Newsflash: Mac Users Love Apple, Hate Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "An article on wired.com talks about how Mac users helped Apple through the dark years of the 90s." It goes on to discuss how a psychologist was hired to figure out how to woo Mac users away from Apple, with some (to him) surprising results.

Comments

From the article...

[daeley]

"Apple is like a strange drug that you just can't quite get enough of," the musician Barry Adamson told the Guardian newspaper. "They shouldn't call it Mac. They should call it crack!"

Whoo! Oh, boy, my sides are aching! Oh, my ribs hurt! Oh, man!

Also...

Andrew Lackey, a visiting professor of business and economics journalism at Boston University, said Apple's monopoly in the Mac business allows it to get away with things companies in a competitive market can't...."With Apple you're a captive, and to some extent they abuse that privilege," Lackey said. "I would have thought Apple would be all folksy, like a Ben & Jerry's kind of company. But in my experience, PC companies are much more responsive."

BMW has a monopoly in the BMW market. GM has a monopoly in the GM market. And yet, they both sell cars and compete against each other. I guess that's why this guy is only a visiting professor of economics. ;)

Re:Linux

[BitHive]

Or Nike? Or Coca-Cola? I use Linux, but I think the idea of wearing a Tux the Penguin t-shirt is kind of lame. Same for people who pay extra for clothes with the Nike logo on it. . .what you share to the core of your being is identification with a logo that is larger than you could ever hope to be, not some enlightened life philosophy.

Re:Give up Unix, get a Mac

[bsartist]

Hmm, what could be the attraction?

I'm a UNIX user. I didn't switch to MacOS - MacOS switched to UNIX.

Don't go with the majority, get tagged as a freak

[Infonaut]

The interesting thing to me is that even though droves of Windows users would agree with this statement from the article: "Microsoft crams a bad system down peoples' throats. It's the evil empire, big brother, a monolithic corporation," they're still unwilling to explore other options.

Circa 1999 it was Linux user = hobbyist geek. Now Linux has been revealed as a savior to businesses of all stripes, but if you're an "early convert" you're still seen as a hobbyist geek, rather than a smart person who picked Linux early for the right reasons.

Something similar may be going on now with the Mac. It's been the cultists who have kept Apple and the Mac alive, but with the release of OS X and the influx of UNIX folks and perhaps a few Windows converts, the cultists are viewed with scorn as the faith-driven zealots rather than as rational adopters of what is really just a computer system.

The Mac has always offered something basic that Microsoft and most (but not all) PC vendors simply don't understand. The computer is built to work out of the box for the human being, not the other way around. You can argue all you want about how it limits your upgrade options, costs more, doesn't run as many apps, but there will always be a certain segment of the computer-using population that very strongly wants a computer that just works, with no fuss.

Now why should people who believe in that concept get labeled as oddballs? Maybe its the rest of the population that's odd, for settling on buggy, conflict-riddled, nonsecure by default, inelegant crap.

Beyond FUD, ...

[burgburgburg]

cognitive dissonance is an extremely powerful component of the continuing strength of MS. Admitting that fear, uncertainty and doubt has led you to lock yourself and your company into an abusive relationship with a monopoly is not something that people want to do (if the latest licensing scheme doesn't qualify as abusive, I don't know what would). People would much rather declare that their "choice" of MS is sensible and will save them money.

Re:Beyond FUD, ...

[gsfprez]

>
I would argue that infact many Linux users suffer from more cognative dissonance that a normal computer user (everyone suffers form it from time to time).

I constantly hear the virtues of Linux espoused and many people seem to think it is in every way better than Windows. However, when they get confronted with shortcommings or concessions they had to make in their switch to Linux, they either downplay them, ignore them, or just claim it isn't the truth.
>

Many people do not have games as a motivation. Many people DO have security, privacy, and supportability for the long term as their motivations.

If security, privacy, and supportability for the long term as their motivations, there are clearly few reasons to pay for Windows, and many more reasons to put up with some drawbacks of Linux, Mac OS X, and other open source-based operating systems. It a matter of weighing the pros and cons of each, and making a decision. For myself, the ability to play games has absolutely no weight in my decision on which systems to run a business on.

