November 29, 2004
why i prefer windows to macintosh
Why I prefer Windows to Macintosh:
I know, I know, I’m a “creative”. I’m supposed to prefer Macintosh. However:
1. I spent 15 years in advertising, surrounded by Macintoshes and Macintosh lovers. After a while they both got annoying.
2. After you reach a certain age you start resenting being told to “think different” by rich, khaki-wearing Californians. Especially when you already know how to think differently, thank you very much.
3. There is a new, annoying trend in tailoring of sewing the tailor’s label on the outside. The wearer thinks he is being cool and hip, when in fact the message he is sending out is “I know nothing of suits, tailoring or anything of substance, really. I’m a clueless nonentity who’s desperate to be taken seriously by his equally unremarkable hipster peers.”
Metaphorically, Apple wears its label on the outside. And it appeals to people who do likewise.
4. Steve Jobs really wants to be in the movie business. So do all his customers.
5. The fact that if I write anything even remotely negative about Macintosh means I’ll have these saddo no-life Mac users start sending me hate mail.
6. If Apple had a human voice, it would sound like Douglas Coupland.
7. A big part of Apple’s income comes from reinforcing the idea to impressionable, young people that it is entirely possible to make a great living without ever having to get a real job.
8. For six months this year, I had an iMac at work and a 5-year-old second hand Dell at home. I prefered using the Dell.
9. If Windows disappeared tomorrow, somebody else would come along and fill their shoes without a lot of fuss. If Macintosh disappeared tomorrow, we’d have all these mass-gathering candlelight vigils, with everybody singing “Imagine”.
10. When I was in high school, people who were overly into hipster brands were routinely taken behind the bike sheds and savagely pummeled. That is the natural order of things.
“The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilised being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.”
Oscar Wilde
What do you think ? or do I just think to much ?
I think Oscar Wilde knew a thing or two
The funny thing is you seem far more obsessed with the ‘allure’ of the Mac than the machine itself… maybe being a marketing person does that to people
And what’s up with point#7? Most mac users are richer than their PC-using counterparts.
(Personally, when I think ‘think different’, I think open source.)
When I “think different” I think Tablet PC.
“2. After you reach a certain age you start resenting being told to “think different” by rich, khaki-wearing Californians. Especially when you already know how to think differently, thank you very much.”
I live in Texas, and my favorite city in the state, if not the country, is Austin.
Yet I could never live there amongst all the rabble wearing T-shirts that say “Keep Austin Weird.”
There is nothing sadder than mass indivdualism.
(But you’ll pry my Ipod from my cold, dead hands.)
I must say that I’ve come to respect you after some time reading your blog, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree.
Now OS 9 and before, I wasn’t ever too impressed with. I poo-poohed them from my lofty Wintel tower (this was before I switched to using Linux).
As a UNIX user, a scientist, and someone who just has to get things done, OS X is the best OS I’ve used, hands down. I’ve used a lot of them.
It just stays out of the way and lets you do your thing. Everything else is automatic, more or less. Is the culture sometimes annoying? Sure, but that’s something I can live with for the product.
I have a beast of a Linux machine that I use at home to get work done and what have you, but it’s a great feeling every time I pick up my powerbook and know that everything will go smooth as glass.
OK hes whimsical at times but whats so bad about Douglas Coupland?
What’s wrong with using a system that you don’t have to constantly worry about spyware and viruses?
I didn’t enjoy trying to clean it all out of my Mother’s Windows computer this weekend. After a few hours of effort I stopped and gave up to let my brother deal with it. It doesn’t have to be Mac, which I do enjoy it, there is also Linux for those so inclined.
It’s like any biological system Hugh if you only have one major species a vermin or virus can easily sweep through the envirnoment. As example the Chestnut blight in New England during the early 1900s. Operating system diversity promotes a more stable environment.
“8. For six months this year, I had an iMac at work and a 5-year-old second hand Dell at home. I prefered using the Dell.”
