Macs: They're not for everyone

Yesterday, Computerworld brought us 5 reasons to ditch the Mac and return to PCs (tip o' the antlers to John Gruber via e-mail). And, sadly, they weren't April foolin' us.

Listen, then, Mac user to the tale of one "Mac fan" who switched... back! (Please shoot the Macalope now.)

So while Apple's sales continue to grow, Keanini decided to buck the trend, and gave up on his most recent Apple machine, an Intel dual-core based MacBook Pro.

That seems like kind of a waste since he could have just used Boot Camp to run Windows on it, but whatever.

"I am all PC at home and at work now, because frankly, if I'm not working, I'm gaming. And the Mac doesn't have games," Keanini said, though his household still has three Apple machines in use by other family members.

One really wonders why Keanini switched to the Mac in the first place. It's not as if it was a great gaming platform back in 2001, when he says he first started using Macs.

It's easy to fall in love with the aluminum cases used in Mac hardware and the slick interface design of the Mac OS X, Keanini said. Those are two reasons why more people are moving to Apple products...

This article is really confusing. Are we talking about home users or business users? Because home users can certainly be excused for making decisions based on the "It's shiny!" index, but businesses cannot.

A cynical person would say that it sounds like the business decisions at Keanini's company were based first on his inclination to be distracted by shiny objects and are now being based on his desire to play games.

Fortunately, the Macalope is not so cynical.

"My rule is to find the technology that makes your company most productive and be honest with yourself about it," he said. "Don't bring religion into it."

And here we all thought that if we just prayed to Steve Jobs harder, Macs could magically run vertical applications in the insurance industry or legacy accounting packages or MS Project.

But according to Tim, that doesn't work. Thanks for clearing that up, Tim!

1. Work-arounds waste time

Dur-hey.

"Everything is going to be a little bit different, and that little difference in everything eventually adds up," Keanini said.

No, Tim, not everything is going to be a little bit different. If you rely on the most proprietary of Microsoft technologies, obviously you're going to have problems, but Macs connect to Active Directory networks, run Citrix, connect to printers, hell, they even run Windows for crying out loud! Arrgh.

One company engineer woke up Keanini the night before presentation slides were due for a conference, his voice cracking with stress, because his slides -- exported from Apple's Keynote presentation application to Microsoft PowerPoint -- looked nothing like they had on the Mac.

Yeah! They probably looked like crap! Which would cause any sane person to ask why the hell he was exporting them to PowerPoint in the first place instead of just plugging a Mac into the projector, but not Keanini. He reminds the Macalope of Ned Flanders' beatnik parents when they said "We've tried nothing and we're all of out ideas!"

You may become quite attached to a Windows application or two and decide that Apple doesn't have a comparable equivalent. Apple is well known for creating user-friendly applications, but for Keanini, Microsoft has a lead with at least one program: OneNote,, which he uses for personal information management.

Well, if Keanini loves OneNote so much why doesn't he marry it?

Seriously, so Keanini's got this One Application He Just Can't Live Without™ that doesn't exist on the Mac. So, yes, maybe the Mac is no longer for him, if it ever was in the first place. The Mac doesn't need to be for everyone, you know. But Keanini seems to have attached a awful lot of emotional value to this one application that takes notes. One might even say he seems religious about it.

Hmm!

Frankly, the Macalope had never even heard of OneNote before (and despite the Classic Mac head, he does have experience with the typical Microsoft enterprise) so he took a look at it on Wikipedia.

Agh! Oh. Uh, looks great, Tim. That's a... handsome application you have there. The Macalope is sure the two of you will be very happy together.

"The designers of Mac -- again, this is their priesthood...

WE GET IT ALREADY.

... are not thinking about letting their users go," Keanini said. "It's like Hotel California: They are not expecting you to leave."

I'm sure the members of the Mac-using community would be more than happy to help pack your bags, Tim.