So, it may not be cognative dissonance in the people that use Linux/UNIX/Mac OS X... i would argure that your persepctive may be limited to more pedestrian computing needs.

Re:Beyond FUD, ...

[Chester K]

So, it may not be cognative dissonance in the people that use Linux/UNIX/Mac OS X... i would argure that your persepctive may be limited to more pedestrian computing needs.

I'd argue that most of the zealotry displayed by the more rabid Linux advocates is almost entirely cognative dissonance.

For example: Linux 2.2.x was great; and zealots claimed it could do no wrong.... until Linux 2.4 came out. Zealots rushed out and upgraded, singing the praises of 2.4 and decrying the shortcomings of the 2.2 series.

Of course, none of them ever really admitted that the memory manager in 2.4 sucked ass.... not really until it was changed. Then it was safe to badmouth the old memory manager. Go ahead and look back at Slashdot discussions over time to see the progression. And, in fact, you can see it today... as the next version of the kernel draws closer, dissent is slowly building about the rough edges on the current kernel.

It's also the reason that every minor IE bug is front page news here, while it takes a real whopper of a bug on a *nix platform to make Slashdot. Cognative dissonance is a large part of that sort of zealotry as well. The opinion from the top of a pedestal that "my OS is more secure than yours". (The zealots really hate it when you point out that the nitpick bugs they point to in Windows wouldn't have affected a properly set up and administered system anyway.)

Beware: Testamonial Ahead

[mosch]

I'm a *nix user, and I've recently switched almost entirely to Mac.

We don't all toe the slashdot line. Some of us just want something that works well, doesn't waste our time, and lets us work effectively. OS X fits that bill wonderfully for me, and it plays well with my *nix servers.

I don't get paid based on the liberation of my software, I get paid to get things done. Fuck the KDE/Gnome amateur hour; give me OS X and software that works.

Re:Beware: Testamonial Ahead

[IamTheRealMike]

I'm a *nix user, and I've recently switched almost entirely to Mac.

IMHO that kind of post is pretty much redundant. We can sit here all day and say "I used to use operating system A and then I switched to operating system B for reasons C and D". A good number of posts on Slashdot are little more than that.

It is however nothing more than anecdotal evidence. A post slightly above this one says "every Linux user I know has or wants to have a Mac". Again, totally anecdotal, the exact opposite is true where I live and for the people I know. This kind of stuff is fun to argue about, but if you want to get an objective view of what's going on in the markets you don't rely on what you read on Slashdot, you ask the big statistics companies.

No, their measurement systems are not perfect, that's impossible. They are a good deal more informative than "I know 4 people with PowerBooks!". When you look at the numbers however, it seems that Apple is doing rather less well than a lot of people here would say. You don't have to believe me, go search the archives of OSNews, they have reported on it, and Eugenia is pretty much OS neutral if you ignore BeOS.

If anything, I expect we're getting a seriously warped view of Apples market penetration here on Slashdot due to the mod system. A post that says "I haven't bought a Mac" is redundant and quite rightly modded so. Posts that say "I have bought a Mac" are also redundant but get modded up because sometimes people have interesting reasons, but mostly because advertising psychology says that people are inclined to agree with views that appear to justify their own purchasing decisions. There is a post at the top of this thread about it, although there's a lot more to it than just cognitive dissonance.

In particular, psychologists have found that people pay more attention to adverts for a product after they have bought it, which seems counterintuitive until you realise that these people having made a purchasing decision are keen on reassuring themselves that they made the right choice, and so listen more to things that tell them this. It's also been found (sorry, don't have the reference to hand) that this effect increases in proportion to cost, ie if you buy something that costs £10 you're less likely to get upset at reading a bad review of it than if it had cost £10,000.

I think this is what happens with operating systems. Why does Apple garner such loyalty? The Mac loyalists usually say it's to do with the technology but I think it can be better explained by psychology (watches karma drop...).

