Slashdot Mirror
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.
It's is well known (although I cannot remember the technical name for the effect) that people are 'loyal' to their decisions. Even if they've made a bad choice, there is an internal attempt to justify it.
"The Mac community is arguably the largest subculture in computing. Mac enthusiasts -- as a group -- are probably more loyal, more dedicated than users of any other computer, perhaps even Linux. Linux and Unix users are, in fact, switching to Macs in droves."
Thought this would be a good place to ask this...
"The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
I think it's just a great object lesson:
Despite the unflinching moral declarations of the FSF, most users of so-called "Free Software" care about the gratis a heck of a lot more than the libre... or, at least, they care about the "UNIXyness" rather than either sort of freedom.
In the real world, every Linux-user I know has or wants to have a Mac--and they're not putting PPC Linux on them, they're leaving OSX as-is, save for adding a few utilities.
There are a good portion of us who are very technically aware, have used all of the major OSes extensively, and feel that Mac OS is much better than Windoze.
There are a large number of you out there who say that "Macs are crap" blindly, without having used one in quite a while or ever. I would say that those people should "atleast [sic] have the decency to KNOW what [they] are talking about".
Well it seems the Apple isn't a (as in single) subculture anymore.
Firstly there are the old time Mac users - they used a Mac found it easy to do what they wanted and just attached themselves to the system. Many have had Macs for years and will tell you how the Mac "changed their life". Often these users work in "arty" jobs (DTP, Graphic Designers, etc)
Then there are Windows switchers - they got fed up with the Wintel PC, some it was system crashes, some it's more religous reasons.
Linux switchers, often those who were working in Windows/Linux for various reasons. Lots have PowerBooks.
Then there are old NeXT users (not many of us actually!).
And others I'm too stupid to identify. I'm not sure that the Mac is a single culture anymore. I hope this is healthy for the platform.
Of course I have omitted those who "co-exist" and use Mac and something else.
If people forgive youre mistakes it means you have succeeded in what every company wants. Brand-loyalty. Lucasarts had it for a long time. Sure they made a couple of stinkers, afterlife, but by and large most gamers where willing to trust them. Hell any lucasarts adventure I will buy without even reading the back of the box. This kind of loyalty is very important since it allows a company to make mistakes/try new things and not be immidialty killed of for it.
If at as a competitor you are wondering how the hell a company gets away with it ask youreself what you youreself have done to win youre customers loyalty. Perhaps it is the small things that allow you to get away with the big things. Surely I can not be only one who thinks that Apple charging for point upgrades makes MS constant upgrade or be obsolete cycle seem mild in comparison.
Any psychologist majors around who can explain this behaviour?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The Macintosh do seem more attractive to users (used?) that are not tech-savvy, and not just because it looks nice. The GUI has a certain flexibility and learning it is very straightforward. However, everyone learns it in their own way, and Mac users have all different habits.
So that explains Mac zealotry, since once you get used to using a Mac, going to Windows can be hard since it doesn't have the same usability features.
However, the same can be said about Windows - although it seems that it imposes its own way of doing things, it becomes natural once you are used to it. And when you try a mac, you complain that everything is missing. ^^
Mac OS X should be attractive to Windows users that wish to use some flavor of Unix but who doesn't want to give up a nice interface. But Apple loses in this crowd with the propietary hardware. I would have loved to build a machine with OS X, but I find the idea of buying overpriced hardware ridiculous (for the same price I can buy technically superior and esthetically equivalent components).
Of course for Linux enthusiasts, Apple is just another Microsoft. Don't forget that Steve Jobs once said "Microsoft succeeded in what we have tried to accomplish" (he also said that comparing Mac to PCs was ridiculous since PCs have already won - both quotes from the book "Apple Confidential").
The ENIAC Demo Competition
Linux is, from a technical standpoint, a superior operating system.
From a social standpoint, it all depends. Linux supports fewer commercial applications than does Windows; this emerges from the current state of the industry that if you want to market your software, you will write it for Windows.
This has nothing to do with the technical merits of Linux, and everything to do with economics as seen through the eyes of the businessmen who run software companies. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, and very difficult to resolve: the only way to stimulate a Linux market for games is to write games for Linux, and yet no one will do so because there isn't enough of a market!