Companies that move over to the Mac OS X should expect to spend a lot of time converting data if they decide to move back to Windows, Keanini said.

???

And you didn't have to convert anything to go from Windows to the Mac? Do you even hear yourself talking?

"Today, companies need to be thinking about interoperability," he said. "It's the users' data, not the vendor's data."

Well said! Say, Tim, let's take a look at some of the items on the list of Key Shortcomings on the Microsoft OneNote Wikipedia page:

• Limited generic export capability or API functionality.
• OneNote 2007 notebooks, sections, and pages cannot be opened within OneNote 2003 and cannot be converted to OneNote 2003 format, thereby limiting the ability of different users with different versions to interact.

Cough.

People in glass houses, Tim.

Aluminum cases make MacBook Pro laptops, like the one Keanini chose, very sleek. But, Keanini said, the focus on design overlooked the fact that the computers throw off a lot of heat; so much so that he found he could not use the computer on his lap.

Well, now, that's just sissy talk.

OK, fine, a thin laptop is more likely to put the heat of the processor closer to your skin. So Keanini would rather lug around "a monster" than wear pants (the Macalope hears casual days at Tim's company are wild). To each his own.

"The religion made me blind," he said.

Twas not religion made you blind, Tim. Twas that world-class wankery you're practicing there.

Ultimately, it's Keanini's and his company's business which platform they use, but this list simply isn't a practical set of advice. There are reasons to switch to the Mac other than "it's shiny". For all the claims of lost productivity, there's a counter-argument to be made for gained productivity. And Keanini's "tale" doesn't even make any sense. Sure, it's got a beginning, middle and end (Computerworld's Robert Lemos is a reporter, but what he really wants to do is direct!), but it stretches our suspension of disbelief.

Also, the audience should have some empathy for the protagonist. Keanini generated zero empathy with this viewer. Again, if the Macalope were cynical, he'd be inclined to say that his farcical tale and repeated use of Artie MacStrawmanisms were designed simply to get his company mentioned in the press.

Actually, you know what? He is that cynical. That's probably exactly what this is about.

The horny one--the guy with a Mac for a head!--has repeatedly said the Mac is not for every person or for every business. But please spare him your jacktastic reverse switcher tales with the clownish religious references. They sicken him.

[JeffG360]

OneNote? It was first on the Mac as a mode in Word 2004 and is even better in Word 2008! Go to View "Notebook Layout" even allows you to record into the document for later playback for example in a lecture or meeting.

[RovingSkroob]

There is a similar product to OneNote on the Mac. It's called VoodooPad (http://flyingmeat.com/voodoopad/) and it's fantastic. The question, though, is if he switched to Mac OS in 2001, how would he have gotten used to OneNote, which wasn't even available until October 2003?

[Macalope]

Good question! Also, the Macalope loves VoodooPad.

[KeeganHill]

In all honesty Macs do get hotter than similarly thin laptops because of the lack of vents. But, I will admit the video editing capability of my Mac will keep me hooked, along with all the other fun little mac apps! But, I do miss the ability to build my own computer. The iMac looks nice, but a dell that has ubuntu with beryl, a quad core processor, 3 gb ram, 500 gb hd, and a 512mb nvidia for only $1000 looks alot nicer!

[jfatz]

I'm curious how you say "build my own computer" and "Dell" at the same time. ;-)

That is not building your own computer! (Your particular claimed spec is way cheaper to build through NewEgg, for instance. Of course you weren't real specific... The minimum entry points for "quad-core processor" and "512mb nVidia" are pretty low.)

[oneBMF]

I remember the days when Tim was exclusively a Mac guy (circa 1990). I also remember when he started playing around with Unix. I think that was the migration event that got him into the internet security field and, inevitably, put PCs on his radar. I've been a Mac guy since 1984. It's all I've ever used and it's all my company has ever used. Never really found compatibility to be much of an issue. But productivity, usability and quality has always been exceptional. (Sounds like I've been drinkin' the Koolaid again...)

