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The Cult of Mac
The form and structure of the book is a cross between a Wired magazine (for which Kahney has long written on Apple) and a coffee table book. There are great pictures of people, machines and art to appeal to the eye. Some pages are all pictures, while others are primarily text -- most are a combination of the two. The layout is always attractive. If this were a book from Apple, the style would be cleaner and there would be less emphasis on the past; this book is from and for the fans, though, so the style is more edgy and chaotic.
The book is divided into five large sections. The first covers the Macintosh itself, its users, its evangelists, and a little of its history. Including, to my amusement, but not surprise, its connection with pot, which occupies three pages. Wozniak is covered lovingly, and Jobs is painted with the same awe, love and hate brush that the community uses. Leander even covers the TV and movie Macintosh spotting, where the good guys always use Macs and the bad guys always use PCs.
Section two takes us into the MacWorld phenomenon. The secrecy, the crazy crowds, the keynote -- the whole shebang. We also get a look into the Mac phenomenon in Japan.
The final three sections are the most interesting to the hardware lovers. Section four covers modifying the Macintosh, futuristic designs, and the variety of things that have been built from dead Macs. The fourth section is about collecting Macintoshes; there is an excellent image here of a reception desk built entirely of old Mac Classics. Some attention is also paid to the devotees of Apple tsotchkes -- the shirts, the pins, the shoes, and other logo-branded novelties.
The final section is all about what comes next. Here Leander covers the iPod and its subculture, as well as the ongoing cultural battle between Microsoft users and the Mac world. The author even goes so far as to associate the construction of the swivel head iMac to that of a newborn baby to justify our attachment to it. And that makes my Powerbook a what?
There is a lot of great material in this book just to flip through, or to sit down for an enjoyable read. For the technically minded, there is nothing here to help you write better code or get more out of the operating system. This is a book about a culture, its icons, its people, and its ideology.
I can't recommend this book for a PC person, Unless he's interested in learning about the phenomenon or becoming part of it, I doubt there is much he'd interesting in this book. A PC user uses his machine to perform a task and thinks little of the machine itself. A Mac, on the other hand, is a key component of an integrated lifestyle. If you don't live the lifestyle and you care to know more about it, then check out the book. Otherwise, you might as well skip it.
As a Mac enthusiast myself I really enjoy this book. I started programming on the Macintosh with the first 128K machine, took a hiatus on Windows for a couple of years, and switched back with OS X. I've been to a MacWorld and seen some of the phenomenon first-hand. But it's nice to see it catalogued here in such an attractive, nicely constructed, well-written book.
In the early days of Apple versus Microsoft we had a real culture war, command line versus GUI. Windows won. Which is bad because Mac is, IMHO, better. But the Windows victory does allow us in the Mac camp to revel in our own individuality. This book is a fun way for new and old Mac fans alike to share in the common insanity which is our somewhat unrealistic love for this computer and it's company.
I'm certainly glad this book came out before Christmas. Now I know what I am going to give a couple of my fellow Macaddicts.
Reviewer Jack Herrington authored Code Generation in Action, and edits the Code Generation Network. You can purchase The Cult of Mac from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
WTF? Certainly PC users don't care about the machine.
Fucking Mac snobs.
This is where the culture comes in bringing in a sense of loyalty to the product you use. I don't feel like PC users have that same phenomenon and maybe if they understood it they wouldn't rant and piss and flame on here about price differences and single mouse buttons.
As a mac user, btw, I'd like to say that there are so many stereotypes that are simply not true about many Mac users.
I'm constantly amazed by how many stereotypes there are of Macintosh users, and it's actually quite offensive sometimes. "Oh, you're a MAC GUY, I see....our PCs aren't GOOD ENOUGH for you" is what invariably follows. Most of the time, I politely side-step platform-preference questions now, because of the assumptions and image people place on me when they learn I'm a mac user are just so goddamn tiresome.
Please help metamoderate.
Ah, the classic "get a life" business. What kind of life do you have in mind? Passions are what make life interesting. Some people obsess over sports, some over Macs, some over Star Trek, some over toy trains-- they have lives. People who obsess over other people have lives too. People who go around criticizing any show of exuberance as juvenile...well, I'm not sure about them.
Planning on making a trip to Boston this weekend, to tell everyone here how they should "get a damn life, it's only a baseball team, they're not a church or anything"?
No PC user on this earth is more rabid than the devoted PC gamer. Rabid in many good ways, to be sure. But part of that then is probably the huge expense they sink into systems, like $600 video cards.
Paying a little bit more for a Mac over a PC does not look nearly so extreme compared to that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Some of us just don't like Windows much -- though I personally use Mac and Windows both...as well as Linux, though due to reliability issues and the presence of a good version of Word I use the Mac for all my school stuff.
;)
Though I will confess that I do tell others to get a Mac -- though mainly when they complain about their Windows PCs. Then they'll shut up about Windows, I have enough trouble with Windows on my Windows boxes at home, but also have a geek reputation and therefore have to take up some of the aspects of the Rabid Mac Zealot (but not the tattoos!) in order to sort of get people not wanting me to fix their Windows machines. I'll still help them to the best of my ability, just mention the Mac while I do it -- and that position may change if and when Longhorn starts turning up, because I'm probably not going to be getting too familiar with it. Plus, I like my friends to not have as many computer problems -- the actual emotion at the heart of the much-touted "evangelism." Yeah, you heard it here; plain old altruism for your friends' nerves, spouses, and pocketbooks, of the sort that has existed since time immemorial, is the reason some people tell others to get a Macintosh.
The actual Mac lifestyle, if there is one, is actually the lifestyle of there not being a Mac lifestyle, but rather just a state of not having to worry so much about whether the computer will work (unless it's particularly old, of course). As has been said in this thread, there's actually a bigger problem with the need for a Windows lifestyle...and has been recounted, the Windows zealots who will treat those who choose to use a Mac as pariah.
There are those who go to conferences to see Steve Jobs and stuff, and if it were convenient for me to see Jobs I'd probably do it for much the same reason I'd go see Clinton -- an interesting speaker discoursing on an interesting topic, worth attending for the sheer oratorical value of it. Cicero and Clay are dead, someone's gotta fill their shoes.
But you know, I think I've just wasted a lot of time yammering -- let me check MacRumors
I know what you mean.
Up a couple of years ago, I didn't have much use for macs. I thought they were pretty machines, but they just didn't feel all that useful to me. Since '95, I've generally leant heavily towards Linux systems, built from parts. I bought a blueberry iBook as an experiment, but I didn't think it was suitable for my purposes. I ended up giving it to my parents, who never touched it. I ended up selling it on Ebay.
But when they came out with OS/X, things changed. I got an iBook, and it was perfect for me. I really liked it. I ended up getting my folks an eMac, which solved their virus/trojan problem instantly. And, I found that just about anything I might want to do was there.
OS/X was the turning point for the company, I think. Their older OSes were pretty limited, but this one is great, top notch. And, my iBook rules, I use it as my main computer at home. Nothing else is as smooth to use, as refined. I really dig it.
But like you said, I like it because of what it is NOW. I didn't like their older stuff.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!