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
my dad bought a Mac Plus in -86 (as i recall it) as he was publishing a small immigrant newpaper (for Polish people living in Sweden), and wanted to do it using DTP instead of traditional methods (does anyone remember how magazines where done before DTP?), and at about that time i started playing Larry and using my rudimentary english to type "use rope on balcony".
ever since, i've stuck to the platform since it's the one i know, and due to the experiences i had using Windows & DOS computers.
one reason why some macintosh users get so attached to their computers (like i used to be, before i began working as an apple technician and became a cynical and hateful bastard) could be childhood traumas loading the mouse drivers in DOS, and being ridiculed by Windows us'ders (actual quote: -Mac isn't a real computer, it's a toy. You don't have to type anything!) enhanced the feeling of being the underdog (which Apple has been branding towards ever since).
so yes, although there might not be much difference in GUI nowdays, nor functionality, i believe it's the brand image of Apple that keeps, and attracts new, users.
having said that, i'm hereby stating my intentions on actually learning more about computers than just how to ResEdit my way to others' MacAdmin passwords, and get a cheapass laptop running Linux and wardrive gothenburg.
"whaddayamean i can't play with myself? it's a fucking playground, isn't it?"
Windows NT had true multitasking, none of that memory allocation to each app crap, and was overall more stable (despite what Mac freaks say). Apple's OS was still basically a modified Andy Hertzfeld Switcher program. Hook into GetNextEvent and steal control and pass it to another program. Polling -- yack.
But this past summer I bought an iMac. What a beaut. Unix underneath it all, stable, runs well, a joy to use. Now I still have ah, two XP machines, one 2000 server, one Linux router/firewall, a laptop with XP, and one Linux workstation in the house (between my wife and I), and the iMac is in the living room on the coffee table, but my next laptop purchase will be a Mac, that's for sure.
Anyway, the claim that all Mac users stuck with Apple through bad times isn't true in my case. If they don't make a better product, I won't buy it. Right now, except for the dead-end processor chip they are currently stuck with, it's just a better product... (and if they don't put a G4 in the iBook this January, I won't be buying a crippled G3 iBook nor an over-priced G4 Powerbook.)
Yes, there are *some* Windows user groups, or at least gatherings where people assemble to discuss / bemoan their Windows software, but when it comes to true fan clubs, the Mac wins. (Linux wins, too -- it's not a one-winner competition :))
When I bought my first personally-owned Mac about 10 years ago, I discovered that there was an "Apple Pi" (I think that was the name) meeting in my town, and by going there a few times, I learned some valuable tips, bought shareware fonts (when shareware was nice), and was generally happy with things.
One reason I looked for a Mac user group is that I had a problem getting my modem to connect; the conclusion I came to is that -- wielding the broadest brush possible -- Mac problems are mostly interesting; Windows problems are mostly infuriating.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I swear, I'm so pissed off at Apple right now that if somebody wants to do an "I switched back" commercial I'll star in it. Last year I ordered a TiBook for Christmas, but didn't get it until February. This year, some on-line friends bought me an engraved 20Gb iPod as a thank-you present, but it arrived with a flakey hard drive so I had to send it back. According to the Apple "Support"(sic) web site, they verified the fault 4 days later and ordered a replacement, but here it is 30 days later and I still don't have my freaking iPod.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Yikes. The wired writer, and most of the posters here are looking at this enirely wrong. Wired is looking at the user's attachement to Apple. The ./s are looking at the user's attachement to a technology. Both miss the point.
Look at it this way. Dos and Unix were (are) command line driven. The text paradigm underlies everything. Macs were never text driven, always visual. You can divide the population very roughly into three instinctive communication/learning styles. Visual, text and aural. These styles correlate to many other personality types, cognitive styles, etc. Computers were invented by the text crew. The aural people have their phones. But for visual communicators, there is simply no alternative to the MAC. Sure there are enough similarities across all modern GUIs that there is some room for substitution. But the text derived systems betray their origins at ever turn.
That is why a comparison between the loyalty of Apple users and Dell users is ludicrous. Think if only one company made mice for left handers. Good or bad, that company would own the market. Comparing the loyalty of its customers to those of one of the right handed only mouse companies would profoundly miss the point. Same here. The user's devotion to Apple is beside the point. The Mac is much bigger than Apple.
This is, of course not to diss the command line derived approach. I use the CLI all the time for Linux, and suprisingly often in XP. But almost never in OSX. You can, but it never feels right.
