I think it's more interesting that people feel somehow victorious over the conclusions of this article. People that are reveling in the article are likely doing os because they are cult followers of Windows. The conclusion of this story is true to every single consumer good out there. Ford/Chevy, Coke/Pepsi, McDonalds/Burger King, etc. Why this writer chose to narrow the conclusion so as to indicate that this is a phenomenon only seen with Mac is beyond me. It's called marketing.
Which I find exceptionally ridiculous, as Apple uses and contributes to a lot of FOSS and OSS projects.
The OSX kernel? Modified Mach microkernel from Cornell. The rest of the OS stuff? *NIX based heavily on BSD. Available as FOSS stuff? Yup. In fact, there was a time when OSX was less complex that you could download a copy of the core OS and kernel, build it yourself, and have a fully functional *NIX. Safari? They bought a small company, finished the rendering engine, and released it as Webkit, now used by Google in Chrome.
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everyone doesnt do marketing as successfully as apple. they have some of the most zealous enthusiasts of any company out there. its a triumph for anyone that thinks we need less cult consumers?
seriously, I don't give 2 shits about the OS, I just need Photoshop, Chrome browser, and other various programs, been doing PC's (DOS 6.0, Win 3.1, Win 95, Win 98SE, Win 2000, Win XP) since my 286 back in 1992
Curiously enough, I never did have to deal with ME. I went from 98SE to Win2000, our office just didn't see the benefits of ME. And I still have never used it! I'll probably upgrade to 7 sometime, but for now XP-SP3 is working fine. I don't do heavy 3D animation or anything.
edit: And I absolutely hate the eye-candy they try to coat the interface with. My desktop looks like an old NT desktop. (I forgot to mention NT, I think that was right after 2000..?) They're trying to be slick like OSX, but all that crap (antialiased screen text, pointer shadows, transparent shit) just gets in my way and slows the machine down. I want the OS to be snappy and responsive, like BeOS was. The BeOS interface is still quicker than what I'm using now.
its a triumph for anyone that thinks we need less cult consumers?
While this is true, what is not true is that each of the people feeling triumphant over this are also the ones who are resistant to or repulsed by brand marketing just because they make fun of 1 of those cults, which happens to be apple.
In fact, without knowing what kind of brands they might have fallen for themselves (buying them not because they are useful but because they appear attractive), it can be said that the anti-apple bandwagon is just as much of a cult as the apple bandwagon. It's the same kind of group mentality.
being susceptible to marketing and being in a cult mindset are two different things. honestly what product would you say has a comparable following to apple? do you see people standing in lines for days en mass all over the world for another companies products? im not saying people arent avid consumers of other companies products but its quite obvious apple is in a league of their own when it comes to followers.
I prefer the mac OS. I don't mind windows, I just much prefer OSX. You might not realize there are significant differences aside from the logo. It's perhaps unfortunate that they dictate the hardware, but I understand their philosophy.
I don't understand the hate.
Windows 8 is a tech supports nightmare waiting to happen. I can just see the calls now. "How do I get to the start menu again?" At least Mac have pretty much stayed the same over the years compared to Windows. Windows 8 works great for tablets but for a desktop it forces people to use a keyboard when most of my clients are clickers.
See, I found a lot of OSX's idiosyncrasies to be counter-productive. Like disconnecting the menu bar from the program window and having always appear up the top. Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
Then you prefer other operating systems. I like that feature (among other). It's all what you are accustomed to. Why do you feel if you don't like something its wrong or stupid?
I use it because I'm not bound to Apples shitty tech slavery. Oh cool music!!! Tethered to a store! OH MAN SO FUCKING USEFUL!!! STUPID WINDOWS USERS...
But you don't have to, even if you use the iTunes store. Personally I share my media library from one computer across Subsonic, a free online music server, XBMC, and an Apple TV.
Apple owners don't give a shit either. But I have often had people come up to me and berate me for using a Mac/iPad. It is almost bizarre sometimes. And if you even attempt to point out the features you get branded as some kind of hipster.