Windows has an effective cost of zero, as it's included in the hardware price when you buy the machine. What's more, it's a monopoly, people feel they have to use it, so they know they've made the correct purchasing decision - really they couldn't make any other. Because they know this, people are happy to bitch about MS products they use all the time, simply because nobody can turn around and say "well don't use it then". (karma: excellent -> good). There is little cognitive dissonance.

Linux suffers from a different problem. It also has an effective cost of zero, because it's given away for free. As such, using it has no personal investment except of time (which is different). Because of this, people are happy to try it, formulate an opinion sometimes within hours, and then either keep it or erase it and go back to what they were using before. There is no justification need here either, because it cost you nothing, so there is no incentive to put effort into it. For people who do like it, sometimes they dig the whole philosophy thing, and become Linux evangelists.

Apple on the other hand is boosted by this effect. It's a textbook case of this type of psychology. Buying a Mac is a big investment in terms of cost, and because it has such low market share compared to Wintel PCs there is a strong need to justify not going with the crowd. Hence we see arguments like "it's easier, it works better" etc. One thing that's pretty clear is that once you've bought a Mac, you're not going to just dump it, nobody just dumps something that cost over a thousand dollars after a few hours. There is a high internal need for the purchase to be seen as a good one, so people adapt to the quirks of the platform etc.

They then become very defensive when people criticize that purchase, and very friendly towards people who back them up - hence the fact that Mac users seem to get together into groups and the "Mac logo" effect mentioned in the article. An example: slashdotter A says "Mac's are slow, look at their CPU speeds for what you pay!!!". Slashdotter B says "but it doesn't matter, because it feels fast to me (of course it does) and because Mhz is a myth". There is an attack (probably provoked by over enthusastic promotion by slashdotter B, often people criticize stuff simply because it's an alternative viewpoint in the presence of lots of positive viewpoints), and a defensive reponse (karma:good -> terrible). As such, they are more likely to mod down anti-Mac posts and more likely to mod up pro-Mac posts. Non Mac users on the other hand are unlikely to have a view one way or the other, hence moderation gets somewhat bent. Hence, the fact that if you read Slashdot a lot it seems that everybody is buying Macs.

Phew! That drifted rather offtopic for a bit in the middle, but I think you get the gist of my theory.

Re:Beware: Testamonial Ahead

[melatonin]

Dude, I used my last mod point on you, and I'm a Mac user.

Your right. I'm not a psychologist, but I've always noticed the brand-loyalty, cognitive dissonace thingy. It goes both ways actually, not just Mac users but Windows users too. That's why Mac v DOS wars have gone on for so long.

And those wars were SOOO stupid! I mean seriously, no DOS box is competition for any Mac. But DOS users kept coming up with reasons that their hard earned money that they put into their box (no computer was cheap back then) was worth it, and better than a Mac.

I've been a Mac user for a very, very long time. And as computers got more popular and, accordingly, Macs have gotten more popular, I've been more and more embarrased to be a Mac user. It seems as the price of Macs dipped below the $3000 range stupider people started coming into the fray.

People claim ease of use, when they have no idea what ease of use is. I see Mac users bickering about why their platform is so hot, and all their arguments are just childish rants. They sound like the old DOS supporters, praising their choice without having any real arguments. Exactly what you said.

(It was also painful to see Macworld, once a prestigous publication headed by Jerry Borrell, turn into the waste of paper that it is today. They used to talk about cutting edge computing issues with a Mac focus, now they tell you how to upload a website to your iDisk.)

Anyway, I don't defend my choice of using a Mac because of cognitive dissonance. I use Macs because they are better to use. Years of using Macs has made me very proficient and, hell, bonded to them, and it would be worse to switch to Windows because I can't use a winbox like a Mac.

Some people are (pardon the term) too stupid to use a computer. In that case, it may be better that they use Windows, since they can get help from just about anyone. Unless if I know them personally, in which case I can teach them to use a Mac and be damn proud of it!

If you have a choice of buying a Mac + having a friend support you, and buying a PC + having a friend support you, the Mac is usually the better choice.

rant off. I think that was a rant. Yeah, definitely a rant.