Despite the unflinching moral declarations of the FSF, most users of so-called "Free Software" care about the gratis a heck of a lot more than the libre...
... hell, why not just say most people care much more about gratis than they do libre. To care about libre takes a lot more intelligence than to care about gratis. Everyone has to eat. Lots of stupid people want to buy all that pop culture crap and play Vice City. They're not going to make time to think about why software should be free (libre). God, our own crappy language has a hard time expressing these concepts!
Don't try to relegate this type of thinking to only users of so-called "Free Software." I think that most computer users
In the real world, every Linux-user I know has or wants to have a Mac--and they're not putting PPC Linux on them, they're leaving OSX as-is, save for adding a few utilities.
So what? Your world is not the real world. It's viewed through your own subjective, rose-colored lenses. In other words, your anecdotal evidence isn't meaningful.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Business decisions made by... former CEO Amelio! I read this as saying: "Even someone who makes as many bad business decisions as myself couldn't sink that ship with so many loyal users manning the pumps." One wonders how these people manage to find employment at the CEO level after comments like that.
AMF's mismanagement wasn't the only problem.
Harleys, until they began to be redesigned in the 1980s, were parts-compatible with Harleys built in the 1950s. You could take a part off of a brand-new Harley in 1975 and put it on a Harley built in the 50s and it would fit (as well as any Harley part has ever fit...). You can imagine the story that this tells, both from a design engineering perspective (you mean we should *update* our designs?) and from a manufacturing perspective (new tooling? But the designs are the same!).
In addition to antique designs and manufacturing, they also were getting their butts kicked by the Japanese who were producing throw-away priced bikes that needed near very low maintenance and had sports-car like performance, primarily due to their superior designs and suprerior manufacturing.
They've rebounded a lot, thanks to improved manufacturing and also due to improved engineering and designs. Emissions restrictions will eventually push them to liquid cooling for tighter tolerances.
Personally I can't help but think that it's still mostly marketing. Even the performance Harley, the Buell, is an embrassment in performance relative to the Japanense and Italian bikes. My 13 year old Kawi Concours will run circles around all but the newest and highest performance Buells, and is an *order of magnitude* more comfortable over long hauls than any H-D bike.
Windows 95 -> Windows 95 B certainly should have been a free upgrade. Windows 95 -> Windows 98, maybe, maybe not. It offered substantially more functionality. Windows 98 -> Windows 98 SE certainly should be, and it more or less is, if you are willing to sit through a lot of time with Windows Update.
Microsoft releases many point patches for their various operating system, though many of them are limited-release hotfixes, which is to say that you have to call microsoft and pay for support time or have a support contract with them (same thing) in order to get them. So, good, and bad.
Apple and Microsoft are both in the business of selling software. Apple just happens to also be in the business of selling hardware, so they get you coming and going. They get to drive new hardware releases of their platform, AND new software releases. This means that you are at their mercy. "Well, our new hardware which is twice is fast as out, and won't run the old OS, which you also must pay for." Sound familiar? The other Appleism is "Well our new OS is out, which you have to pay for, and by the way it won't run on your old though PowerPC macintosh. Even though it is based on the same 32 bit instruction set and has MORE instructions than the 603 which we also used lots of, we will not support operation on your PowerPC 601.
Remember, Apple and Microsoft are both evil companies. Apple is not supporting DRM (until they have to) because the people in their niche market (now two niche markets; people too stupid to use windows and people who want stable Unix on the desktop, plus I suppose a third niche of people with too much money who want a pretty case and a pretty GUI and don't care what OS they run) don't particularly want it, and it would cost them money to implement. If they had a more successful meme (As Microsoft did) then Apple would be in charge of computing, and they would be every bit as evil as Microsoft is.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I own two Apple computers, and, at times, I hate using them. The GUI is so inflexible.
People seem to have the opinion that Apples let you work the way you want to work. Well that's bollocks. The GUI forces you to use click-to-focus and an auto-raise window behaviour even if you've not used machines with that behaviour for all of your 17 years in the computing industry. I'm told that even MS Windows allows you to change that behaviour, if you want.
And that single menu thing sucks too. For example, right now I am using Mozilla on a second monitor attached to my Powerbook. If I want to access the menu for mozilla, I have to move the mouse over to the other screen to do so. How brain dead is that? If I had 20 monitors attached to it (if it could handle that, which I don't think any Apple can), then it would be impossible - not a bright policy for the future.
