This blog post by a third grader shouldn’t even warrant a response, but I was so blown away by it (like the Angry Mac Bastards were) that I decided to write up a full point by point response to it as a way to burn off steam and caffeine. I’ve been sick this week and VERY cranky. How I kept myself from vomiting during this exercise I’ll never know. I know that my grammar and punctuation are terrible, but his made my bowels curdle a bit. Here’s my response:
Preliminary Stuff
Kiddo obviously doesn’t realize that Apple and Sony probably use the same contract OEMs to build their hardware: Quanta, Foxconn, Compal, etc. He mocks Apple’s marketing for catering to hipster douches who show off at Starbucks, but says that Sony’s machines are superior to Apple’s in terms of technology and style. I, personally, think that Sony’s computer design language is geared toward the Japanese market in the same way that shit & tentacle porn is geared toward the Japanese market: not many people outside of Japan get it, and those who do are usually a little bit weird.
Maximize Windows
I prefer the resize-to-fit of the Mac OS because it doesn’t waste space on the screen like maximize does on Windows. Personal preference. I also believe that the typical “run maximized” philosophy of Windows negates some of the usefulness of a multi-tasking operating system. Harkens back to the good old DOS days. Overshooting window edges is possible on the Mac and Windows, and the reason you can’t tell if the window is in “big or small mode” is because such modes don’t actually exist.
Window Resizing
I agree that this feature would be useful in some situations on the Mac OS. I don’t use it often in the rare cases I’m using Windows, but it’s kinda handy. I don’t know how Apple could properly integrate it into the user interface paradigm they currently have, but it’s certainly possible.
Switching Programs / Seeing What’s Running
Like on Windows, one can hit Cmd-Tab to see the list of running applications and switch between them, and then if you want to switch between different windows in the app, most developers integrate the Cmd-tilde function to switch between windows in the frontmost app. Much faster than going to the Start bar, and the triangle uses far fewer display resources to indicate that an application is running. I think it is a much more efficient use of pixels than the giant gray wasteland of the taskbar. Also, Expose may remove the frontmost task from view, but it does not “disrupt” anything in terms of running threads or processes.
Thumbnails
I can’t stand the OS processing images to show in a folder listing. QuickLook serves a useful purpose, and CoverFlow in the Finder is great for people who need giant pictures in a directory listing to navigate their porn collection.
Delete and Backspace Key
Checking my good ol’ Apple Extended Keyboard II from 1995, I’ve got a delete AND a backspace key. I do believe that the original Extended Keyboard had them too, back before the Brit douchenozzle was conceived. On Apple portables, you can hit the “Fn” key in the bottom left corner in combination with the “Delete” key to get a true delete rather than a backspace key (the one that’s labeled “Delete”). That functionality has existed since at least as far back as the PowerBook G3 Pismo, which I owned and loved.
Uninstall Programs
I agree that the package management in OS X should include much better uninstallation capabilities. However, a good lot of Adobe software still uses Installer Vise or other non-OEM installers, which aren’t governed by OS package conventions. To be honest, though, I don’t have to uninstall software on a Mac nearly as often as I’ve had to do so on Windows. Could be my usage patterns, though.
Home & End Keys
See my previous mention of the delete and backspace keys. On portables, Fn-Left and Fn-Right are the Home and End keys, respectively, and since you probably haven’t figured it out yet, Fn-Up and Fn-Down are Page Up and Page Down, respectively.
Drag & Drop Text Editing
Really? Have you used a Mac?