Mac is where the creative tools are.

[gig]

I use a Mac because that's where the creative tools are. Way too many people think that Mac and Windows are the same because there are lots of Mac/PC applications, but they're not the same at all. Digidesign's Pro Tools runs on both Mac and Windows, but it's been running on the Mac for much longer and with more features, and all of the pro-level plug-ins are Mac-only. So, all of the #1 hits done with Pro Tools are also Mac-only. Similarly, Quark runs on Windows, but most of the plug-ins are Mac-only, and color management, advanced typography, a PostScript renderer, and PDF workflow are built-in to the Mac, so most of publishing runs on Macs. Many other mainstream creative applications are only a few versions old on Windows, and five or six versions more mature on the Mac.

It's just that the technology is so much better than any other platform when it comes to creative stuff of any kind (art, music, video, design). If you replace "Windows PC" in this article with "typewriter" and then read it again you'll see how it looks to a Mac user. No, we're not anxious to trade our multimedia audio/video/graphics workstations with great UI and amazing stability for IBM Selectrics. As a creative workstation, Windows makes a shitty typewriter. That's all there is to it. The rest is window dressing, with non-Mac users wondering what the buzz is about.

Re:Better Poll

[Ektanoor]

Frankly you don't pick the main trend - those who were Windows fans and got burned. They are much more visceral in their hatred toward M$ than anyone else. Because they feel betrayed. And that's what I feel in every cell of my brain. I started with a Windows 1.0beta. Till the advent of Windows95, I was critical of many M$ moves, but still I believed that they were doing something in the right way. Back then, OS/2 was far away from being considered as a real system and IBM did a lot to become the Evil Empire of those times. However, when Windows95 came out, I sincerly felt that someone sold me snakeoil in 100% purity. Many of my old programs went broke. Several third party programs I used couldn't simply work. While I tried hard to adapt to the new SDKs and environment, I couldn't because it was all a mess and a pure waste of money. That mess ended only with the advent of Windows95 OSR2, but the loss was irrecoverable. For some time I tried to reach the "secrets" of Windows NT4, only to discover that there are companies that are well able to create crap in tens of disks and name it "Developer's tools". However that was not the last drop. The last drop came in 1998 with the "fresh, new Windows98". I was hacked three times, one of them trashed completely my HDD in less than a minute. In a moment, years of hard work went into oblivion. A little later, I discovered that even M$ was hacking my own computer by sending interesting IP packets right to Redmond's HQ. A month later I was fully switching to Linux and sending M$ into the deepest bottom of Hell. I never regretted that.

I know a few people who passed nearly this same M$ Paradise. Some have switched to Linux/BSD. Others remained in Windows. But no one has ever stopped reading the whole slang dictionary over Redmond. And other OS fans can ever repeat the HATRED about Microsoft we and similar people have.

One thing about you Apple fans. Well, you are naive, sometimes look a little bit childish. You may think that we are too straight-head, naive and childish also. But there is one thing I shall say to you. People, you were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT to stick to Apple. You can't imagine how the Hell goes hot in Windows. Keep the faith people. Apple forever!

One Simple Reason

[davevr]

I think there is a pretty simple explanation for the current state of things, where Apple has a small marketshare and is loved by their users, while Microsoft is dominating software but is despised: focus.

Apple has always focused on doing things for the customer, even if it means screwing the developers and the existing user base. Apple has sort of a family-style "tough love" philosophy - almost parental. It will say things like "The dock is better for you. Just take it." Even though people may or may not like it, Apple has your best interest at heart, and so it will jam things down the users' (and developers') throats, if need be.

Microsoft, on the other hand, focuses on the developers. They want to make Windows the best development platform in the world. Microsoft figured out early on that people only buy computers for software, and that people are not going to write their own software. By luring developers to their APIs, MS achieved market dominance. The users in this case are more of an afterthought - they are sort of a problem left to each independant developer.

Some examples:
When Apple introduces something new, Jobs comes out and talks about how insanely great this will be for users. When MS introduces something, BillG will talk about how the API makes it easy for devs.