Then there's the fact that they made Aqua incompatible with X windows, when there are plenty of window managers out there which work just fine, thank you. Why didn't they use one like that? Instead they chose one which a pain to use. Sure you can get X window managers for it, but they don't work 'quite right' - like using 'x2x' for example.
Also, ever since I bought the things, it feels like I'm bleeding money! I thought I could use iMovie to edit movies I download from my ReplayTV, but, no, they have implemented a 2GB limit on importing files which forces me to buy a professional application (FCP), which does *way* more than I need. Then I find that iDVD won't work with 3rd party DVD-R/RW drives and Apple don't even supply a DVD-R/RW for the Powerbook (they do now, but that didn't help me back then).
Apple customer support sucks too, IMO. They should try calling Microsoft Mac support to see how it should be done. I called them for help with Powerpoint X and they gave me excellent support. Each time I call Apple support, unless it is something completely noddy, they are useless or refuse to help (like if I mention the word 'terminal' for example, their knee jerk reaction is to say "we don't support..." bla bla).
No, the only reason I use an Apple is that most applications are available for them (so they are useful) and they're not MS (political preference).
If the commercial apps were available for Linux, I would most certainly switch (back) to that...but they're not and the 'free' ones just don't cut it.
Max.
You know... reading this article made me laugh. It made me realize a logical contradiction that I myself and guilty of. Whenever Apple puts out a "new" product (e.g. the iPod or iMac) they are "innovators". Whenever Microsoft puts out a "new" product (e.g. XP MediaCenter Edition for MediaCenter PCs or the X-Box) they're the "evil empire" and obviously trying to crush all competition in that sector.
The funny thing is that no one accused Apple of trying to kill Creative with their iPod or trying to corner the home movie market with their DVD burning capabilities.
I know why Microsoft is treated the way they are... the recent article on the abismal losses in most of their business areas shows that they are using their monopolisitic powers in other sectors (office and OS) to buoy their newer sectors (entertainment) and thereby rent-seeking. I just think its funny as hell that Microsoft just can't get a break. I guess in the end it serves them right. :-)
I am a sys admin for a small company where I have to administer a couple of Novell servers, a Debian webserver, a Debian mail server, an NT Navision (POS but stable as hell) box and a bunch of non computer savy users. In order to make my job easier I got myself a Dell Inspiron laptop with XP Pro and it has worked just fine, supports all the proprietry apps and hasn't crashed once and is pretty fast. But windows, even XP, is just plainly so incredibly badly designed. I posted this before, but I'll say it again: Why oh why does Microsoft have to make network setup such a confusing mess? Why does Microsoft have to make the ability to look at mail headers hidden in view->options in a little hard to view box? There are many, many things like this that I am confronted with every day. So often in fact that I would get used to it if it wasn't for that I still have my old 333MHz G3 Powerbook chugging away with OSX on it at home.
The system preferences, all of them, are in one single place, in a thing on the dock called... system preferences. The buttons, window titles bars and other widgets are clear, big and don't fuck with millions of non consistent rollovers that work in some software in one way and in another in another way. One click of the terminal icon and I've got got a true shell at my fingertips, just like the two debian boxes at work. This is why people love it. Lots of people have their problems with the UI but very few of those claim that Windows is more consistent or easier to use.
I'm saving up now and will be getting my new G4Powerbook in January.
I have a dream application athat I've wanted to try writing for about two years now, and the tools, Project and Interface Builder, are there and don't cost any more. If the application is ever made it will probably only find a small audience, and only in the Mac world, since it's being written in ObjC, but I'm not doing it for the money. I'm doing it because I want to be able to make a useful tool and have fun doing it. On Windows, I can't do this.
Whether something is ``practical'' or not depends on what you want to practice. I, for one, want to practice freedom, efficiency, economy, self-improvement, privacy, peace of mind, and overall I want to practice enlightened self-interest. Linux fits the bill, Macinto$h does not, Micro$oft does not. Linux is the practical choice.
For what I want to practice, I am a very practical guy, so I use Linux. You may want to practice something else, so Linux may not be practical to you.
BTW: RMS is a very practical guy, too---he practices freedom. Perhaps you might find it instructive to ask yourself what do you practice.
All in all, I've been forced to use Macintoy$ now and then for a while now, so I have built an opinion: Mac$ SUCK. The new MACOS X sucks a little less, but that's because it's Unix.
