I never thought I'd see the day where I would consider myself in the same community of snobs that I despise. Seriously, a typical Mac fan doesn't question the Jobs-ian logic that comes out of Apple. Before I go into my little spiel I do want to say that not everything Apple makes is perfect (from the overly sensitive click-wheel on the iPod to batch renaming in OS X), so I feel Apple is nothing more than a company that makes money off the way Steve Jobs wants things to work. Has anyone ever seen a review of an Apple product in any Mac magazine that wasn't below an "above average" rating? Although I've seen some PC rags that might have their favorites (:cough: PC Magazine and Symantec :cough:), I haven't read one where a Microsoft product wasn't put through its paces. Hell, when Spotlight came out in Mac OS X everyone evangelized it and there were tips and tricks in all the Mac rags, but what happens when Spotlight is updated in Leopard? Only then did I read about all the Spotlight woes of Mac-dom. God damn! Makes me want to inflict bodily harm on those pretentious, Prozac-popping, delusional people.
Anyway, some of the reasons I finally consider myself primarily a Mac (and Linux Mint) user are: 1. Microsoft's apparently oblivious view of the PC market, 2. computer designs, and 3. software functionality.
I think Microsoft is oblivious because of their blatant disregard for anything obvious, to include easier choices, less confusion, and people not wanting to go into debt for a piece of software that runs their computer.
People want the latest and greatest of anything, that's just a simple fact. If the common computer user had the knowledge of a Microsoft certified professional, they would know they needed Vista Ultimate over Vista Home, for example. Even though a Windows computer could be purchased for approximately $500, after a person finds out they don't have the OS they want, they will need to shell out an additional $400 for Vista Ultimate. At that point, if the common computer user wasn't technology ignorant, they would see that for $99 more they could get a low-end Mac laptop that runs solidly. Sure, they could save a penny by installing Linux, but that's more daunting to someone who doesn't know the difference between the registry and a x11.conf file.
People like choices, yes. The starting point should be what computer to buy, i.e. Linux, Windows, or Mac, and after that users should weigh the benefits of of each OS, not Linux, Windows version A through Z, and Mac. This is why I think Microsoft needs to create one version of their OS. Once a person has decided on a computer, the choice then should be what software they need for what they want to do. Mac is guilty of some confusion here because iLife, an $80 Apple software suite, is included with every new Mac purchase, but even Mac elitists talk it up as if it's part of the Mac OS. However, that's less of a headache then trying to figure out which Windows OS a person wants.
People want their computer to work like they think it should; most people just want to turn it on and go. Essentially that's the way it should be, because the purpose of the operating system is to make it so a person can use a computer. Sure, an OS can have additional functionality, but Internet Explorer and Windows Mail aren't part of the OS because they still require an OS to function. We've come so far from command line operating systems that people have lost focus on the core functions of software: using operating system to run a computer, a word processor to write documents, an e-mail client to send and receive e-mail, etc. When Microsoft gets the fundamentals right, with an affordable price, then I think they'll be able to recoup the ground they've lost. Until then they will continue losing ground in the home market and piracy will continue.
On to computer designs ... even though I'm not completely on-board with the whole "aluminum and glass" design that I've exhaustingly equated to kitchens and restaurant fixtures, I do think Macs are sleek; they don't have any protruding Wi-Fi switches or headphone jacks, the edges are flush, and they're relatively quiet. If you take a look at most computers and laptops you'll notice what I mean. My iMac doesn't have the roar of a 600 watt power supply when I turn it on, and I don't rip any shirts or break switches that extend past the edge of my MacBook. I already baby my computers enough when I move them around; I don't want to have anything more to think about when I do have to move them.
All operating systems, in essence, run the computer. What I don't like is having to hunt and peck to get to what I want, for example: scrolling the Windows' Start menu and the Macintosh's Applications folder. This is where functionality comes in; Windows doesn't have one "catch all" folder, so a user has to peck through folders all over the hard drive just to edit the Start menu. Mac, on the other hand, has the dock. I don't care how evolved the Windows Start bar is in Windows 7, until it can replicate the functionality of the Mac OS X Dock, it still has a way to go.
On Windows you first have to find where you can unhide folders (psst! The option is under "Organize," not "Views" like most people would think), then you have to open a couple of windows - one for where you're going to consolidate your shortcuts (also called links) and another to open the folders that hold the links you need to move. The latter will allow you to look in the hidden "ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs" folder (Whew! that's a lot of clicking before I can even start to move some links) and "Users\
On a Mac I can go to the Applications folder, create aliases (the Mac equivalent to Windows' shortcuts) for the programs I want, move them to a folder that I can create anywhere, and then drop that newly-created folder onto the dock for easy access. Functionality doesn't stop there because I can either have the dock icon I created open up that folder, or I can use the stacks function to display all of my icons the way I want (ex: fan, grid, list, automatic). With the upcoming Snow Leopard, which will only run on Intel-based Macs, Apple has added even more functionality to stacks which will affect sub-folders - if there are any.
It doesn't stop there. Let's say I like my Mac but I have school or professional files I need to work on that require me to use Microsoft programs. That's not a problem because users can now install Windows on a Mac via Boot Camp (which is easy, and I'll write my experience about that later) or run it virtually via Parallels, VMware Fusion, or Sun's VirtualBox. After thinking about it, I can probably now run my Zune software on a Mac, finally.
Having said all of that, those things are just a mere snippet of why I'm now on the Macintosh (and Linux Mint) bandwagon.