At Apple, we would routinely make API changes that would break every single major application (like PhotoShop and PageMaker). Our attitude was "screw them, the devs just have to keep up, the new way is better." At Microsoft, we still have code that makes sure WordPerfect 3.5 for DOS still runs in a command window in NT.

I have worked over five years apiece for the research labs at both Apple Computer and Microsoft, so I have some insight here.

Mindshare

[jbolden]

I think you wrote an excellent article which explained your point quite well. I consider you 100% wrong but that shouldn't diminish a high quality post which does deserve to be modded up.

I'd offer a simple piece of counter proof, the treatment of Apple before OSX came out. Prior to OSX the overwhelming attitude of the slashdot crowd towards Apple was disinterested hostility. Apple system were simply not taken seriously at all; treated as more of crippled computing appliances than computers. Almost no one advocated the advantages of OS9 over Windows, Linux, BSD...

Were your argument true, that is that the behavior is based on price and lack of market share there should have been no difference between the behavior on /. before and after OS9. Instead we now see OSX being treated with the respect that /. gives to OSes they do take seriously like: Linux, MSFT, Solaris. People vigerously argue about the pluses and minuses; particularly value over quality. There is genuine interest in the platform even from its non users.

That is a huge change in attitude. I think the more likely explination is this: /. is a Unixphile forum (that is many are not Unix users but most admire Unix). By making the switch to a Unix based platform Apple gained respect. In addition they have created a Unix variant which is centered around the mainstream desktop and not the server which is genuinely unique in today's market. Since most /. ers are desktop users and Unixphiles the unique desktop Unix is obviously going to be treated positively.

Re:Psychology 101

[mestar]

no. the term "endowment effect" would better describe it.

take this example. you are a peacefull person, you would not kill another human. but then there is this ethnic group that you hate so much that you want to kill them. (this is cognitive dissonance) how do you resolve this? well, you go and kill them anyway, because THEY ARE NOT HUMAN!!! (opinions are hard to change, you will NOT change your belief that you can not kill another human, you tend to stay with the familiar)

another example, your brother is a 'nice person', however so it happens that he kills somebody. (again, cognitive dissonance.) well, he obviously had a DAMN GOOD REASON. (again, you tend to stay with the familiar).

this endowment effect works like the information (beliefs) you have in you work as filters for all incoming information.

another way to say all this is that BELIEFS are impossible to change!

than there is this question: why do you actually have those beliefs that you have? its because they were there first! IT IS THAT SIMPLE.

Re:Apple charging for their point releases...

[2nd Post!]

I don't think Apple is 'good' in any abstract moral sense.

I think Apple is 'good' because they address my needs and wants at a price I can (barely) afford.

I think Microsoft is 'bad' because they perpetuate actions that actually interfere with my computing experience. Virus-spam, viruses, infected computers at work, DOS due to viruses, security exploits, not to mention pushing D3d over OpenGL, which I like because I can program it (personal bias, I admit), as well as Netscape over IE because I build Mozilla source (again, personal bias).

If I figure out how to build OpenOffice, I will probably push that over Office, as well :)

Re:Why Apple doesn't release MacOS X for PC ..??

[2nd Post!]

Wow, you think Apple could grab 20% of the PC platform by releasing OS X86?

Right now they have (generously) 4%, on margins *like* 25% on their hardware. However, that 25% is based off of $2k average price for their machines, meaning $500 per Mac.

Selling a OS X86 for $130 would garner them, possibly, 50% margin (lets be generous), or $75. So they *have* to sell 7 copies of OS X86 to make up the difference, and gain an improvement.

That means they need to sell to, instead of 4%, 28%

Of course they could have higher margins, meaning less necessary sales... but higher margins necessarily means charging more for the product, right?

Or they could have lower margins, due to costs I cannot account for, in which case... 20% or 30% of the market isn't sufficient.

It probably means bundling 'free' iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto would have to stop, or at least start charging, to make more money. $30 per product would mean OS X86 would cost $250... which makes it much less attractive.