What If Everyone Suddenly Believed the Apple Propaganda?

Posted by schneidermike on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 · Comments 

[For the sake of this argument and because most of Chairman Jobs' propaganda supposes that PCs and Windows are synonymous, let's say that Mac and OS X are also interchangeable. When I mention UNIX/Linux, let's assume that they are running on Sun or Intel hardware and therefore, to Macists are also icky like PCs and therefore must be destroyed.]

In the June 2008 issue of Wired Magazine, reader and Apple Zealot Dan Luke of Portland, Oregon made one of the most preposterous statements since “The world is flat.” What he does not realize is that his flippant attitude is actually dangerous to his red delicious way of life.

He declared: “It’s simple. Apple doesn’t make garbage. Everyone else does. PCs don’t really work.”


Let’s imagine for a minute that everyone suddenly agreed with Dan Luke of Portland, Oregon.

Suddenly educators, strategists, software developers, analysts, investment bankers, mail carriers, scientists, prostitutes, cartoonists, morticians, proctologists, herpetologists, cytologists, electrologists, gemologists, gynecologists, archaeologists, NBA superstars, ditch diggers, peeping toms, elephant wranglers, social media consultants, poker players, brewmeisters, potato chip inspectors, hand models, wax figure makers, slot car racers, golf ball divers, knife thrower’s assistants, wig makers, ice cream tasters, stuntmen, majors, generals, actors, plastic surgeons, airport ambassadors, politicians, royalty and musicians all suddenly saw the error of their ways and decided to make the switch.

Remember. Dan said that everyone else makes garbage. This includes Dell, HP, Sun, Lenovo and EVERYONE.

OK Dan. OK believers of the propaganda of Chairman Jobs, you win. As of right now, the entire world is in agreement. PCs must go and they must go now -as in turned-off-and-chucked-into-a-landfill-they-are-garbage now.

  • You just crippled the Internet.
  • World trading markets have screeched to a halt.
  • Global business as we know it is on hold or dead.
  • See ya eBay!
  • Ciao Yahoo!
  • Sayonara Google!
  • 再见 Baidu!
  • Your email is toast.
  • mac.com? Useless.
  • Skype? Yeah right!
  • Blogs. What blogs?
  • etc.

Basically, you’re back to the library and the Dewey Decimal System. Better get some 2X4s and a hammer and nails because your virtual soapbox is gone. Oh you are going to need it, because surprisingly, an Apple-only world is not going to be the Utopia you are hoping for.

PCs are gone and now we have all of these things that we need to do on Mac.

Assuming you did not kill Mac’s foundation, BSD, in the process we have to rebuild the world’s infrastructure on Mac. This means that we are going to need to make a lot of changes so that Macs can accommodate Joe User.

That’s right. Mac is no longer just the machine for the teacher, the student or the 18-34 year old hipster, this sucker needs to do everything. The size of the company did not change, just the demand.

  • Prepare to bloat the OS with unnecessary functionality with stuff that you do not care about.
  • Prepare to make the cool stuff like iLife Suite a much lower priority in terms of development.
  • Hello PUPs and Crapware! You are now the most popular platform.
  • Hello Viruses!
  • Howdy Adware!
  • Prepare for Apple to become the PC.

That’s right Zealot, you are no longer the top priority user. Everyman is.

There is a place for PCs. It’s the land of mediocrity and average otherwise known as the blunt edge. Linux and Unix are the lands of stability and uptime. They are where the nerdcore hackers live and make the Internet work. Do you really want these people in your club? Sure the doors have always been open, but you do not REALLY want everyone using a Mac any more than Hillary wants to be Obama’s running mate.

PCs are the machine that try to be all things to all people. This is the whole reason that they don’t do any one thing particularly well. Is this what you want Apple to become? If so, keep up the smack talk. The more people you convert, the closer Apple comes to mediocrity while trying to satisfy the requirements of its new users. Apple has established itself as an elite machine. It is the machine for creatives and for academics. Apple is stylish. An Apple is more expensive than a comparable PC. Apple is your Mercedes, your BMW or at the very least, your Saab. If you want your Mac to continue to be what it is now; an elite, user-friendly, media-driven, seXXXy, powerhouse then drink this double shot of STFU. It’s for your own good!

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  • Daniel R. Luke
    Your argument is absurd!

    "The more people you convert, the closer Apple comes to mediocrity while trying to satisfy the requirements of its new users."

