What’s the Big Deal with Macs?
Last Saturday, I was at the public library. Their computer section was dissappointingly sparse, so I went to the public computer (machine, not book) section, and sat down in front of the Mac. Why? To see what the big deal with them was all about.
While I was there, I typed up a post explaining all of my problems with them, but when I hit “Publish”, it published without body text. Asute readers may’ve noticed an empty post called “Mac Confusion” (I’ve deleted it since then though).
And I’m not going to spell out all my issues again, unless it’s requested in the comments. Suffice to say I had multiple problems.
And that’s fine. I’ve had problems in Windows. I’ve had problems in Ubuntu. Problems happen on computers (although what were they thinking when they designed Finder? And the Dock…and window behavior (hitting the X doesn’t remove the arrow from the Dock–you have to do File-Quit. What?)
But I had enough problems with the Mac that I’m wondering why all the Mac fanboys of this world are willing to pay extra money for a very restrictive platform that, in my opinion, has many problems? That’s not rhetorical. Why should someone pay several hundred dollars more for a Mac (glorified Unix) than for a Linux (glorified Unix) box? I’m not trying to be fresh, I’m not trying to be sarcastic–I’m just no fool. There’s been enough hype over the past, what TWENTY YEARS about the Mac that I want to know what the fuss is about. And I’m not talking about “Oh, well it’s good at video editing” or “I really like the theme.” I want “it’s more secure” or “the hard drive doesn’t fragment” or “it doesn’t bloat over time, so you don’t need to reinstall it.” (No, you can’t use those, they count for Linux too).
Thank you.
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I’m assuming you really want to know what people see in Macs and you aren’t just having a whine about them so I’m going to try to explain my take on it.
The number one thing that I find better about OS X than Linux is the quality of the programs and the consistency between apps. For example, there are heaps of MSN clients for Linux (aMSN, emessene, Pidgin). I don’t think any of them have the same polished feel of most Mac apps (such as Adium). Same thing goes for media players. Amarok & Songbird are two of the most popular Linux media players and I find them both slow and really inconsistent with the rest of the OS. Sure, that can probably be customized, but most people just can’t be screwed putting that much effort in to having their OS and apps look consistent.
I think that Linux distros like Ubuntu & Fedora copy too many fundamental Windows behaviours. For example, the look, behaviour and location of the minimize, maximize and close buttons are exactly like Windows (in all Linux distros that I’ve tried). Same goes for the taskbar. Unfortunately Microsofts popularity means that this is the norm and I don’t think that it’s necessarily the most efficient and intuitive way to manage windows – it’s only the way that most people are used to, which I see as being something very different to ease of use.
I think your issue with the red ‘X’ button not closing apps is related to this. Say you have a pretty big file downloading in Safari. You’ve closed the Downloads window because you don’t need to be constantly tracking the progress of the download. You’re browsing for a bit and then you close your last open window. Lucky Safari doesn’t behave like a Windows/Linux program because you would have just lost your download’s progress. Of course, a prompt would probably come up saying ‘You have 1 file still downloading do you really want to quit? Y/N”, but then you’re still left with an open window doing nothing. Similar thing goes for a music player – when you close the iTunes window, you don’t want it to quit and have your music stop playing do you? Windows has a workaround for that with the notification tray, which can sometimes keep programs running without any open windows, but I think that’s really inconsistent.
Personally I think the dock is a perfect replacement for the Windows Start/Quicklaunch/Taskbar/Notifications tray. The mail app has a badge on it with the number of unread emails on it, iCal dynamically tells you the date, icons bounce when their app needs your attention, keeping out of your way. These are the sorts of things that I’ve never seen in any other OS.
Another thing is the support that Apple give you. When you buy a Dell, who do you go to with problems? Dell or Microsoft? With Apple you just have the one company with one set of support staff who can help you with anything. Yeah, Ubuntu has a helpful (though sometimes arrogant) community, but you never know if your question is going to be answered in their forums or if it will just eventually disappear in to the depths of old topics.
Obviously Macs aren’t for everyone. Someone who likes to build their own computers and tinker with them a lot may want to tweak their OS a lot too and for that, the only answer is Linux but I hope I’ve shed some light on why some of us are so obsessed with the Mac OS – it’s really a mixture of a lot of little things that make the experience so much better.
That was exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much.
My one issue is the line about pane button placement. I can’t think of any reasons that having them on the left side is somehow better than having them on the right–or vice versa, even. I think that’s one thing that just boils down to personal preference. Good call on everything else though.
For a long time I dual-booted or had two machines for Windows and Linux. Having used Linux since ’97, I’ve been through several distros, namely: Slackware, RedHat, Gentoo and Ubuntu.
Before I got my Mac, Ubuntu wasn’t available. Redhat was nice, but tracking down dependent RPMs sucked. I have to wonder why I never went back to Slack… Gentoo was my choice for a long while (portage
. It was easy to update, but it was prone to compile problems as it was/is under heavy development.
I will admit to being a fan of the Mac… everything [in my experience] *just works* 99.9% of the time and I think that’s what got me. Suffice it to say, Safari is *okay*, I use Firefox… I agree with you on Finder. But once you got used to it Cmd-W or Cmd-Q becomes your friend instead of the red x button and File->Quit. At the time when I joined the Mac ranks, it had recently come out with OS X giving me the *nix that I wanted under the hood. Having that safety net is what allowed me to move onto a Mac.
For your average user the interface is pretty easy… uninstalling an app is as easy as dragging it to the trash.
That was 5.5 years ago. I had purchased a PowerBook G4 thing still runs today (and on a daily basis since) and is in almost perfect working order. Note: I’m limited to 1GB of RAM due to the second slot problem noted all over the internet, and it’s out of the warranty period.
Apple QA and/or component choices for the hardware is pretty solid…
IBM and Dell laptops rarely make it past 2.5 years with me or anyone in my family (some of whom have the touch of death when it comes to laptops). Whether it’s the luck of the draw for lemon-laptops or just better hardware, Apple has done pretty well in my family.
For me the absolute best thing about Macs:
Having my family using Macs keeps them from constantly calling me for tech support when their Windows instance goes belly up.
Jacob, I’m glad you’re having a good time with your Macs, but everything you just mentioned is true of Linux (and everything you said about Linux has been fixed with Ubuntu).
As for longevity, I have a 4 year-old Sony laptop which works like new, a 6 year-old Dell one that would be fine, except I dropped it, and there’s a 1/4 inch blacked out border around two edges of the screen. I also have an…8? 9? year-old Gateway laptop that’s a speed demon with Puppy. So I don’t know if I’ve had exceptionally good luck, or if you’ve just had bad luck.
[...] I’m going to get in trouble for this one. But I issued a challenge a few weeks ago, asking “What’s the Big Deal with Macs?” I got two essays er, meaty replies. But they really didn’t make me think “OMG! I [...]
[...] My own experience has led me to believe that Linux is as good, if not better, than Mac OS X for the majority of the population, so I’m sure Lauren will be a happy camper. And for all the Mac fanboys about to slit my throat, I have a challenge: Explain to me why Mac OS X is $500 better than Ubuntu*, or loan/give me a Mac to try and convert me. I promise I won’t install Linux on it. [...]