Battery Life
I envy you, having used every Apple laptop ever made. On my Early 2008 MacBook Pro, I’m currently running a 7200 RPM drive in the primary HD bay and a 5400 RPM drive where the optical drive used to live, and I still get between 2 and 3 hours of actual work out of it. On an OEM battery. I’m sure that I could get 8-14 hours of battery life out of my MacBook Pro if it was 3 inches thick (2 inches thicker than it is now), and had a tumor sticking out of it like this thing right here (original image):
Portability & Netbooks
I agree with your point that Apple doesn’t compete in the subnotebook market anymore. As a former owner of a PowerBook Duo 270c, I do occasionally miss the portability and dockability of that machine, but the throughput of wired networking, USB, FireWire, and Bluetooth quell my concerns for connectivity at home. Size-wise, I miss having a little Apple laptop. Moving to netbooks, I’ve run OS X on netbook hardware, and the performance, though good considering the machine it was running on, really does suck in comparison to even a MacBook Air. While the Air may not be satisfactory to those looking for netbook size, Apple isn’t willing to make the performance compromises needed to get OS X running on a “sanctioned” netbook-sized device.
Updates
Windows XP was released in the fall of 2001. Windows 7 was released in the fall of 2009, with a paid beta in the form of Windows Vista in between. Observe the progress Microsoft has made in 8 years, especially compared with the features they claimed would be added to future OS versions by 2010. Similarly, when OS X 10.1 was released in the fall of 2001, it was an improvement over what preceded it, but Apple has made significant progress on its operating systems in terms of functionality & features on 6 major OS releases in the time that Microsoft has made 3 major releases. Apple provided the 10.1 release as a complimentary upgrade to those running 10.0, and provided the 10.6 release as a $29 upgrade to those running 10.5 on Intel hardware. Both Apple and Microsoft provide free incremental updates to their release versions on a periodic basis.
Games
It used to be that the productivity software was what distinguished Microsoft’s platform from the Mac. In a complete 180, gaming is now the basis for initial comparison between platforms. Yes, there are fewer games on the Mac. I’m not a gamer, so I’m not the best person to respond to this. However, many game studios have found it profitable to port their products to OS X (see Aspyr, MacSoft, and others), and Valve has seen fit to release Steam for OS X along with many of their own game titles.
Apple is Technologically Backward
It seems that Apple doesn’t adopt technologies unless it suits their purposes of building the best products they feel they can sell in the open market. Carbon fiber is a great material, but I don’t miss it in my portables. LED-backlit LCDs were first adopted in the 15″ MacBook Pro in 2007, not in the MacBook Air, but were later added to other models as the panels rolled into full production. I think the eschewing of the ExpressCard slot in favor of the SD reader on the 15″ MacBook Pro was a terrible move on Apple’s part, primarily because the ExpressCard slot could be used for an SD reader, in addition to many other useful options. The addition of the SD reader to the 13″ metal portable where there was none before was a surprise to me, but a welcome if not overdue feature. A 3G SIM slot (or, more specifically, a 3G GSM/UMTS/HSPA modem) is something that Apple wants to leave to carriers to provide and not have to bother with since Apple doesn’t like to tie itself to rapidly changing standards like in the telco industry. It is for this reason that I was surprised about the inclusion of an SDHC reader, since SDXC is now a progression of the standard. Battery issues have already been discussed, and I don’t think that Apple will adopt the Sony Vaio X as a new technology as our friend seems to want. Apple’s portable display resolution is also a bit low on the 13″ and 15″ models, but on par with many other 17″ models from what I can tell. How, though, is any of this “technologically backward”?
Hilarious Comparison
The MacBook Air may or may not be a copy of the X505, but the X505 sure looks a lot like my old PowerBook Duo, a lot moreso than it looks like a PowerBook 2400c. In fact, I believe that Apple was the first mainstream portable maker with a rear-positioned keyboard on their laptops. Previous portables had no wrist rests, which was a major selling point for the old 100/140/170 series. Apple’s adoption of chiclet keys starting in 2006 bothers me to no end, which is why I am typing this on a USB Pro Keyboard and prefer my non-unibody MacBook Pro.