    I didn't realize that a constantly crashing OS, and vulnerability to practically every virus imaginable would be so desirable to new converts. Only that PCs could aspire to the level of mediocrity! Anyway, .what changes have been made to the Mac that support your argument that it needs to become as junky as the PC to accommodate an influx of unsophisticated users? How is the Mac not user friendly to those wishing to use a computer for surfing the web and sending email?

    I also think the automobile analogy is flawed. Toyota made its name by building affordable and reliable vehicles. An Apple product is not a Mercedes. In fact, cost of ownership is probably less than it is for PC. Apple is more like a Toyota. It costs a little more than the competition in the beginning, but in the long run it's worth it because it is far less likely to break down and cause headaches. And while Toyota, when it first started importing cars into the US was a dwarf compared to all of the other automakers, it is now, owing to its philosophy of quality, the world's largest automaker. Who then knows where the Mac will be in 5 years.

    So how, Michael, do you account for Apple's recent increased market share? How do you account for the everyman appeal of the iPhone and iPod? These are two more examples of superior products that have become wildly popular. Where is the Zune? Where is the Jukebox? Look at how rapidly the superior iPhone as exploded on to the scene. Between stuff that often doesn't work (well), and quality, innovative products that do, many people prefer the latter. Unfortunately, PCs don't really work. The hardware may be fine, but since many of these companies essentially sold their sole to the devil, essentially then, they don't work.

    You would like to portray Mac enthusiasts as an elite corp of irrational crazies, but this is hardly the case. We're actually very compassionate people who mourn for the rest of the world. You may tell people that must settle for mediocrity, but a lot of people would beg to differ.

    Years ago, everyone with a PC held on because the idea was that Windows would get better with each new release. This never really happened, unfortunately, and when Redmond came out with Vista it was, for many people, the last straw. God how Vista was hyped, and God did they spend a long time making it. What are people supposed to think? How long are we supposed to wait around for MCSFt??? I don't accept that this is the best that we can hope for.

    Maybe it's too much to say that PCs don't work. To borrow from your automobile metaphor, they work about as well as a Yugo which is to say, not very well. There prevalence has nothing to do with anything.

    When I think about what must now be billions of man hours wasted fooling with dysfunctional PCs, there is in me a sense of moral indignation. There are few people at MCSFT who seem to care, but then why should they? According to the market dictum which Mr. Gates so steadfastly believes, he is not properly incentivized to produce a reliable product.

    If, by the way, you would like to appreciate what an amazing visionary Mr. Gates is, reread The Road Ahead.

    In any case, I will not attend to the absurdity to some of your other claims at this particular moment (unless you want me to of course).
  • Brett Sher
    While the Mac zealot's absolute statement: "PCs don't work" is clearly an exaggeration, there is a also a kernel of truth within. There IS a bit more maintenance overhead running Windows than Macs. Windows users ARE more likely than Mac users to have to reinstall their OS, or just buy a whole new computer when malware eventually grinds their machine to a halt.

    That being said, there are plenty of users and uses for which a Mac may not be the best choice. Among them are hard-core gaming, do-it-yourself system-builders, people who need ultra-compact portables, tablet computing, CAD/CAM, and large server applications.

    However, I believe the vast majority of ordinary people running Windows PCs for everyday tasks like word processing, email, web browsing, might actually be happier with a Mac.

    Ironically, the Mac has historically been relegated to niche status (education, media creation, etc.) Lately, people are finally realizing that the Mac has evolved into a viable computer for a wide variety of uses.

    The Mac vs. PC ads coupled with positive word-of-mouth from actual switchers are helping to increase Apple's market-share. I see the effect snowballing as long as Apple keeps delivering the goods.
  • slaws
    Whatever.
  • Karel
    It's the nature of stupid to remain with the pain. The Mac user statement is absolutely correct but even if every moron using Windows or Linux woke up and realized what crap they are using and that the Mac IS the only answer only a small fraction would change to the Mac. Today only a small fraction are changing to the Mac. Essentially we are in your worst case scenario and the sky isn't falling just Microsoft's market share. All is as it should be and the smarter ones are already using Macs as the rest grab a brain more will use the Mac. It will take decades before the stupidest of the stupid switch to the Mac so the transition is happening as it should and there is peace in the world of the intelligent.
  • Macaholic
    You know, what might appear to be a stupid blog entry by some asshole might actually be -- should actually be -- a sermon sung from choir member to the choir itself.