[etcook]

I'm not defending this article...however...

@JeffG360

Notebook layout and OneNote are two completely different beasts. Obviously you haven't used OneNote lately and you are just talking out of your ass. OneNote is far superior to Notebook layout, especially its text/audio sync capabilities, and its voice recognition capabilities so you can actually search the audio notes. On top of that, it is just a far more powerful note taking application, VoodooPad has nothing on it.

Not to mention there are other apps on the Windows side that are vastly superior...FTP and newsgroup software for example.

I am not trashing Macs, I have a Mac, and find myself booting into Windows quite often (which is a huge pain), and I don't like running Parallels because it hogs down my computer.

And Macalope, seriously, your blog used to be so good, now its just the same old redundant bash PC, Mac apologist ********. Good God, do you provide any bit of insight worth reading anymore? I like my Mac better than my previous PCs, but I don't need a blowhard blathering on about it incessantly.

[Macalope]

Huh? Did the Macalope not just say the Mac was not for everyone? Yes, he did! Right there in the title! He only asks that your argument *against* the Mac actually make sense. There are many, many reasons why a person or a business should run Windows. But passing of Keanini's tale as if it's some kind of object lesson for businesses that are thinking of converting to the Mac is just crap. Frankly, the Macalope was waiting to hear that Keanini's firm - which deals with information security - just felt Vista was better designed from a security perspective. *That* would have been a good reason - it *is*! But, no, we read that businesses should be concerned about Macs because their CIOs want to play games and the Mac doesn't have games. And the Macalope would really be interested in which pieces of his you previously thought were so great, because he's baffled by readers who claim to be his former biggest fan but now think he sux0rs.

[bluelittlegirl]

If Keanini really doesn't want his shiny Intel MacBook Pro, I would take it off of his hands. You know, as a personal favor, and my commitment to suffering myself for the rest of mankind.

[darthmoridin]

I like that he's going back to Windows because he thinks he'll be more productive. Oh, and he'll be able to play more games, which leads to much more productivity, as all studies show.

[Briansdg]

Apparently CIO Douglas Merrill of Google, yes Google, disagrees with Mr. Keanini.
?We've changed the way we think about IT here. We don't have to drive for uniformity. Our systems, which basically are consumer systems, have to run on the end points. The side effect of that is I can let a particular employee work on a Mac because it makes him 10 percent more productive. That productivity advantage outweighs the minor cost advantage I get from uniformity.?

http://www.cio.com/article/144500/IT_s_Third_Epoch...and_Running_IT_at_Google/2

[Sigivald]

Keegan: Are you, as the kids say, smoking rocks?

Dell's website won't admit to any all-in-ones with a quad-core, let alone for $999. The XPS One starts at $1299 and has a Core2 Duo - with 2 gigs of ram and a 250gb HD, not 3 gigs (3? not 4? Who runs a 32 bit OS anymore?) and a 500gb HD.

(And a CPU with half the cache of the iMac)

Or are you comparing disparate systems, as always seems to be the case when someone says "omg macs overpriced"? It seems you must be, since there is no system that's like an iMac that meets the spec you invented.

A desktop with a monitor isn't the same thing as an iMac. (Nor will the monitor you get be as "shiny", if aesthetics is the controlling factor.)

(But the real problem here is the idea that linux and (puke) Beryl will somehow be comparable to OSX or even Vista. Madness incarnate, and I say that as someone who's happily used linux for over a decade. As a server. Where it's good.)

[jfatz]

He didn't say it had to be "all-in-one." Certainly the form factor is not ultimately the most important thing for the majority of desktop users, though it can indeed be appealing enough to command a bit of a premium. (It does, however, toss you down to laptop-class procs in the iMac's case, however.) If there's a substantial performance or price deficit, people will have no real qualms about using a the same ol' desktop setup rather than moving to a nifty new all-in-one.