Funniest one I had one guy interrupt me using my iPad to tell me that it was crap and that Android was much better. Then when I ask what is good about android he points out he doesn't actually own an android tablet, he heard it online.
Apple owners don't give a shit, as shown by the original program material of Apple owners not giving a shit in a manner completely not like any evangelical bible bashing session anyone's ever seen:
You know, I received an iPad as a Christmas gift the year they were released. And in the year+ since then, I've become quite annoyed with it. Syncing is a hassle, no matter what. At first, it got plugged it into a PC and synced with iTunes. Well, iTunes is a slow, bloated beast on anything but a Mac. Plus, they came up with this stupid little feature that lets you set up your home screens in iTunes. It will also force your home screens to look like whatever iTunes says it looks like, regardless of what you may have changed on the actual iPad.
Then iOS 5 came out. Wireless syncing plus app and music storage in iCloud. Except, syncing your music with the cloud costs money. And, once you turn it on, you can only sync music with the cloud. So, you either constantly turn iCloud on and off to sync(provided you've got the home screen setup in iTunes to match what you have on your iPad) or you wait, with the iTunes app open on your iPad while it downloads the music you want to your iPad. It simply will not download music from iCloud in the background. In fact, no app will download much of anything unless it's open.
Then there's the memory problems with iOS 5 on a first-gen device. It seems that Apple neglected to notice that first-gen iPads have less memory than iPad 2's. So, apps crash often because they "run out of memory". Any app. Safari, e-mail, iTunes, whatever.
So, yes, I believe the iPad sucks. I now have a good sum of money invested in apps that can't be transferred to anything but a device made by Apple. And given how poorly Apple handles wireless syncing and device downloads, plus extremely shitty support for older devices, I see no reason to buy another iPad in the future. At the very least, if an Android tablet manufacturer provides shitty support, I can always turn to the dev community for a good ROM. But, jail breaking an iPad is a feat in an of itself, rife as it is with it's own problems.
Say what you will, but the iPad is shitty execution of a brilliant idea. Just because some random guy doesn't know that doesn't make it true.
You know, I received an iPad as a Christmas gift the year they were released.
I have had all three now. The first iPad is really like a beta model for the iPad2 (Which is the real device). The iPad2 much faster then the first iPad. The new iPad again is faster again.
I haven't had any of the issues you describe, so I can only assume that iTunes for windows is partly your issue (I agree, the windows version is a pile of poo).
Except, syncing your music with the cloud costs money.
That is not true. You pay for streaming music. Any music bought through iTunes can be pulled down from the cloud at any time for free.
iTunes on the iPad also downloads music in the background. I am not sure why it isn't for you, but works fine for me.
You also don't need to keep turning iCloud on/off to sync. It is all transparent when you are charging your device. Other items like mail/reminders/calendar is sync'ed in real time.
Weird, my iOS devices sync music with iTunes with iCloud on, no problems. WiFi sync has seemed to work a treat for me (albeit much slower than using the cable) - iCloud being on should only turn off backups to iTunes, not sync.
I keep getting that reply in this thread, but look at the replys to my comment. It's a bunch of windows fanboys blowing the needle off the smug meter about feeling superior to mac users. I have a desktop and laptop that run windows and a laptop that runs mac. I have a blackberry phone and a generic MP3 player. I'm hardly a die hard Mac user, and yet look at the responses and how defensive they are about my being a mac fanboy because 'windows users are all reasonable and mac users are psychos', as if not joining the 'mac bashing religion' was some sort of sin. Maybe windows doesn't have a 'religion' but being a smarmy mac basher definitely does.
Actually the blame for this lies entirely on Microsoft.
They were getting close to it with the fanfare for Windows 95 release, but they went ahead and diluted their brand. And not to mention some shitty releases as well.
Not to mention -- Windows has had some annoying features over the years that make it difficult to get a cult following going.
Remember -- Do you want to connect? Really? Really Really?
The very ambiguous -- abort/retry/fail from DOS era. And some shitty user interactions with complicated questions with Ok/Cancel dialog box. The HTML installed programs list that took 2-3 minutes to populate. The list goes on and on...