Right there, there’s the whole story. If it was the other way around, you’d have more reason to feel the opposite.
Hugh. You’re doing what I call a “Dvorak”: Anytime John Dvorak seems lonely for links, he bashes Mac users (or bloggers other than himself) and waits for a tsunami of inbound links from the Macosphere. Then for 48 hours or so, he shoots to the top of “what people are talking about” meters like the DayPop Top 40.
It’s fine to prefer PC to Mac. It’s really what gets the job done for you. But if I had to recommend a new machine to someone new who didn’t have some heavyweight superuser to back them up, I’d recommend Mac every time. The reason? A clueless user is *not* going to get infected within 10 minutes of going on the Internet the first time on a Mac. On a Windows box, you just can’t take that for granted.
Despite many years of education, everyone remains a individual, the way you interact with computers is just as individual. The preferences are mostly personal; as both operating systems will get the task you need achieved. However, what I think is very sad is the lack of choice, Windows or Mac and maybe Unix. With more choice we could discuss the merits with out a polarized and emotive discussion.
I use both systems and have a preference, but that is my personal problem! Enjoy your Dell.
Vic
I know these things:
1.) Donnie Mac is a schmaht cookie.
2.) Hugh is no slouch, either.
3.) If someone else is buyin’, I’ll drink whatever’s being poured. On my dime, it’s Mac.
Considering your views on branding, I’m amused that you focus solely on the branding here. I must admit, however, I’m not an Apple fan, but a Mac OS X fan.. nothing beats a usable UNIX desktop.. and if Linux provided that on x86, I’d use that instead.
The days we have a x86 UNIX that runs Photoshop, has Expos
The thing that makes me smile is that if tomorrow I dissed Windows — none of my Windows based nerdy friends would give a toss — the fact a post like this stirs such emotions suggests that hugh has a point! ;0) Oh, and looking at the ‘new’ U2 iPod I can’t help thinking that even Apple are in danger of scacrificing cool for comercial .… and in any case everyone knows that for sound quality and a better battery deal Creative have it in the bag! And finally, on the Linux front — as someone who started off on the Commodore 64 then Amiga 1200 — face it — it’s for nerds with a capital N!
I was at a launch of a research report last week. As an example of increasing individualism an Apple Mac was shown. I use Macs for usability reasons, but Apple is less individual now than almost any other brand. If someone could create an MP3 player as easy to use as the iPod (ie with the simplicity and smoothness of iTunes) I would happily get something more individual.
ha ha. I find the uproar of the Mac user comments rather amusing. I’ve only used a mac a few times at college (yep, i’m a creative type too) and the lack of right mouse click really narked me. Other than that, im not bothered about which (except when im at college i get “that look” when i say my computer’s a dell.. ha ha)
I would argue that Macs are less individual than PCs simply because with a Mac you’re buying something put together by the one company. They know the components and hence it just works. With a PC the open architecture means you can build a machine that does whatever you want it to, but at the cost of making it harder to get the bits to connect properly.
I don’t mind one way or the other. I use Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. OS X being a Unix was a major selling point for me there. But then I am a nerd.
I had a job this summer where I had to use mac’s due to it being an ‘arts organisation’. EEEEAFFFFAFSDDDAAAAAAAAAAGGGG!!
effing things broke down all the time, the effing things could do things in the morning but NOT IN THE AFTERNOONS. I was this close to being the mad woman who shoves computer through second floor window.
I LOVE WINDOWS
I LOVE BILL GATES
and in anycase my IT dept aka dad refuses to service macs. With a piece of machinery I want it to work and work on a semi regular basis. To the person whinging about viruses get norton or macfee and update each day you log on. It works!
All the mac lovers appear to me more the deluded members of a cult than actually being able to explain the superiority of the machine.
I had a job this summer where I had to use mac’s due to it being an ‘arts organisation’. EEEEAFFFFAFSDDDAAAAAAAAAAGGGG!!
effing things broke down all the time, the effing things could do things in the morning but NOT IN THE AFTERNOONS. I was this close to being the mad woman who shoves computer through second floor window.