Hibernation
I’ve rarely seen hibernation work properly on Windows machines, and I’m not a huge fan of the similar “safe sleep” feature on OS X & newer model portables. I guess experiences differ in this regard. My old Duo used normal sleep mode quite well, and I believe that the original Apple portables did it too. If I shut down the machine, I’d like to shut it down, not save the RAM state. I’ll leave that to VMWare VMs, thankyouverymuch. Besides, unless you’re running QNX, it’s probably a good idea to reboot your machine every once in a while.
Disk Formatting
OS X can read and write FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and read NTFS. NTFS write support isn’t presently enabled without third party software (or free hacks to enable Apple’s write functionality in 10.6.) Windows cannot read HFS, HFS Plus, or any other Macintosh filesystems without third party software. That’s correct: Windows has zero compatibility with Mac filesystems out of the box. Windows also does not fully support Apple’s resource forks, even though Apple has used them since 1984 and NTFS can technically utilize them through Alternate Data Stream functionality. Apple has even deprecated the use of resource forks in OS X as an outdated technology before Microsoft has been willing or able to implement support for them in Windows almost 30 years later.
Selecting Text With Cursor Keys
Kinda like my comment on drag & drop text editing: have you ever used a Mac?
And moving on to this guy’s discussion of why Macs may be better than Windows machines, which is just as stupid and problematic:
Viruses
Apple machines have not always been as malware-free as they are today. I have fond memories of WDEF viruses, among others, circulating via infected floppies in 7th grade. There are fewer pieces of malware for OS X partially because it’s harder to exploit OS X in a similar fashion, and partially because it’s a smaller target than Windows is. But if you think for one second that all you need on a Windows machine is Microsoft Security Essentials and nothing else, you might as well gape your butthole now because it’s gonna happen pretty soon anyways.
Stability
If you’ve not had a bluescreen in 10 years, that’s pretty impressive. Excluding dumb shit I’ve brought on myself, I’ve had only a handful of kernel panics in OS X since I began using it, and most of the time it was faulty hardware causing it, not the software. And in most of those cases, it was third party hardware, not Apple hardware. And I must have missed Apple’s marketing department releasing the ads that say “Captain Dipshit’s Windows PC has had 3 BSODs a day for the past 10 years.”
Ease of Use
This is mostly opinion, but I think that my grandma starting on an iBook was much smoother and easier than if she started on a Windows XP laptop. I believe that Apple has the easier to use product for those starting with a clean slate in terms of computing experiences. I feel for any senior citizen who has to get help with their computer at an Apple Store. Could you imagine the same folks going to Best Buy or Fry’s for help with their PC?
Crapware
I love how kiddo thinks that MS should be MORE demanding of OEMs in reducing the amount of crapware installed on their machines. Especially his idea of charging extra to have LESS crap on the machine. Wouldn’t that extra money be better spent on a computer that doesn’t have the bullshit on there in the first place?
Marketing
Apple’s marketing must have been doing something other than what kiddo is saying since Microsoft has been on the defensive for the better part of a decade now with its Windows advertising. He mentions battery life and lack of 3G modem integration again, which is weird because it’s normally the PC users I see using a wall outlet, not the Mac users. He also mentions lack of efficiency in the OS, which is never actually detailed in an accurate fact-based way.
(His) Conclusion
Macs drive this kid crazy, which is fascinating, because they aren’t efficient. Again, no specific efficiency “facts” listed aside from his previous keyboard and app switching gripes which I have provided workable, quick solutions for. For all of OS X’s supposed faults, it would only cost him 15 minutes of lost productivity in a day. I’m sure he makes up that lost productivity by skipping the use of proper caps, apostrophes, and the remainder of the English language. And what, exactly, are “knock on effects”?
Anyways, I’m really done with this kid. Looking at his Twitter page made me realize he’s just another linkbait whoring social media douchebag who needs to suck a bag of dicks and drop off the internet. I wish that Cockpunch over IP wasn’t still in early development stages. I would also like to apologize for my terrible writing tonight, as I’m doing this with one of the worst flu bugs I’ve had in a while tearing me apart.