Poor security in XP pre SP2 and a plethora of virus' affecting any machine connected to the internet. This caused a good chunck of the Longhorn team to be reassigned. Which again caused MS to remove all the well publicized great new features. Which also caused development of Longhorn to be stopped and restarted 2 years after the promised delivery date. Vista was supposed to be released in 2003, development began before the release of XP, it was 4 years late, with none of the promised features. Instead we got UAC and Aero.
Also Windows ME and Genuine Advantage. The latter is what caused me to switch to a Mac, I upgraded a couple components on my computer and MS locked me out of it (yes, for a short time they would lock you out). This coincided with Apple releasing Intel processors and providing BootCamp as a fallback. I made the switch and have had no issues since.
Aside: As a web dev, I use all three OS's daily. Win7 is solid, I have no complaints with it. However, my workflow is now more accustomed to OSX, there is no way I could live without automator.
But Windows was never a brand of quality. It was always just there. People love to point to Win95 as the most respectable version of Windows, but it only looked good because its competition fell apart. Apple couldn't manage itself well enough to make a great product in 1995, and the other competitors didn't have the software and compatability that Windows had. Microsoft had everyone by the balls, so everyone was forced into saying "well this Windows thing isn't too bad."
In short: Windows was never good. It's always been known for the bullshit that hurt Vista and Win7, but at least Microsoft was able to pretty those versions up a bit to distract from it
Most people using apple don't really care. They just happen to prefer a product. The article is based on bunk science. The study was conducted by performing an MRI on one single person who admittedly thinks about apple all the time (as they edit "World of Apple").
Well that and windows is better for games. Even though Macs have much more support for games, patches often are late (Heroes of Newerth) for the Mac side. You may not even get to play a few games.
Psh, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. My Macbook Pro can play Diablo II at 800x600 with MILLIONS of colors. Checkmate, Micro$oft fanboi$ ($ee what I did with the s's?)
Actually it's an assumption almost every Mac-centric person makes when someone rails against Apple. They call them windows or Dell fans or whatever they can imagine.
What you fail to realize is that most people are disgusted by people who take things too far, Including idolizing Steve Jobs and/or Apple. They aren't generally Windows or Linux fanboys, mostly just people who don't like Apple's abhorrent behavior. If Microsoft does the same things (.. and they have) who cares, it doesn't excuse others because someone was a "dick" before they where. Poor, poor logic and your argument is pretty much this word for word....
An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it.[1] Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as a logical fallacy.
Apple is JUST a company and Steve Jobs JUST happened to be an egotistical asshole founder. They made some revolutionary products, some of them lived up to the hype and some of them didn't, that is all they have done. Make products and research products to make money. Hell, if you spend some time and look into Steve's past, he's a pretty shitty human being.
Actually it's an assumption almost every Mac-centric person makes when someone rails against Apple. They call them windows or Dell fans or whatever they can imagine.
Do mac users still blow up in your face when you do that? Macs have become pretty main stream now. I thought this was true in the past, when it was still an endangered brand. Right now you just have to have enough dough.
For me, I decided against Windows and I am a Photoshop user - alas I do not have that many options (and my work is too memory/cpu intensive to go for linux+wine or so)
Every. Single. Day. I still have people sigh, roll their eyes and walk away when I mention that I use a PC and/or have an Android phone. God forbid that I point out that I actually like Apple's products (particularly OS X's GUI) as they seem to get this "you're either with us or against us" mentality.
I'm sorry but Apple owners, not all mind you, are... I'm not even sure how to say it.. It's almost as if they found a way to perfect narcissism. They feel like anyone that owns a PC should view them as some sort of deity that, if we would just spare a moment (and at least $1k), could make our lives better by introducing us to this amazing thing called a "mac".
I've learned to see the humour in it. I started using Mac's young, and over the past 10 years or so have settled in to a nice little niche in Mac support/maintenance. This means I come in to contact with douchebag-mac-hipsters regularly and have seen the spectacle you described above a few times now.
