“There perhaps has never been a more interesting time to write about Apple and its growing impact on the computer, telecommunications, and music worlds. Unfortunately, it also means that I have to witness (and sometimes join) a daily descent into a pit of mudslinging,” Tom Krazit blogs for CNET.
“Their size and degree of organization can be debated, and it’s usually overstated. But there is no question that Macintosh users are by far the most passionate advocates for their products in the technology industry. And while such passion is remarkable and even moving, it can also be terribly disturbing,” Krazit writes.
“I think the roots of this zealotry go back to a time when Apple was on the ropes financially and someone who worked on a Mac was ridiculed by other computer users. Ten years ago, Mac users in the corporate world were viewed as rubes playing with ‘toys’ not suitable for getting real work done, and there were plenty of people ready to remind the Mac community in not-so-subtle ways that the revolution promised in the 1980s by the original Macintosh was being fulfilled by Microsoft software,” Krazit writes.
“Windows users, who had almost forgotten about the Mac, initially laughed at Mac users and their intense love for a plastic cube of electronics. But then, as Apple starting gaining market share and increasing respect for its design chops, they started to fight back,” Krazit writes.
“Mac users feel an affinity to both their machines and their fellow users that the rest of the world simply doesn’t share. For some, it’s the emphasis on design, both in hardware and software. For others, it’s the way Apple focuses on applications that make it easier for them to be creative,” Krazit writes.
“Now that Apple has momentum on its side, does this finally mean we’re nearing a day when we can have a coherent discussion of the pros and cons of Apple’s approach to the computing world?” ” Krazit asks.
“Probably not. After all, the Mac community has all the momentum on its side, and is unlikely to lift its foot off the gas now that more people are starting to come around to its point of view,” Krazit writes. “And Apple hasn’t stopped making Mac vs. PC ads.”
Full article – we recommend reading the entire article, as it contains other points we have not excerpted and are not addressing below – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ampar” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: What’s really disturbing is how Krazit blames the sometimes — okay, oftentimes — vitriolic online Mac vs. PC debates nearly totally on Mac users. Windows PC users get a free pass from Krazit, even though they are the ones who are almost always arguing from a position of ignorance. If you believe that Krazit is really “terribly disturbed” by Mac users’ passion, then you probably said “Wow!” (geniunely, not sarcastically) when you saw Windows Vista.
We contend that the majority of Mac users have used a recent vintage Windows PC (and considering their “preferred” OS is the over 6-year-old Windows XP, the term “recent” is as laughable as it is debatable). Mac users are often forced to suffer 8+ hours with a Windows PC while at work or for some period of time in a school classroom. Certainly, most Mac users have ample opportunities to be inflicted with Windows in Internet cafes or at friend’s and relative’s houses. We also contend that the majority of Windows PC users have not used a Mac recently, or at all, for any meaningful period of time. If they had, of course, they’d already be Mac users.
The point is: Mac users have used both Mac OS X and Windows. Most Windows PC sufferers*, in our experience, have little to no idea about the Mac. But, for some reason, that doesn’t stop them from contributing every fallacy they’ve ever heard about the “MAC” or castigating “them Apple users” for “wasting their money on pretty Apples” when “PCs are cheaper.” Etc., etc., etc. Don’t blame Mac users when they get frustrated with idiots who know little or nothing about which they are writing.
Imagine someone lived in, oh, say, Singapore all their lives. One day, they decide to surf on over to L.L. Bean’s website and begin commenting, very confidently and often quite vehemently, on the qualities of — and even questioning the need for — winter coats, ski pants, hats, and mittens. It wouldn’t take long for those with actual experience to blast Mr. Equator a new icehole, now would it?
Krazit acts as if Windows PC users just woke up and just now starting to “fight back.” We don’t know which discussion boards Krazit’s been reading, but you’d think he’d try some of CNET’s, wouldn’t you? There are many years and millions of examples of “iceholery” on CNET alone, not to mention the rest of the Web. Where’s Krazit been all these years?
In our experience, many Mac users don’t like being told to use Windows to access a service that’s supposed to be open to paying customers. We don’t like being told to use Internet Explorer to access websites that are supposedly open to the public. Many consider Bill Gates to be a thief and a liar, not a genius and a saint. We think of Windows as a Mac cloning experiment gone hideously wrong: all upside-down, backwards, and deformed due to myriad quests to satisfy legal loopholes, instead of satisfying the needs of its users. Microsoft is a follower. Apple is the leader. We all use Macs today, whether they’re the real thing or the clone-gone-wrong. After over two decades, many Mac users are tired of hearing the same old uninformed, tired myths from sufferers of poorly faked Macs. Excuse us if we get snippy from time to time.