I LOVE WINDOWS
I LOVE BILL GATES
and in anycase my IT dept aka dad refuses to service macs. With a piece of machinery I want it to work and work on a semi regular basis. To the person whinging about viruses get norton or macfee and update each day you log on. It works!
All the mac lovers appear to me more the deluded members of a cult than actually being able to explain the superiority of the machine.
I would argue that Macs are less individual than PCs simply because with a Mac you’re buying something put together by the one company. They know the components and hence it just works. With a PC the open architecture means you can build a machine that does whatever you want it to, but at the cost of making it harder to get the bits to connect properly.
I don’t mind one way or the other. I use Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. OS X being a Unix was a major selling point for me there. But then I am a nerd.
Wow to windows.…
Computers are tools for the task you want to a.c.c.o.m.p.l.i.s.h. (why can’t I post that word???). You say nothing about the Mac’s ability to fulfill the requirements you have — you just babble about social issues and non-issues. What gives?
So much whining, not much substance…
Surprised to hear this from you Hugh, especially because Mac is the bestest
Apple Manifesto — Here
Well, I’m a little sad that you’re focusing on the style and not the substance. I guess you’ve declared yourself counter-counter-culture, huh?
I’m an electrical engineer, and I’m often impressed by their ingenuity. I like that they come up with genuinely new and better ways of designing old-hat things, such as power bricks.
As far as I’m concerned all the other mac and pc users can do their own thing, I’ll be using OS X when I can, and suffering through windows when I can’t.
I’d say, rebellion for the sake of rebellion is a mindless as conformity for the sake of conformity. I hope you’ve got some substantive reasons for not liking the mac, rather than just distaste for the culture.
P.S. Great blog. This is probably our first disagreement.
If “different” is WHAT you rather than HOW you think, then appending the adverb ending “ly” would be wrong. (Then again, so would be leaving the comma and quotation marks off of the thought directive, but I can only be needlessly pedantic about one thing at a time.)
Regarding #3, “There is a new, annoying trend in tailoring of sewing the tailor’s label on the outside” — when i first noticed this i just quietly assumed that those labels are for in-store presentation and are supposed to be removed before actually wearing the suit. I mean tailor’s labels on the outside of a suit? Nobody in his right mind would wear that, right? They can’t be intended to be left on there…
AFAIK, the label near the cuff has always been there and, yes, there has always been the understanding that it was to be removed before actually wearing the jacket. Two sorts would not have been aware of this — those whose custom has always been bespoke tailoring, and those who have not worn a suit they hadn’t borrowed for a wedding/funeral. I suspect the ones wearing the labels proudly belong to the latter category.
Hi,
well, I don’t care if you don’t like Macs. I use both Mac and Windows, but for me it’s not worth writing such an article about a OS I don’t like.
If I “think different”, I don’t think about computers at all, btw.
–Mo.
wow.
the article was a nice read and failed to motivate a response from me — but the other posts — wow.
i think the best thing i noticed was spamming in the posts by a windows user. sometimes called ‘m’ sometimes called ‘khbrown’ always a windows user. take a look a few posts up from me. look for identical posts from those two users. wow. ‘they’ posted a few non-identical posts too. i think this sort of reaction is mildly insane — as though the poster really thinks that she will feel better in this world if just a few people accept her remarks. wow.
and as she said, “Wow to Windows…”. truly. no other company as faced such defeat and still been able to sell their product with undeniable success. defeat? yes, defeat.
microsoft has been beaten on many fronts. they have been bested by other operating system vendors — many companies produce better systems. but they still sell. they have been bested by the government — but they still practice those acts decided by the judge to be illegal. shall i continue? no. you get the point. they have been beaten and still get up to fight on.
microsoft is the highschool nerd who laughed in the face of their bully, spitting toilet water back at them (and i dont mean perfume). microsoft fights on despite losing every battle but one. marketing, and the politics surounding it.