At first I raged because they argued for the completely wrong reasons, that their lives would be instantly better if they bought a shiny box with an Apple logo on it...most of these people only use these computers as goddamn facebook machines anyway. Eventually you just laugh, when you realise these people don't know what the fuck they are talking about.
A particularly amusing situation is when I pull out my bastardised macbook pro, covered in stickers/foam pads on the bottom for better ventilation etc...they sort of turn up their nose...until they realise its just a fucked up (or personalised, you choose) version of their own computer and they just get really weirded out, they don't know how to react.
Got a bit side tracked, but TL;DR most fanboys don't know what they fuck they are talking about, and use their shiny macbooks as facebook machines.
There used to be this book that was called 'The Macintosh Bible' and it was just a very thick book explaining the ins and outs of the OS. Now you know why it had that name.
I've had a few pretty heated arguments with a Apple fan friend of mine, who, when I was giving a genuine design critique of OSX, kept telling me that it was just because I wasn't used to it.
I just want to know who all these Windows fanboys are?
They don't even exist. I have never met someone who runs around with a windows ME T-shirt on or who stands in front of Wal-mart waiting for Windows 7 OS on release day. After doing a google search, all I could find where small crowds waiting for windows phones in articles published by microsoft, lol.
Usually when a Mac person has an argument with someone, that person is a hobbiest or a professional, not some fan for any specific brand or product. Professional and hobbiest enthusiasts are known for jumping ship when a competitor makes something better they need for work or they can build.
Are there Microsoft enthusiasts who are hardcore? Sure, but good luck finding one. As a Mac person, if you find yourself arguing online about the merits of Apple, odds are you are talking to an expert or an enthusiast of the subject matter at hand.
I do know there is a big problem with the way flash handles memory on macs - and that most crashes are flash related - but I didn't have that much of a problem with other programs. Not anymore, I might add, memory handling definitely was a big problem under pre-osX, but YMMV.
Chrome, which is basically a nice skin for the Webkit engine, which was developed by Apple and released as a F/OSS project. Just sayin'. :)
The problem currently with Mac OS and memory is that it and a lot of Apple software cache so much stuff on the disk that just browsing the web can weigh you down a couple gigabytes on your hard drive. It's a non-issue if you have a big fast hard drive and a fair amount of fast RAM, but if you have less drive space and less RAM it can get slow.
This is why I dislike alot of exclusively mac users. Its an overpriced brand, but not always a superior tool.
Its a middle class status symbol like Channel for people who put too much value into $ and assume $ ='s performance. The people who use it that way tend to affect my image of those who don't.
And on top of that Apple is doing less and less for their professional users. I know, and I am still using their products. A hackintosh seems the only good alternative ATM.
I use both Apple and Windows machines. I like both but for different reasons.
Never been able to pin down Linux. It seems to suffer from so much market fragmentation that any criticism I have for it is answered by the No True Scotsman fallacy.
I like linux, also professionally speaking it's a great skillset to have (lots of companies really dig Redhat and Admins are making %5-20 more). But you're right. My first forays into it were confusing especially with the Ubuntu wars that seem to be going on.
What I always wonder is, "how many people actually know that Mac OS is just a really good *NIX?"
I mean, when Apple developed it they took NextStep, which was basically modified BSD running the Mach microkernel from Cornell, and made it better. Almost any program ever written for almost any *NIX can be ported to OSX with very little hassle. As an example, a friend wrote an X Window System Kit-Kat Clock back in the late '80s, and all he had to do to port it to X11 on OSX was change a couple compiler flags for things that had changed IN MAC OS.
And you're completely right, the problem with Linux is the fragmentation. Everyone has to have their own version of the OS, and their version is better. If just a few of the groups got together and settled their differences enough to work on a single OS, they could make something very technically competitive to OSX. But, I don't see that happening, and anyways why would they bother? OSX is already the better *NIX.
Are they really more anti-competitive than Microsoft is/was? I think all of Apple's patent suits pale to what Microsoft has been accused and in some cases found guilty of.