    It is ridiculous that this guy wastes his time investing all this effort on the single statement of some other guy... but it's obvious that he hit a critical mass of reading posts from some Mac zealots who truly are idiotic.

    My opinion is that, as the author infers in his last paragraph, in the case of the personal computer user-base the HEALTHY second place where Apple is and will continue to grow to an extent IS A GOOD PLACE TO BE. I do NOT welcome the notion of an Apple 80% market-share. I do NOT welcome the notion AT ALL of Apple becoming "Applesoft" and releasing Mac OS X for legal use on ANY PC... and as a Mac user I am VERY HAPPY to let the Windows market-share draw the ire of governments and malware writers alike.

    Why? Because I am an elitist zealot?

    Nope.

    Because Apple having the dominant share of the user-base or releasing OS X/x86 for any PC will fundamentally change the Mac user experience FOR THE WORSE. And the way Macs work is very VERY important. I'll not go into the lengthy posts I've written elsewhere over time as to why, but be careful of what you wish for, Mac zealots. Everything is **fine** right now. Apple is growing market-share to the extent that more and more developers are getting on board, Apple is selling more Macs than ever before, making larger profits than ever before and yet still being able to focus their energies on more positive things than what Microsoft is obligated to fix and get right (not that they do... but that's a post for another day).

    Bottom line: LEAVE EVERYTHING AS IT IS, enjoying positive growth but not such that it would wreck the Mac model... and definitely take a double-shot of stfu like the man says.
  • Doug Petrosky
    Not sure it all follows!

    A bunch of the bloat is only for backward compatibility or some insane attempt to fill all the check boxes in some reviewers grid. Sure, someone uses those features, but that doesn't mean that iWork ever needs to add them! Maybe, without a single dominate Software manufacture you would instead end up with a bunch of well written specialized applications that interoperate through a solid OS and well written API's. That was Apple's dream with OpenDoc and what was then called Bento (an open universal document storage and description model).

    I'm not going to say that all PC's are crap (as you purpose) or even that all Mac's are great (which is that counter assumption). I'm just going to say that if everyone realized that often times you get what you pay for, there would be fewer people upset with their PC purchases and far fewer bitching about how expensive Apple hardware is.

    As a general rule, I'd say the further below $1000 you spend for a complete system, the closer to crap you get.

    Oh, and I welcome the masses into our club. Because Apple will continue to make hardware and software that just work for the majority of us and let the third parties fill in the gaps for the rest.

    IMHO
  • Chuck
    MSFT needs to fire back? With what? There are three things that are making Macs more attractive right now: no viruses, spyware or botnet infestations; UNIX OS made by the same company that made the better-designed computer for tight integration and hassle-free computing (usually); better marketing, ads and stores.

    MSFT cannot deliver on any of those fronts. They are not hip, they have a broken OS that is still being targeted by the Russian Mafia and they don't care about design. So is it any wonder why Apple is selling a record amount of Macs?
  • admin
    Barry,

    I think it’s funny that just because I have some Appley iconage and an Apple 2+ in my masthead that you assume that I am drinking the Apple Kool-Aid. Au contraire! The apple 2+ was my first machine. I have not owned an Apple since, although I am considering buying a mac-mini for media. I am a technology agnostic. I think that there is a place for PCs, a place for Linux and UNIX machines and a place for Macs.

    Bergman makes a great point here. Apple has better marketing than Microsoft. They really need to pay attention to this and fire back, although it's going to be tough when a lot of the Vista related points that Apple is making are valid.
  • Jerry Bergman
    The anti-Mac-zealotry zealots are getting to be just as annoying as the original Mac zealots. I don't know why some people are so emotionally threatened by other people's choice of office equipment. Look, Windows is not perfect, and Macs do have some advantages. The opposite is also true, of course, but that message does not get out because the PC industry's marketing is not as effective as Apple's. But shrilly attacking people for their purchasing decisions is hardly the way to make Windows' brand image more attractive.
  • Barry
    So one zealot tells another zealot to STFU. Very clever. Very mature. You equate this one reader of Wired to entire Apple policy. When it comes to preposterous statements I guess you have at least shown that you walk the walk as well as talking the talk. You have managed to convincingly show that two wrongs just make a bigger wrong. Well Done.
  • Jim Stead
    What everyone "knows" isn't relevant to what everyone buys. Everyone knows the Japanese makers have better cars, but last time I looked GM and Ford were still in business.
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