Will Mac addicts trade cool for cheap in the recession?
The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Akst takes a sobering slap at Apple fandom in an opinion piece on Friday. Written by a hardcore (if relatively new) Mac snob, the article asks if The Cult of Mac is an elitist fad that will die in the face of grim economic realities:
Like eating only locally grown food or majoring in gender studies at college, Macs have become luxuries that command a premium out of all proportion to their utility -- unless their utility is simply to broadcast your own disposable income....
Most of the cool people I know use a Mac. My sense is that they like to think of themselves as egalitarian sorts unencumbered by snobbery -- rather than, say, brainwashed cultists obsessed with class-signaling. Yet at today's absurd prices the Mac is even less than ever "the computer for the rest of us." Instead it's a well-designed status symbol for the elite -- another way that people with money can distinguish themselves from hoi polloi.
While I dispute several of the author's assumptions, especially about the comparative prices of Macs and PCs (taking software and hardware into account, Macs fare pretty well against their "Proletariat" Windows peers), the author raises a fair point. Certainly some of the Mac's rise in recent popularity is driven by iPod infatuation and social lemmings' desire to be cool, and surely some people will leave the Mac for cheaper PCs, but I think this misses a more significant, long-term threat to Microsoft:
Most people I know who flock to the Mac do so because it 'just works,' and does so with elegance and style.
These people aren't trying to be cool. They're trying to get their work done with minimal bother from malware, and that "work" includes an increasing focus on things like photos and video, an area where the Mac shines brightly above Windows (and which software comes gratis on a Mac).
As for cool, well, most of my (seven-sibling strong) family runs on the Mac now, and I'm not sure I could credibly call my family "cool" in the author's sense of the word. My flight attendant this morning who gushed about her Mac to me when she spotted me using mine wasn't cool. The guy sitting next to me was very uncool. And so on.
Sure, there will be groupies. But these don't comprise the bulk of Apple's converts, in my experience. No, the Mac has gone mainstream, and it's being picked up by people that care about quality and are willing to pay a little more for it.
These aren't elitists and dogmatists. No, those are the people that have been hounding the college girl for not grokking Ubuntu in The Proper Way....Linux desktop users remain their own worst enemies in far too many cases
Mac adoption is not about elitism. It's about pragmatism and enthusiasm. People will pay that price, even in a recession.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
I can load OSX 10.5 (Leopard) on a 5-year-old Mac Dual G5 and see it perform admirably... I cannot load Vista on a 5-year-old Dell or HP Pentium 4 EE without a massive investment in upgrades, and even then the results are sluggish at best.
I can sell my dual G5 for roughly 50% of what I paid for it new, right now. There's no way you could sell a 5-year-old Dell or HP for more than (maybe) 10-20% of its original retail price.
This kind of value is what the WSJ article misses entirely.
Windows 7 is working nearly as fast as XP on it.
My mac has crashed a few times, and likes to boot to my ipod for some reason that i'm not allowed to change.
My Vista machine has corrupted the page file... big deal, just turn it off then on woo.. I know alot of people who like macs, and are willing to pay for one. if i liked them as much, i would to. Just not for me. Sides i can customize my computers and make them Look cool and 'Just work'. Meh... :p
So whatever Macs do best, its most likely robbing your pocket of money that could be saved to do something more productive. Windows Vista is just as secure as OS X and even more proven built in security such as Standard Firewall and one with Advanced Security, Patch Guard, ASLR, Windows Defender, Device Driver signing make Windows powerful enough for most users needs and Windows just works, I think that's why over 1 billion persons use it.
I would like to raise some counter points to your arguments if I may.
If you buy a mac you get iLife with it so you don't have to fork out extra money as you have suggested.
Services like flickr and You Tube are web services and can be used by anyone Mac, WIndows, Linux or whatever so hardly a windows exclusive and yes iLife also has built in publishing tools to these services.
Granted the blogging for free is cool which with ilife you must buy the web service ME but free blogging is hardly a windows exclusive with the vast majority of bloggers on services such as word press, moveable type and blogger ,any platform including Macs can have this.
You state that Vista is as secure as OS X and all things being equal it like is but all things are not equal. The fact is any operating system is only as secure as the owner whom looks after it and how much it is a target. Given Windows vast market share this makes it the number 1 target and subject to many more attacks. Which given the average consumer whom does not keep their OS up to date means they suffer and you can take it from me they don't blame themselves they blame Windows.
The problem a lot of people have with windows is that it doesn't just work for them. Vista boots slow unless on the newest hardware, it gives constant warnings whenever you do something, folders in start menu are just plan hard to use and many of the other issues with have been raised about Vista all play to Macs advantage.
Cost is a consideration for everyone to what degree that matters is up to the individual but Macs are not inherently that more expensive then a similar spec PC when released. Yes Apple has a selling cycle of 6 months or so, if you buy your Apple at the end of a 6 plus month cycle of course it will be less cost competitive because it was released 6 months ago but when freshly released they are generally around the same price for specs and features from other major pc manufactures.
