I was always a PC person. I was a loyal Windows user and Bill Gates continues to be my hero to this day. For her birthday, my fiance got a PowerBook G4 and quickly became what has come to be known as an Apple "Fanboy". She would not shut up about her new laptop, but even more so, she would spend even more time explaining how inferior my PC was to her Apple.
I admit that I was starting to like the look of the black MacBooks at this time and was thinking about buying one. I liked my PC but I also wanted a laptop to use. I ended up buying one and about 1 week after buying it, almost as if it knew it were being replaced, my Dell PC broke---blue screens and everything. Hours and hours I spent reformatting, trying different flavors of Windows and Linux and swapping different hardware to diagnose my problem. But to no avail--my PC was simply finished and I was forced to be a Tiger-exclusive user.
My immediate complaint? No games! Games are made to work on Windows, not Macs. I know you can use Boot Camp but what's the point of getting a Mac then?
But thats it--I have no other complaints. However, I'm not going to write about how great Macs are or why everyone should buy one. I'm going to write about why Mac converts become Mac fanboys.
Probably the main reason why Macs inspire such a fanatical fan-base isn't due to what Apple is doing, but rather it is due to what they aren't doing. PCs strive to accomplish a very ambitious goal: to be useful to everyone 100% of the time on every different kind of computer and be compatible with the majority of the hardware out there. This goal is nearly impossible to accomplish. However, Macs look to please the casual user and their OS is designed to work with and only with their own hardware. The result? Significantly less variables to account for and thus, more stability in their operating system. Furthermore, their focus on their casual user niche has allowed Apple to design an interface specifically for casual use. In fact, up until recently, they have turned away corporate deals because their computers aren't designed for big business. To put it more simply, Apple has designed a stable system that caters to users with specific wants and needs in a computer and they have fulfilled these wants and needs very well.
This "snobbiness" that Mac users have towards PC users is simply a result of the fact that their needs are better met than those of the PC user. Since the PC and Windows focuses on pleasing everyone, both corporate users, casual users and power users, the result is that not everyones needs will be met and they are left unsatisfied. And it is that dissatisfaction in the PC users that Mac users scoff at.
There are other reasons why Apple inspires fanboyism in their customers, such as a variety of pre-bundled applications that are useful to its various types of users and as mentioned before, OSX's heightened stability over Windows. However, in the interest of not sounding too biased in favor of Macs, I am not going to get into these subjects.
What I will say against Macs, however, is that until video game publishers decide to make more Mac-compatible games, Mac users should retain some humility. Should video game publishers create more cross platform games (in Mac/PC terms, NOT console terms), then by all means, Mac users truly have something to laugh at when they see PCs :) .
NOTE: There is a great blog out there advocating video game publishers to make more Mac-compatible games. Check it out at: http://themacgamer.com/
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2 comments:
I still think Macs are pretty weak sauce. Probably because they're so new to me, because when I open up a Mac it looks like a completely different world. Despite what you say about Mac meeting the more average person's needs in the longrun, I think PC is instantly more accessible than Mac is. Maybe Mac becomes easier as you grow to use/love it, but I'm pretty in love with PC at the moment lol.
The only way I'd get a Mac is for video editing.... but at the moment, I'm using Sony Vegas to edit my vids on a PC and it's coming out beautiful :]
Its hard to open yourself up to a mac completely unless you own one. It grows on you very very quickly, but trying one out in the store doesnt count. If you buy one you (and I mean YOU, Pat) will definitely like it :) .
As I said in my post, originally I never intended to be a Mac exclusive user, it was forced on me. But it didn't take long to appreciate the OS. The funny thing is, the more you use it, and the more minor details you discover about OSX, the more you tend to appreciate it even more...ugh, awkward grammar but whatever, you know what I mean.
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