By Seb Janacek, 17 April 2008 15:44
COMMENT
On the 10th anniversary of his Damascene conversion from the PC to the way of the Mac, Seb Janacek reflects on what it is that made him the sad little geek he is today.
Mac bashers fall back on the same old arguments to justify the alleged superiority of PCs. Mac advocates do the same, of course.
The old battle has itself become a cliché but it has endured more than 25 years of bickering and we seem to be stuck with it.
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Addressing all the arguments is pointless, grounded as they are for the most part in subjectivity. But perhaps the most common allegation hurled in the general direction of Macs is that they laud form over function.
This criticism always bothered me. Partly because it seems to be a shortcut to a proper criticism of Apple products but mostly because it ignores the obvious point that form and function needn't be mutually exclusive.
If you're the sort of person who goes around making this kind of accusation, then it may be that your choice of personal technology is lacking in either one or the other of both, which is too bad.
But it's still your choice. If you decide to be some kind of technology ascetic, so be it.
Apple is famous for putting an emphasis on eye-catching design. Its hardware and software, its case designs for laptops, desktops and other computers form the focus of its marketing. It does this for the large part without any reduction in the user experience.
Certainly, there are a couple of Macs in the Apple stable that have been guilty of positioning form above function. The Cube is a recent example. Other than that, the form-over-function accusation is hollow.
Like the Oscar-winning actress who is never taken seriously because she's beautiful, the Mac is considered inferior to its shabbier peers because it happens to come in a well-designed case with an eye-candy operating system environment.
The emotional design argument is well known. It goes along the following lines: products that are aesthetically pleasing work better because we find them more pleasing and therefore they provide a better user experience.
The general idea behind emotional design - proposed by cognitive scientist and technology professor Donald Norman - is that emotions have an important effect on how we interact with things and products and how we understand them and their functions.
Products that are aesthetically pleasing are at least perceived to be more effective than ones that are not.
The iPhone is a great example of this. At this year's Mobile World Congress Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin admitted the rest of the industry was now playing catch-up with Apple following the widespread adulation of touchscreen display and feature integration.
Critics pointed to the lack of Exchange support as a major flaw with the iPhone, yet this has been resolved through a deal with Microsoft.
The lack of 3G was also criticised, though this may be as much to do with clever marketing as it is with allegations of poor battery performance. It is a full-featured device, albeit a bit expensive.
A recent description of the iPhone interface on the website of usability guru Bruce Tognazzini sums it up neatly for me. The iPhone is a 'study in delight'.
The concept of taking delight in technology or the advocacy of the principles of sexy computing are central to the tenets of emotional design in technology and are scoffed at by some. After all, these are just gadgets.
It may be a slightly embarrassing admission but in case you didn't notice we are subsumed in technology and the geeks have taken over - so why not accept it?
Of course, the real problems with our emotionally resonant products occur when the usability and device functionality turn out to be derisory.
However, with the Macs I've owned this problem has never been applicable. The Macs don't suffer in comparison with other computers because they look good.
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Comments
There are 13 comments. Join the discussion
1. James
My only two problems with Macs:
1. You mention form over function, by merging the computer and the screen together in the iMac you limit both devices and keep the user from upgrading either should their needs change, without upgrading the whole system.
2. Price. I would have chose a Mac last Nov, but I wanted a quad core computer and to get that from Apple I would have spent $3,000. Instead I bought a PC and spent less than half. That included a 22in monitor, a extra hard drive and upgrading the RAM and spyware protection. I now have a bulletproof system and have an extra $1,500 in my pocket. But hey if you like spending extra money to have a invisible experience then more power to you.
2. Mick Mooney
My first Mac, a 533Mhz single CPU, replaced a 1GHz Windows desktop. It did everything faster and more smoothly than its predecessor. The bundled software passed along by the previous owner also saved a lot of money compared with what I would have had to pay to add similar functionality to my Windows machine. Something a lot of people overlook.
3. Pete Jones
If it's an old and subjective battle. Why are you perpetuating it? Get over it.
4. Richard
I last tried a Mac in 1986 - time to try again?
I bought my first DOS PC because I needed to be compatible with the software and OS used in my industry.
My previous non-DOS computer had been much more pleasant, secure and effective, but although it could run a PC emulator, it was not really compatible.
These days, I use whatever works - including several flavours of Linux.
With a desktop PC, appearance is not an issue: I see only the screen and keyboard - both are easily replaceable.
With a laptop, for me the screen, keyboard and perhaps the mouse are far more important than appearance. Obviously, weight and size are also important.
But most interactions are with the software applications.
For me, a computer is just a means of running the required software.