As for your 1 billion people using windows, how many people had a choice ? how many people use it cause work does? how many people just don't care? there are so many things which factor into how this number came to be. And lets not forget Microsofts Monopolist tactics and business dealings in the early 80s along with other major players such as Apple, IBM, Commodore, Atari, Xerox and a host of other companies failures that lead to this outcome. Hardly a strong argument for consumers loving windows.
With a MAC you don't have to figure out which version of Mac OS X you want as their is only one versions in which you get everything.
The fact is Windows strength is in the business world and has been for a long time, the sooner MS releases this and sticks to it the better for MS.
I by all means don't hate apple products, I have a iPod and a iPhone but when it comes to PC's Macs fall far from the tree performance:price wise compared to a PC all because of the OS.
macs are worth their price tag for their reliability, iLife, ability to run both OS's, sleek design, after all there is a reason why all cell phone manufacturers and most computer manufaturers copy apple products
Mac users feeling the economic pinch will simply make do with an older Mac rather than go to a cheap Windows PC.
I frequently see Macs almost a decade old being used . . . and with the latest system (OS X 10.5) too!
People like Macs for what they do and how they do it.
Oh year . . . Did I mention that nine million PC users this week just got a virus to which all Macs are immune. I hear also that Windows 7 (aka Vista 2.0) is just as vulnerable.
I'm probably going to jinx myself by saying this, but I've been using a MacBook Pro every day for the past 3 years with no problems. The only thing I had to replace was the battery. But the computer is still running fast. So, for me, a MacBook Pro has actually been cheaper given its longevity.
I contrast that to my experience with Windows laptops which tend to get slower the longer you run them (even though I defragment) not to mention getting slowed down by the anti-virus software that our IT department had installed. I got into the habit of reinstalling Windows and all my apps every year to get rid of the bit rot on Windows machines and to keep them running fast. I haven't had to do that with the Mac.
Also, I can't tell you how many times I installed some app on Windows that caused problems -- like causing an error box to appear on startup or causing my CD drive to disappear from the system -- which sent me online to search for a solution, required me to hack through the registry, etc. All of this took time and effort, not to mention the frustration and anxiety of wondering if I just screwed up my computer.
I'm not a fan of Apple's cultish image, which so far I have managed to avoid, but I'm not sure that I'd ever go back to Windows at this point. My time and peace of mind are worth more that a few extra bucks. Also, although this is my personal bias, I found that I really like Unix -- it's been much easier to integrate with our Unix-based servers and I like that I can use standard commands and utilities when I need to.
At this point, if I was ever really strapped financially, I'd most likely look at Linux before I'd look at returning to Windows.
I'm using my MacBook Pro and get an updated one soon because I can run the Mac OS and WinXP and run the Win 7 Beta in emulation - all on the same laptop. I need a few Mac-only apps (Merlin, Numbers, FCP) and a few Win apps (Revit, Buzzsaw) and I don't have to tell the guy back at the office to fire up something that runs on an OS I don't have when I'm on the road. That ability to run a supported platform not native to the intended hardware is worth money in the bank (and fewer trips to the therapist in a few years) to me.
WIth Apple having licensed MS Exchange - a coup, as far as I'm concerned, for both MS and Apple - I'm going to keep going back to both companies for support and products. I don't need Dell or HP anymore for PCs - one contracted vendor, one service center, two operating systems delivering the software tools and pipes I need to keep going. How sweet is that?
- by SamanthaSpade January 29, 2009 11:15 AM PST
- Luddite checking in here. Macs are easy to use, even for the computer illiterate. I started with an Apple IIE, then migrated to the dark side for a while, came back with the iMac and stayed. Just had the opportunity (or sheer bad luck) to be forced to use Vista for a few weeks. Guess what -- you still have to waste time searching online, visiting forums, and hacking the registry. Used Vista on both a Dell and a Vaio. The Dell is a rattletrap piece of junk, not as well built as my DVR remote. Plus I had to leave it at the computer doctor when I was finished with it... The Vaio is, as always, an elegant machine, much more substantial. I learned that Vista and Internet Explorer don't mix, who'd have thought that?!?
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(18 Comments)So I'm not cool, and I have 3 Macs -- an old and still running iMac, and 2 Powerbooks. Guess what I will buy next? A MacBook, probably an Air so I'm not stuck using Vista on someone else's computer again. At least I can say I tried Windows again, right?
I think Matt is spot on; the cool kids run open source. I'm from a tax-paying, didn't-have-computers-in-high-school demographic.(But not so old I watch CBS) A lot of us don't want to spend time and energy just to get the damn thing to run. I don't want to jinx myself, but I haven't had problems with slowing, freezing, viruses, malware, etc. with Apple. In years. With Vista, I had those problems in weeks. I need a simple, sturdy OS and a simple, sturdy PC. With a Mac, I've got both. It doesn't hurt that it's elegant, too. I wish that were true of more things in my life.