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February 10, 2003
Switching
Glenn McDonald applies his customary eloquence to his choice of computer.
OS X is not just less-bad than Windows, it's Good. Yes, Apple also have sleazy marketing weasels, and the salesdrone at the Apple Store in your mall may be the same woeful grade of maladjusted cretin as the one at Best Buy that tries to sell you $49 monster cables for a $59 VCR, but somewhere in California, in the back corner of some office building where they're deciding what should appear on the screen when you click the next button, somebody is asking themselves not only what could appear on the screen that corresponds vaguely with what you nervously hoped you hit the right button to make appear, but what could jump a couple steps forward and startle and delight you.And what's more:
In software we talk about "usability", usually in the same tones with which your mother told you that the medicine in the spoon was "grape flavor", and Windows, when its features aren't designed to sell you something, is usable in just that sticky, barely tolerable sense, and the fact that you don't throw up doesn't make that half-retching sensation "grape". And not everything on the Mac is great, either, but at every click and gesture there is something that wants to be. I'm sure things will break, but I haven't quite had mine a month and already more things have "just worked" on the PowerBook than did in the lifetime of the PC it's replacing. The machine and its software (and in OS X the "built-in" applications are real and exciting, not cynical placeholders for something you'll have to purchase separately later) are role models for a different conception of the function of objects in human lives. Objects ought to be part of communications between people. Windows, idiotically, tries to factor people out of both ends of the conversation, so that the computer has no evident personality and you can't easily bring any personality to bear on it when you use it. When the Mac talks to you, it does so in human words and sentences, and you respond by touching and pointing and jabbing, and although many of the pieces of the hardware are the same ones you'd use on a PC, the grammars are not, and the character of the dialog is not. To use the Mac is to be confronted, over and over, with the idea that the most mundane task can be done artfully and compassionately, beautifully and invitingly.OK, he's convinced me...
[Via Wibbly Weblog]
Posted by John at February 10, 2003 11:23 PM
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Tracked on February 11, 2003 09:01 AM
Comments
Does this mean you'll soon be joining us converts? :)
Posted by: Kris at February 11, 2003 02:54 AM
Well, yes. I've decided that it's OS X for me.
I stopped off on the way home from work tonight and had a play with an iMac at the local PC World branch. The machines are unquestionably impressive.
The major problem is that PC World aren't terribly interested in Macs: their display models still aren't using OS X 10.2, even though it's been out for several months now. This does nothing to persuade me that they're very clued-up. I may have to resort to visiting my nearest Apple Authorised Reseller, which unfortunately is just far enough away to be quite inconvenient. Either that or opt for mail order, which I'm not keen on.
Still, these are minor details. The major point is that yes, I've decided to Switch.
Posted by: John at February 11, 2003 11:47 PM
I really hope it's worth it. At least macs have on-board sound right? ;)
Posted by: simon at February 12, 2003 01:19 AM
Yes, I'm finally going to enter the wonderful world of PCs which can do more than beep at me.
I might mute the speakers anyway, just to be perverse. :-)
Posted by: John at February 12, 2003 09:37 PM
My iBook came via the Apple site (mailorder), and I was pretty happy with the way it worked out. Well, actually I was livid when the operator informed me I couldn't use my British credit card to pay for a computer and have it shipped to my Mom's house in the U.S. (I was just about to leave London and there was no way I was going to pay pounds sterling when I'd be in the States in a matter of weeks.) So I had Mom order it for me, picked it up at her house, wrote her a check, and carried my new baby on the plane to Australia. Saved me a bundle. :)
Speaking of built-in Mac sound stuff, my new favorite thing is to use OmniWeb's "speak web page" functionality to have it read Buffy recaps to me while I knit. I don't even have to look at the screen!
Posted by: Kris at February 13, 2003 12:45 AM