The bottom line: Most Mac users have used both Macs and Windows and made an informed choice. Most Windows PC sufferers have not. A rock and a hammer are each “only tools” and “just a personal choice” when all you’ve ever used is a rock. Hammer users just have to laugh. And, Krazit’s right, these feet are never coming off the gas.
Krazit actually says it all with, “Mac users feel an affinity to both their machines and their fellow users that the rest of the world simply doesn’t share.” You’d think that non-Mac users would stop there for at least a second and ask themselves, “Why is that? What am I missing here?” Sadly, many of them just bang straight to the comments section and begin doling out their “wisdom” as usual.
*We use the term “Windows sufferers” in order to try to wake up certain people and draw attention to the fact that it’s possible to suffer even if you’re unaware of your condition or are unable to recognize that there is simple and elegant solution available to alleviate it.
[UPDATE 3:59pm EST: Added “Windows sufferers” explanation.]
A man who simply loves the sound of his own keyboard.
No, believe it or not, other Mac users can get annoyed at the tone of this site. Some read the articles, but refuse to comment, and bash me for doing so.
Hasta La VISTA! You can keep your bloated registry and long lines out the door of IT departments! Let the fun begin. Remember, people vote with their wallets.
“Apple Mac fans should realize it’s 2007, not 1995”
Well, simply put, we’re still in 1995 as Mac’s has become PC’s.
i read the article earlier today. i thought it was a pretty good article.
cool…MDN spent more space replying than news blip…
irony of some sort.
MDN and Microsoft. Both impose a slow, bloated and poorly designed product on frustrated users to turn a buck.
re: fake Realist
Pathetic. I rest my case.
MDN quoted:
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Ten years ago, Mac users in the corporate world were viewed as rubes playing with ‘toys’ not suitable for getting real work done, and there were plenty of people ready to remind the Mac community in not-so-subtle ways that the revolution promised in the 1980s by the original Macintosh was being fulfilled by Microsoft software,” Krazit writes.
Then claims:
Windows PC users get a free pass from Krazit
Hello? What is it about “not so subtle” you don’t understand? We got dumped on – both rightly and wrongly – by PC users … of course we responded “harshly”. Pre-OSX Macs were but a bit better than PCs – not even that, if you were a business user. Macs designed since the return of the Jobs have been an improvement – even when they failed. Mac software of the modern era … “improvement” doesn’t do it justice.
It’s time, now, to have pity on the poor Windows sufferers. To apologize for having the better system, to explain politely – politely! – that the world is changing and they can get on board or get left in the dust, to nicely offer assistance with only a minimum of “this wouldn’t happen if …”. It’s time we acted like adults are supposed to act. Even though acting childishly feels SO <u>good</u>!
It wouldn’t take long for those with actual experience to blast Mr. Equator a new icehole, now would it?
Stinking bastages!!
Ahhhhh
CNET blogger — should realize
that Mac Fans are more in tune with things then CNET.
I always love these articles because it doen’t matter who writes it they aways complain about the Apple Users. It’s like they are attempting to say Microsoft controls the Personal Computer, so Apple users should just be quiet, behave and let the Microsoft users control everything.
Well in the real world Microsoft may have more market share and I might be forced into working on a Windows PC at work for 8 hours a day. But when a close minded bigot start spouting uneducated crap about any product I use then I’m still going to correct that person, if it takes beating them into submission with my 6 D-cell Mag-Lite to shut-them-up, that is what I’m going to do. (really officer I was shining the light so he could see the sidewalk when he slipped and bashed his head into my flashlight twenty-six times, honest ask any witness here.
“Mac users in the corporate world were viewed as rubes playing with ‘toys’ not suitable for getting real work done,”
Yet the very drones that would discourage and vilify Mac users as ‘playing with toys’ would the very next moment point out the platform’s lack of games as a reason for its inferiority.
There will also always be a segment of the population that will refuse to try something just because another group of people like it so much.
Mel, go back to Trolling.
Using Mac, then using a PC, is like using an iPhone and a Treo. Wait….like having a good haircut and a mullet. Sure, the mullet, you think, looks good, it gets the job done, but a nice hair cut will not only get the job done, but looks good, and gets you chicks as well.
That is the PC/Apple war. Mullets vs. Good hair.
Brilliant Take, MDN!
I love this part:
Most Mac users have used both Macs and Windows and made an informed choice. Most Windows PC sufferers have not. A rock and a hammer are each “only tools” and “just a personal choice” when all you’ve ever used is a rock. Hammer users just have to laugh.
All of this hoopla from the dark side is simply them trying to get comfortable with the fact that for the next several years some of us (many of us?) long-time Mac users are going to be unabashedly gloating in the faces of Windows users – sorry, but I won’t lie to you – that’s the just the way it’s going to be.