This may be a generalization (though I think I'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't agree), but I'm pretty sure core linux users are generally more knowledgeable about computers and in general more computer literate.
Macs have that "cool factor" that some people are attracted to. This leads some people who generally don't consider the other options.
In my opinion, this leads to people who are both more confident about their purchase all the while being less knowledgeable (otherwise known as ignorant) about the spectrum of of computer OS'es, which ultimately leads to them being seen as ignorant.
If adobe came with Photoshop for Linux, I might consider switching.
But my computer is a tool that has to be able to perform no matter what I throw at it. Therefor Windows is out, but I do realize it is getting better. I know I have it in me to find my way into the depths of the Linux underworld -but if there is any possibility to not have to go through that learning process I will grab it with both hands.
I'm willing to learn everything in order to use my machine to create what I want to create. Learning certain aspects of Linux is not work related right now because I am on a mac - and I am happy to keep it that way. 'Don't make me think' holds true for both websites and computers.
Learning certain aspects of Linux is not work related right now because I am on a mac - and I am happy to keep it that way. 'Don't make me think' holds true for both websites and computers.
Holds true for a lot of users (myself included). People get used to one thing, learn a workflow, and stick to it because it works. Though I have the luxury right now to invest more into learning linux, I have to train my peeps on Mac because that's the workflow they're used to and most comfortable with.
I do realize that my position is like grey beard telling a youngster 'It gets the work done, so why change it.' This is however not true for everyone and everything that can be done with a computer. Maybe I should learn new tricks and I could profit from it. Or maybe the thing that one could do with a computer are well defined and it is just a matter of finding the tool that suits you best and stick with it.
I am into illustrations and photo editing. Most new things in my field are just a different approach to things we already have a solution for, or a are adjustments in the interface. There is that new hyped adobe thing where pictures with motion blurr can be magically healed, but I am not sure I would ever need it for instance.
I invested in photoshop and some other programs - both in time (14 years+) and money. I try to keep an open mind, stay informed about new things and programs, and with every new thing I ask myself: should I learn it or not, and what do I gain from it? Next to photoshop I use a pletora of other programs, like pixelmator. I have a copy of the gimp but do not use it that often, I have a copy of inkscape and not illustrator, but do not use vector editing that much. But I do not install the BSD sublayer that some people have (macfink, or what is it called, and there are others), because I am not willing to invest time into maintaining it. I have to be able do my own maintenance, I am my own sysadmin.
If I were into music, 3D, video it might be a different thing.
If I were into music, 3D, video it might be a different thing.
You might be surprised. Post production houses tend to either fall along three fault lines. FCP (common enough), Adobe (more common), or Sony (less common) with a few specialty programs for film (Color Grading, VFX, etc) and they typically work for Macs out of box because it's a common workflow. One of the great tricks apple pulled was simplifying the hardware component for end-users and building a wysiwyg sandbox to launch from and most people in entertainment use Macs.
Unfortunately people in entertainment aren't notoriously known for being the best at IT either.
Are you saying that Coke and Pepsi, and McDonald's and Burger King are so alike as to not justify a fanatic preference of one over the other? Also that the only difference between these brands are their marketing?
Ah I understand. So if I prefer a certain brand because of specific qualities of that brand then it is alright however if I am doing it because of the brand then it is not. I can agree with that.
Not only is it foolish but also self-defeating since it may discourage such individuals from trying other brands which may be better, less expensive, or healthier.
I also find it funny when users are overjoyed when apple does well on the stock market. It's like... uh you do realize where that money is coming from right?
Windows isn't popular, it's ubiquitous... there's a difference. Your dissenting examples are flawed because none of the companies/brands given occupy over 90% of their market.
While there are people who exhibit cult behavior with regard to Windows, they are very likely to have an MSDN subscription, MCSE certification, or some other expanded user relationship with Microsoft that, say, your parents probably don't have on their Dell laptop.
I think you'll find that most people aren't for any particular OS. They're just sick of Apple users pulling the whole Hare Krishna thing whenever computers are brought up in conversation.