i bought my first apple machine 4 weeks ago. i’m no zealot. i think that says enough. i use it — it doesn’t matter. macOSX being a unix system actually makes me nervous. unix is designed to get lots of stuff done quickly. this is called throughput. but latency is what really matters on a desktop machine. unix just wasn’t designed for this. i wont argue as to whether it delivers the performance i want despite its design, but i was nervous buying it simply because it IS A UNIX.
there are three views to every situation:
1. my view
2. your view
3. the truth
1. my view is that microsoft really sucks the life out of computers. there is nobody more responsible for my decision to quite working on PC’s professionally than Bill Gates. i said ‘goodbye’ to 6 years of being the PC guru who could fix anything (and charge anything) because i got SICK and TIRED of fixing microsoft’s blunders. those new to the industry love it. it means there are a few things to learn and pow! — you can earn a living. learn all about it though and you start to cringe whenever a client you really like calls up and says “the screen is bright blue and there is white text at the top, what did i do”?
2. your view: well, there are a lot of ‘you’s out there. so take the windows zealot first. you’re an idiot. now the mac zealot. you’re an idiot too. unix? idiots. non-zealots? ahh…ok. not so stupid. you come closer to the truth with every emotion you release. non-zealots likely agree with most of what they’ve read in all of the posts so far. i cant argue with them.
3. the truth. nothing matters. eventually we will all die, everything will break. the cosmos will either tear away from itself or collapse onto a single point. by that time none of this matters. oh — you thought i meant truth for today? ok, fine: the only reasonably designed operating system that i have had the pleasure of using was BeOS. (and i dare you to find an OS i haven’t used for considerable time). so the truth is that BeOS is the best operating system. but you cant buy it anymore. microsoft beat them up for 10 years and eventually they weren’t able to pull their own head out of the toilet anymore. palm was there and pulled their head out for them — for a price. palm owns everything that once was BeOS. que sera sera. maybe haiku-os will be loved by all once it is finished (a wonderfully coordinate effort to remake BeOS almost exactly as it was).
i supose i can shut up now.
–jared
ps. to all you microsoft zealots out there, just one more ppppppFFFFFFtttttt! before i go. (thats me spitting at you)
no viruses, not an ugly operating system, apple actually seems to give a shit about their current OS unlike the other company who is sole focused on the one coming out in 2006/07, and comes with lots of great useful software. And it never crashes.
come on dude, you just sound bitter.
I just bought an iMac G5 for my house, and got rid of my windows Machine.
I use Windows and Linux at work (programmer)
I find the Apple to be more fun to use, whereas Windows is business as usual.
There are certain things I still like more about Windows, but I think that is just years of use and habit.
The Apple is sleek, it does video better than windows and I find the base programs that come on the apple to be superior to windows (i.e; iMovie of Windows Movie Maker, iPhoto over windows My Pictures, iTunes over anything else.)
I’ve even got Microsoft Word for OS X.
all in all, I think they both have their place and design.
THANK YOU!
We have this rant on a weekly basis, and we are a creative shop!
The insanity of the brain-washed, toy lovin’ Mac cult must end. Thanks for the illuminating post.
Could you define “real job”? I’m pretty interested in knowing which ones are or aren’t.
ahhhh, they are both computational machines that do what we tell them to the way we tell them to…
i personally use both/either w/out pause…
when they break and do strange things — i help them get better, which is both annoying and fun, but they both do it well (break & then recover that is)…
is being bi-computational so bad — not in my world
oh yeah — i thoroughly enjoy your world too hugh, keep it coming :-p
I agree with the poster who chastised you for focussing on the cultural and not the substantive. The closest you came to providing a legitimate reason was your comment about using an iMac and a Dell at the same time, but even then you didn’t followup with a single aspect in which the Dell was superior … only that you “preferred” it. Not exactly a convincing argument.
As for your final point … you should be bloody ashamed of yourself for that one Hugh. How many other non-mainstream kids got “pummeled” behind that bike shed? Maybe a few gay kids? A couple of racial minorities perhaps? Natural order my ass.