Finally, I do wish that Apple iTunes would stop disrupting my PC. I was unlucky enough to win an iPod. I therefore had to load iTunes. This has caused no end of trouble.
When I tried to remove iTunes, it sulked and stole the DVD drive until I relented and reinstalled iTunes.
It continues to cause trouble and needs frequent security updates - now with the extra annoyance of Apple trying to sneak Safari onto my PC.
Perhaps when WinXP SP3 arrives, I'll bin the horrid iPod and the awful iTunes software?
5. Simon
"I last tried a Mac in 1986 - time to try again?"
That about sums up the entrenched attitudes Seb talked about ! It's about the same as me saying "I last tried Windows in 1986 - has it changed ?" - only in existing and being able to access gigabytes of memory instead of just 640k !
There's a big gap between the Mini (modest spec) and Pro (far from modest price) for example - ie there's no mid range machine that is a) modular (use your own monitor) and b) has at least one PCI slot of some sort.
There's lots of things I don't like about OS X, and about the way Apple is learning rapidly from Microsoft about this "control the user" business.
But on the whole, it's far better (or far less bad depending on your viewpoint) than the alternatives. An attractive and usable GUI, a very capable command line, and of course a lot of very capable software thanks to it's unix heritage.
6. anonymous
1/2 the hardware at x2 the price
7. Richard A
...Yeah but twice the software at half the price. Installed.
(cf"1/2 the hardware at x2 the price")
8. Richard
Sorry Simon, perhaps I wasn't clear:
Those Macs in 1986 were bought to run one very specific business program. They performed well: In 4 to 5 hours, they'd produce results which had previously taken the "mainframe" a whole weekend.
Perhaps my next computer will be a Mac, but my bad eyesight would prevent me from using their normal white or shiny metal keyboards or laptops. I'd also need a non-reflective screen. (Mac & Sony screens often look shiny.)
Apart from my large investment in Windows software and accessories - which would probably be useless with Vista - I am happy to use whatever computer hardware or operating system runs the required applications; effectively, reliably... and economically.
9. Don Tregartha
You may be missing one more thing...
I've never thrown a Mac away. My oldest machine, a Powermac pizza box, bought in 1994 still works as a mail server. We've an iMac that archives CDs. Yes, I've given them away to save space, but they still do what they originally did really well.
PCs of only two or three years' vintage are earmarked for landfill just because they won't run Vista. Which is the most cost-effective now?
10. Markus Karlsson
The iPhone has very weak hardware which the operating system does much to compensate for by hiding all the elments that it doesn't do.
I'm looking forward to the next generation handset but the truth is that users of the current iPhone either haven't experienced a good handset previously or are forgiving of the severe compromises that they are making.
To say that form over function doesn't happen any more is quite clearly ignoring the 'too thin to be a door stop' Air which is one of the weakest and most overhyped devices this year.
It is also interesting to read the latest bumf for the new Mac Office release which focuses entirely on how it possible to make pretty documents, spreadsheets and presentations - while ingnoring that most of the heavy-duty functionality has been stripped out and that this is a very weak product compared with the new Windows version.
Apple is great at pioneering new concepts and it is true that the iPhone is a game changer but it is also true that you need to make serious compromises whenever you buy a Mac in any form.
11. Dave
Markus,
Not sure what compromise you are talking about. Last time I checked, Mac's can run every piece of Windows software that your Sony/Toshiba/IBM can run, not to mention all the Mac software.
The MacBook Pro may be one of the single best computers ever brought to market. I run XP in a VM and it is 10 times faster than the same thing running on my old work-supplied Dell. I can also run it natively, but choose to keep it in a VM so that I can duck in and out as I need to. I don't even need to go into full VM mode as the applications can be run as separate windows within my Mac environment.
As Seb points out, this is a largely subjective discussion, but most of the people who are anti-Mac have either never used one, or are basing their argument on what it was like even five years ago. I will never go back to a Windows-base machine, because I like the fact I can run everything on my Mac, and as well as any traditional PC.
12. Peter Waterhouse
I bought a Mac mini two years ago because I was sick of having to get under the hood and tinker with Windows. My work requires me to use email, manage a website, research on the web and use basic office documents - the Mac just does it. More importantly when it does fall over - which it does occasionally it does not panic and spend hours checking that it is OK - it just restarts and apologises rather than blames me for being an idiot.
I compare Windows to the model T Ford - it got us all driving, but we had to be part-time mechanics to cope with the problems. Unix, Linux and MacOS systems appear to have the edge on no-hassle computing.
13. eee
do u realize no one cares what the apples look like, i just want a good pc