But worst of all is the effect prolonged exposure to Mac$ has on the human mind; Mac$ make people stupid. Oh yeah, Mac$ are simple to use! What that means is that Mac$ are only fit for simple uses. Mac$ suck because they make people limit themselves to simple things. Get a few teenagers, introduce a group of them to Mac$ and another to Linux. Wait six months. See what kind of stuff each group is doing.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
"Apple is not supporting DRM (until they have to) because the people in their niche market (now two niche markets; people too stupid to use windows and people who want stable Unix on the desktop, plus I suppose a third niche of people with too much money who want a pretty case and a pretty GUI and don't care what OS they run) don't particularly want it, and it would cost them money to implement."
.DLL to a floppy without dropping to a DOS prompt. Now I hear that WinXP is one big ad for other Microsoft services(I have no interest in a closer look).
That's a rather offensive description of Mac users, and it doesn't fit any Mac users I know. Myself, I'm relatively poor, especially this year, have two AS degrees in IS, and have used computers of one type or other since 1981. The presence of UNIX under OS X is neither a huge plus or a minus, save that it adds the protected memory and preemptive multitasking that the classic MacOS has always lacked.
The MacOS has always been about a superior user experience for me, and I can have more fun on a Mac with no games on it than on a Windows PC with several A-list games. I used to consider Windows 3.1 to be DOSSHELL.EXE with better multitasking(relatively), and proprietary apps(Windows apps) when I was a DOS user. Win95 borrowed many Mac interface elements, but reversed many of them to avoid a lawsuit, making them counterintuitive, like the close box on the upper right corner when everyone else used the upper left. Later versions slowly began to look better while limiting what the user could do. Win98 wouldn't let me copy a
OS X does everything I need, with new shareware and freeware apps released by the score every day. When I have time, I'll learn more about the UNIX prompt and perhaps try more opensource software. It also runs quite well on this three year old iMac, aside from a hardware flaw in the video memory that makes 3D games freeze.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
I think this article is a crock of *&*& I think large portions of Mac's traditional Market demographic are currently moving to windows in droves.
My father has been an avid Mac user for the past 20 years and in the last years he's acquired a laptop with Windows XP. He loves it. And whats more he hates OS-X and won't move to it from OS 9.0.
In the last few years I think Apple has a made a move away from their original user base and is now target the Open Source community for a new user base to carry them into the next millenia.
Indicators that they have made this move were the abandoning of the old OS for a system based on freebsd and their recent very impressive push into the server market supplying a highly extensible easily installable server system, clearly targeting Sun's Solaris market.
Why would Apple abandon it's desktop users pursue a line that puts them directly in competition with Sun ?.... Hmmmm oh yea thats Microsoft is the largest shareholder of apple.
Funny how some of us see that the other way around. I look at Windows users and see people too stupid to know not to use Windows.
Sterotypes. Get past them and your post makes sense. Stick with them and you tempt your readers to throw out the good points with the pointless.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Yes, zealots ARE attracted to non-mainstream choices... generally a matter of self-validation -- IOW people with severe psych problems finding a way to feel good about themselves. We see it in droves here every time a pro/con linux argument erupts... but in those arguments, the linux zealots don't feel the need to "-1, Troll" EVERY comment that they *think* is a putdown. Which is what happens in EVERY Apple-oriented discussion I've seen here. You *can't* make an honest statement of negative opinion to a Mac zealot without getting burned at the stake. (It's the same in Real Life, BTW.)
But the Mac world's typical blind loyalty is more like (as the article pointed out) followers of a cult religion. "What? You insult my god?? I'll have your head on a pike!!"
As to the argument about file formats etc. -- well, I'm "old" enough to remember when online access was for the select few, and in many areas was only available to *Mac* users on early AOL. It was annoying, but it certainly didn't engender hatred of those select few. And another thing -- why are YOU entitled to hate ME because YOU choose a format that is not successful in the open market? That's parallel to saying that we should protect the RIAA's business model, because otherwise they'll hate us for leaving them in the dust.
Well, if nothing else, this has served to inform me that (despite OS X finally being enough of a real OS to attract my attention) the Mac will NEVER be a viable choice for myself or my clients.
See, Mac zealots, you aren't converting people by these kneejerk putdown reactions. You're just confirming the concept that Mac-loving is a cult with no basis in usability or sense.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?