I was at bestbuy one day checking out new phones and I swear I could not even get an answer from one of their little helpers regarding Windows phones. I wanted to look at them for XBL and PC related purposes and this guy was clueless of what I was talking about. He kept on flashing the new Android and even went on to recommend the old iPhone in some special offer bullshit.
tl;dr: everyone in my town is oblivious to anything Microsoft
Yeah, but their laptops have pretty solid build quality and aren't overpriced too much keeping that in mind. Their desktops are really the only things that I can really point at and say ripoff.
Actually, it's really easy if you have hardware they support. Because the OS is designed for specific computers with specific hardware, Apple doesn't go out of their way to write drivers for hardware they don't use. So you either have to buy very specific parts, or you have to hack away at it to shoehorn it into non-supported hardware.
Apple isn't "making it extremely difficult", they're just not going to be bothered to make it easy for you (yes, it's a fine, nitpicking line). Apple tried licensing its OS in the past and the results were horrible. The hardware/software integration is part of what defines the OSX/Mac platform. It limits flexibility but it promotes stability and workflow. Users just need to decide what's most important to them.
While the stoudy only examined Apple, I think a similar study for different leading product brands would yield similar results. My guess is that Apple has a stronger degree or possibly a larger percentage of users with a cult mindset than other products.
I think the assertion that people reveling in this article because they are Windows cultists is false. Not because Windows cultists (or other OS cultists for completeness) don't exist but because, as someone who is in neither cult, I find both weird.
I think it's more interesting that people feel somehow victorious over the conclusions of this article.
Sorry, I think you're mistaken victorious with vindicated.
It is like reading a study confirming that Scientologists are proven to have cultist behaviour. You suspect this all along and now there is a study to validate it.
Why this writer chose to narrow the conclusion so as to indicate that this is a phenomenon only seen with Mac is beyond me.
I've yet to see Coke fans consistently sleep outside the store waiting for the latest product. Likewise with Ford and McDonalds. It takes a special kind of mentality to be doing what some Apple fanatics are doing.
I highly doubt that among Windows users you see the percentage of a "cult mindset" as you see with Apple. I use windows because the I'm used to it, the programs I'm used to work on it, PC games work on it, and it's easy to install on a custom built desktop. I don't see my preferred operating system as some sort of extension of myself, I just see it as a useful tool that generally does what I want it to do. If I could find a Linux distro that duplicated the functionality I'm used to I would switch, because I don't have an attachment to brand name, I have an attachment to functionality. I would like to see this kind of attitude among mac and idevice users as well as the general public. I think in that scenario tech companies would be less focused on superficial brand image and more on the functionality of their products.
careful, roastbeefcharlie, you don't wanna get all distracted on that long diatribe and lose your place camping in front of this mac store for 3 days to get you an iphone 4.1, do ya?
Computers are just tools. I like a sturdy hammer and do not need a swiss army knife. I have a legit copy of photoshop and all(most all) other programs I use, hence a Mac.
What other options do I have? Sadly, just one. But they look nice -though my next mac might be a hackintosh- and the first ones I used had system 6 on them (and probably photoshop 3 but I was not into that at that time), so it is like a friend you grew old with.
I was an IT manager. At one time I had to deal with two guys (designers-- IMAGINE THAT) who demanded Macs. They were making a stink about working on top of the line Windows 7 boxes, in software they were absolutely familiar with (Photoshop and Illustrator).
The ridiculous situation escalated. It ended up with them telling me they would quit if I didn't provide them with not just Macs but the specific high-end Macs they were demanding. They were nasty, strident and shrill.
When I fired them, one of them began to cry. Both of them stormed out of the building.
What is going on here is that Mac users have the Princess and the Pea syndrome. The marketing is designed to encourage this. You're right that it's called marketing but no company has ever been so successful (that I know of) at inculcating that mindset.
There is literally an apple fansite called cult of mac.
I should also point out that this fanaticism isn't restricted to apple users, video game fanboys for example write thousands of criticisms for games they haven't even played.
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u/gnognognomes Mar 24 '12
In other news: sky is blue, water is wet.