There are only generic Inspirons available as desktop options through their Ubuntu section, though curiously no ability to outfit it with 3GB of RAM (just 1, 2, and 4), so I'm not sure what he built, or whether he was just tossing out estimates.

Similarly, there is no 512MB video card, no 500GB HDD, and no ability to use anything but a 1.8ghz dual core. (This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116036 )

I have a feeling he just built a random Windows PC, and assumed he'd reformat and install Ubuntu on it.

It kinda seemed like he took the minimum spec of an XPS 420, but even that would have to add $300 to the $1000 starting price to kick the HDD and video card up to claimed specs. Oh, and there's no monitor, either.

You can start a lot lower with an Inspiron desktop, but you break $1000 without quite getting to that "512mb nVidia." (Video cards cap at the 256MB 8600GT.) That's as close as you're getting, though, and you still have to add $100 to get the monitor to be the same quality as the entry level iMac, which puts them in the same exact ballpark.



I just take the most exception to "build your own computer" and then mentioning Dell. (Applies to any other OEM.) Especially since the price point is being crowed about, and the point of entry for those stated specs (which you can't reach properly through Dell anyway)...? ~$650

Though you'd certainly push it up a bit more to get the right kind of components rather than the options. You're still coming in above what Dell can give you, and well below their price.

[jfatz]

I apologize about my lack of formatting in previous comment--it got eaten. (I know it's harder to follow now.) c|net not allow any of that, or something? I'll have to keep that in mind for future posts...

[grovberg]

@etcook
You're right about OneNote, which is fairly decent, though narrow, software. I forced myself to use a Windows Tablet PC as my main office computer for about two months just to get to know it and OneNote is the only thing I miss.

But you could not possibly be any more wrong about FTP or Newsgroup software. Apparently you're not familiar with Panic, makers of excellent examples of both a Usenet client and a FTP client. Saying there's no good FTP clients is especially absurd at the moment since the Mac software community is currently experiencing a glut of them.

In general though, I'm not sure I'm taking the Macalope's side on this one either. Why is it that everyone (me included) squeals with delight when we see a story about someone switching to the Mac, but feel the need to pick apart a story about someone switching back? I love the Macalope for punching holes in blowhard windbags spouting nonsense, but I guess I'm just not so sure this one needed punching.

[etcook]

@grovberg

Actually, I have heard of Panic, and actuallyown both Unison and Transmit. And they are both complete garbage compared to numerous PC counterparts. For example, newsleecher is light years ahead of Unison, the latter of which can't seem to even do multi-threaded downloading etc.

Every single FTP client that I have used on the Mac side, including Transmit, is like every $10 shareware FTP program on the PC side. Flow seems to be ok, although I tend to utilize Interarchy because it is far more powerful and extensible, albeit with a ****** interface. I use forklift sometimes as well. I am very well acquainted with all the software offerings on the Mac, the fact of the matter is, most of them are painfully overrated and just garbage. Unison is definitely one of the token examples.

It is just getting old and tiresome...the asinine PC bashing just goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on. The ironic part of your statement is that #1. The Macalope gives blowhards credence by even responding, and #2. The Macalope is chief Mac blowhard himself.

When Macalope was an independent blogger, there were some actually insightful and useful posts, now his blog has been relegated to this garbage day after day after day after day. Then again, I have to read Gruber hypocritically calling people jackasses, when his own incompetence and ineptitude led to people's annual subscriptions expiring before they received their shirts, with nary a peep or apology from that shyster. Guess those two are peas in a pod.

[Macalope]

Again, please, please, please link to the posts that you liked so much on the Macalope's old blog. This issue of "not keeping it real" is very vexing as the Macalope has no frame of reference to what the heck you're talking about.

[baxtrice]

Wow, you're really mad a at BLOG, dude. It's just a blog, you don't like, take it off your reading list.

