 3D rendering Photoshoping behemoth on my hands for less then what a cursed mac user pays for their d*mn wide screen monitor. (in all fairness though, that is just because being a PC user I am capible of looking at FUNCTION over form. Mac users would likely shiver when they found out that my two monitors aren't *GASP* color coordinated!! Oh the HORROR!! >;{} They are color CALIBRATED, but one has a beige casing, the other one a black casing. Deal.)

Did I mention the $30 wireless keyboard and mouse combos? Ooooh yaaah. Sweet. :)

It also helps that the default keyboard that comes with most PCs is made for somebody BESIDES MIDGETS. Really, what the hell is apple's intended audience here? ALL of their keyboards for their macintosh line of computers f*cking SUCK DAMNIT. Who the hell are those things geared towards, the little people? Seriously, I have nothing against the Fae, but when is the last time that the Elven Queen needed to use a computer?

(and we all know that if the Elven Queen ever used a computer that She would use one which had as many Arcane commands as possible. Likely a *nix box at the minimum. :) )

I was doing NLE on my 266mhz Pentium II, yet to figure out what is so good about those macs. . . I have USED them, but they just well. . . SUCK. Horribly. Sure they look good, well, if you have no Y chromosome and are missing at least part of your X as well.

Computers are supposed to be BEIGE DAMNIT BEIGE. I want my computer to be F*CKING BEIGE AND MADE OUT OF STEEL DAMNIT. My current computer case can support over TWO HUNDRED pounds on top of it. Two-Fricken-Hundred.

The fact that it is FLAT on top SERIOUSLY helps with balancing stuff on top of it too. As opposed many of apple's designs which tend to be. . . uh. . . fugly and curved.
So to summarize:

Cheap

Open

Choices

Usability

ProperSizedPackInKeyboards

KickAssMouseSelection

That about sums it up. :)

My list of Mac Beefs:

[Junior J. Junior III]

1. What was finally delivered in OS X was first promised to be in Copeland (OS 8). NeXT and Be technologies that were years ahead of their time and could/should have been integrated into the new Mac OS *weren't* when doing so might have been enough to demonstrate a massive superiority to Windows 95.
2. After buying a Centris 610 (LC 68040/4MB RAM/80 MB HDD/Mac OS 7.1) I waited and waited and waited for things like protected memory and preemptive multitasking to be incorporated into the OS. Apple kept promising, but IT NEVER CAME. Eventually, when I bit the bullet and HAD to upgrade, I went with Wintel, who by that time at least had *some* of that.
3. Now that I've been working in a Windows environment, I like multibutton mice. Get some! Another thing I really like about the Windows GUI is the fact that if I really want to, I never even have to touch my mouse. There's keyboard shortcuts that allow me to navigate to any part of an open window and select whatever option I want to. You don't quite get this in Mac OS releases before OS X. (Is it there in X? I haven't used it so I don't know.) It makes things a lot faster if you don't have to keep moving your hands from the keyboard to the mouse and back again, over and over. And holding down a key on the keyboard while clicking or dragging with the mouse to simulate stuff that could be implemented much more gracefully with a 2 button mouse is... well, crappy. But nothing's more annoying to me than coming up against a "Yes|No|Cancel" dialog window, where [Enter] is "Yes" but "No" and "Cancel" can be activated ONLY through the mouse. Lack of keyboard navigation options is RAMPANT in pre-OS X.
4. Another habit I enjoy thanks to becoming a Windows user is tinkering around with my hardware. Apple is good at making cases that look pretty, and with the G4 line they got good at making cases that are easy to open up, but what they still need to do is get good at making cases that have lots of bays where I can stick stuff in like extra CD/DVD drives or Zip drives or what have you... without it spoiling the beauty of the stock case.
5. Improving the cost/performance, as many no doubt have said, wouldn't hurt either. If I could build my own G4 architecture box for sub-$1000 I'd do it and be using OS X as my primary operating system in a heartbeat. Failing a cheap DIY G4 option, it'd be almost as good to be able to build an Althlon-based system that could run OS X... which brings me to...
6. Port Mac OS to other hardware or at least make the source code available so that other people can do it if you aren't willing to put forth the effort. If you're not willing to do go so far as to do this with your latest and greatest, at least consider releasing outdated versions of the OS to the opensource community so we can tinker with it. Getting your OS into the hands of the widest possible user base would pay off very well in the long run, especially once we get hooked and decide we need to have the latest and greatest.
7. Lastly, I'm still bitter about losing Bungie to their fate of becoming little more than friggin' XBox whores. How many consecutive MacWorld Expos did we get to drool over Halo, only to have it yanked away by the greener pastures over at M$FT? Bungie supposedly still has the rights to release games on other platforms beside the XBox, so get Bungie to at least put a version out that runs on Macs (and PCs for that matter!)