I’ve been meaning to cut back on the number of blogs I read and I think I’ve just found the first one to cut. And incidentally … I do not now, have never and probably will never have a desire to be in the movie business.
PS: I don’t use Macs exclusively, but I appreciate them for the tools that they are … just like Windows or Linux PCs they are good at some things, not so good at others. If you believe any different you’ve just exchanged one flavor of Kool-Aid for another.
I second Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie: “Every OS Sucks.”
* Windows is buggy as all hell.
* Macs are a pain to use at times (sweet Jesus, you should see the ones I have to use where I volunteer– painfully buggered, and they’re new), and don’t have as much offered for them.
* Linux isn’t all that great for beginners unless you have a Linux guru around to lead you by the hand through customization. And program finding is even more of a pain.
They all have their PITA quirks. Hugh, you get my cheers for fessing up to not worshipping the Mac like everyone else. I’m sorry, but I’ve used them off and on for years and I still haven’t fallen in love with the things. At least with Windows, while it’s a crockup, I can find the programs I need.
Your about to lose me dude.
Stick to the comedy.
How to revive a flagging blog: Post that you dislike the Mac.
This place used to be full fo great content. Nowadays I have to ask you: “Where’s the beef?”. Gapingvoid seems to be little more then the prequel for the author’s real goal — to be yet another business guru publishing a book a year.
Sorry Hugh, but for me it looks like you’ve sold out.
“This place used to be full of great content.”
Sorry, Adam, it’s just shit content from now on.
Profit!!!
Owned both; work with both. Mac problems almost non-exsistant. Windows, problems every day. Worms, virii, junk e-mail, pop-ups, spam, you name it. Sounds like working with people smarter than you made you self-destructive and resentful of your superiors. Too bad for you.
This thread deeply amuses me, for some reason or other. You’re conducting some sort of experiment, aren’t you?
Some vague and subjective comments on your blog illicit 40+ comments implying (for whatever reason) “you’re wrong” on behalf of Apple. And that’s without even trying.
If you’re right about the future of advertising (such as it is) being conversation, I fully expect Apple’s PC market share to explode over the next few years.
I’m not sure you’re wrong, either. Although I am somewhat doubtful over its general replicacy (if that’s a word).
I like you cartoons but I always wondered why they weren’t funny. Owning a Dell goes a long way toward explaining why you still doodle on cocktail napkins for a living.
Bitter much?
Mac sucks! Great entry. Woe to those who suck at the Jobs great, corporate teat.
I use Wintel as work…because I have to. I use Macintosh at home and in my home business…because I want to. There’s the rub – Wintel is about need, and Macintosh is about desire. As Alan Cooper explains the difference, “I need time off…but I want to go to the Bahamas.”
I’d rather meet my desires over my needs at any time. Too, as a UX/tech writer, anything I need to do I can do with my Mac, be it Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Photoshop, Canvas, or Internet. Too bad short-sighted biz-types just can’t see that.
First Mac I worked on was a Lisa; the whole concept appealed to me, a total right-brainer. I now go back and forth from a PC to a Mac throughout my day. I prefer the Mac hands down (partly because my Mac, running OSX, doesn’t crash a tenth as often as the windows-based PC at work). For some strange reason, I always feel like DOS (a pox upon humanity) is happening in the background when I use a PC.Maybe it’s just all in my head — I know those stupid c-prompt commands are still rattling around in my brain.…
Oh yeah, and as geeks go, Steven Jobs is way cooler than Bill Gates (like I really need to point that out).
Wow, Russell Beattie’s theory about blogging about Apple to get traffic is proven yet again!
“Wow, Russell Beattie’s theory about blogging about Apple to get traffic is proven yet again!”
Yeah. Spooky how effective it is.
Pointless Bitterness Re: Apple
GapingVoid lists his reasons for hating Apple. My favorite: After you reach a certain age you start resenting being told…