[Macalope]

Ah, but baxtice, he *won't* take it off his reading list because he's been on the Macalope's case since October of 2006. The horned one thought the name sounded familiar so he went back and checked - Mr. Cook is a semi-professional Apple comment troll (and his posts at his erstwhile blog make it rather unbelievable that he ever liked anything the Macalope wrote).

[samurairadiologist]

Of course, another explanation for an April 1st post that doesn't make a lot of sense would be that it was meant as a joke.

However, jokes should at least be funny.

[apple4ever]

Finally! Its good to see some classic Macalope smack down come back. I was getting kind of annoyed about the iPhone and sticking up for up Apple there(along with Gruber). But this is what I love about the Macalope- honest, but funny comments about dumb articles or blog posts by other people.

[kapowaz]

I've worked for a computer retailer in the past and for legal reasons they tend not to refer to such computers as 'laptop' for the very reason that they can become too hot to comfortably (or safely) rest upon your lap. In fact, if you look you'll see that nowhere on Apple's site do they refer to their computers as 'laptops'; they use the distinctly different term 'portable'. Other manufacturers use the term 'notebook' or 'desktop replacement', but I think you'll find any company with a legal team not consisting solely of the janitor would do the same.

So, now that we've established that these computers are not deemed safe to be placed upon the lap by the very companies that manufacture them, surely the idea that 'it gets too hot to put on your lap' is just confirming that it's not good for a purpose it's not intended, like it's not suitable to be used in a swimming pool or suchlike. That being the case, the fact that the MacBook Pro's case is made out of a known heat-conducting material is actually a GOOD thing, since it allows the machine to dissipate heat from those components that generate it more quickly and efficiently.

In short: Keanini is a jackass. But we already knew that.

[jfatz]

Almost no one really WANTS to use them on their lap, anyway. It's uncomfortable, poorly positioned, and pretty much anywhere you are you'll have access to a table, tray, or other surface (even the floor) to use. About the only time one ever uses one's lap is for quick surfing in tight quarters, or when riding in someone else's car, on a bus, or a commuter train.

[stam66]

Quoth Macalope:

"Twas not religion made you blind, Tim. Twas that world-class wankery you're practicing there."

so true, so true...

[josejrp]

Well, obviously this is just a matter of opinion, but I haven't found anything on the Windows side that compares with Transmit for FTP and Unison for newsgroups, both excellent Mac programs. In my opinion, Mac programs usually surpass their PC equivalents, with the exception of programs that do not exist on the Mac (such as Visio).

[Obvioustroll]

What gets me is #1 and #2 are essentially the same thing. Spending the time to do work arounds does waste productivity.
At the same time they ignore the fact that their own stupidity caused half these problems and the lost productivity time on making sure those Windows machines run when patches are released. Ever had a Windows update break half your drivers and force you to download a ton of fixes to get things working again?

#4 is a symptom of changing back. If these are 5 reasons to switch back, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU USE A PROBLEM OF DOING SO AS A REASON TO DO IT?!?!?!?!?

It came down to the guy was too used to a program to give it up, ignored all the problems of his program or his decisions and then decided that obviously Macs are supposed to be idiot proof and his proving otherwise meant he needed to go back to windows.

[idrankthekoolaid]

The notebook program from Circus Ponies would have been ideal for him.

[integer-poet]

The discussion the ComputerWorld editorial board had is easy to imagine. They wanted a story and they went out and found somebody to be in it. It doesn't matter if the guy made sense; media must present two sides to every story in order to [a] pretend to be impartial and [b] create drama.

[Ed-duh-win]

Um, is it just me, or is Macalope furiously defending a lost cause?

Because bashing people for saying that switching back to PC was a better idea, with quotes like "We'd help you pack your bags" is not constructive at all...

These comments from these blogs make the Mac users seem arrogant and selfish. We don't hear PC users saying the same thing Macalope is.

P.S. Apple, relying on the fact that "You can even run Windows" is useless, because why the hell would we switch if we continue using Windows for most applications...?