You could also ask yourself, as a Mac user, if maybe you should feel at least a little guilty for being zealous about your platform of choice, and you may be prone to asking this question of yourself especially if you’re a relatively recent on-boarder. Again, in all candor, I don’t struggle with this question at all because, as a person who has always chosen to use anything else other than Windows, at home and at work, I have been stabbed in the back, lied to, ridiculed, brow-beaten, slandered and misrepresented. In spite of this I have always followed established guidelines and procedures, never straying outside of proper and well documented channels in order to use something other than Windows, and I can tell you that if the world is on the verge of a major market shift in the realm of pc users, then I for one will stand proudly and with an unapologetic air of victory, won more than fairly and squarely.
My view is that Windows users just need to get over themselves, switch, live with a little I-told-ya-so bravado, and start enjoying their personal computing experience for the first time in their lives.
To the CNET blogger, the realizing that needs to be done is by people who continue to find excuses to keep using Windows. It can be over anytime that you choose to be done with it – how about now? The world will spin just great without using Windows – It’s a choice. And as I’ve been saying for a long time now, who knows, as Windows sinks to an 80%, 70%, 60% market share, maybe somebody at MS will finally wake up and make a worthy competitor to the Apple OS – That will be a world where personal computing can start delivering on its true potential.
Happy Holly Days
Well you know on one hand, nothing is perfect, on the other, it’s a damn good product, overall and historically (minus the early 90s under the leadership of that one dude).
Realist, you are such an idiot. Stick with CNET will ya?
1. The only sheep in tech are Windows sufferers.
2. The blind are truly the Windows sufferers.
3. I bet I’m not alone saying I wish someone had persuaded me with a bit of passion to move away from Windows earlier than I did.
4. The troll comment I loathe the most is this one: “All computers have problems and each are as good as the other”. No wonder there are Mac users screaming ‘NOT TRUE’ from the rooftops, because they (we) KNOW the statement is just rubbish.
5. The last laugh is on Krazit and co, because the Mac shouting is going to get louder, and louder, AND LOUDER, as the Mac ranks grow mightlly every day of the week.
I’m as a big a Mac nut as anyone, but – if some of our number seriously can’t admit that we’ve had a monumental chip on our shoulder since the day Windows 95 was released – they need to go and find some medical help.
And – with the best will in the world – this site (well, those of us who post here) is probably the worst example of an echo chamber for obsessive-compulsives that exists in the Mac world.
But – and here’s the important part – if you believe in karma, then you eventually get the opposition you deserve: Microsoft used every dark art to establish hegemony for its products including tactics which often went beyond the realms of legality.
We stood and watched helplessly, crying foul and trying to draw the referee’s attention to the blatant disregard for how the better product should, in an evolved universe, win the game.
So, if the Microsoft-loving press and media want to know why we’re quite so vocal and chippy, they really should go and look at their own behaviour.
Personally, I promote the Mac on its positives and denigrate Windows on its negatives: neither are difficult to achieve; the former is an elegant platform that – whilst not invulnerable – has not been exploited as far as we know and where the computer is a means to an end.
The latter is wart on a carbuncle that has holes in every element – security, UI, networking, you name it. In the Windows model, just getting the computer to behave consistently for the duration of a single working day is an end in itself.
If it makes you happy, you can call me an obsessive-compulsive nut who leverages a quasi-religious zeal to “sell” my position and convert more members in the “Cult Of Mac”. All I know – based on knowing both sides of the argument – is that the platform I promote makes more sense over the asset lifecycle than the opposing products and I’m coming for your lunch money.
The animosity goes back further than 1995. I remember when I got my Mac 512 in 1985, the PCers would refer to the mouse as “the rat” – now they excoriate us because “the rat” they adopted has two buttons instead of one.
I remember, too, that Dvorak was the biggest loudmouth critic then, and he was on the last page of Macworld!
> Their size and degree of organization can be debated
Please… There is no relevant “degree of organization,” unless you count local Mac user groups that get together more for social reasons than anything else. Mac users defend and promote the use of Macs because they actually enjoy using Mac products. How hard is that to understand? Mac users are not meeting secretly to scheme and plot ways to increase Mac OS X market share. Apple’s “momentum” is simply the result of happy customers responding to great products.
On the other hand, there is often the appearance of scheming and plotting going on with Microsoft’s products. Microsoft has been accused and convicted of employing business practices that unfairly pushes Windows on consumers. And just look at all the Zune “fan” websites that popped up BEFORE the product was even released.
Eric, you obviously know nothing about trolling. Your remark is exactly the losing comment that I was talking about.
Very sad. Fortunately, there are others here who have a better understanding of the situation than you seem to.
I never owned a Mac before 2005…so how could my “passion” and “zealotry” have anything at all to do with the ’90s? I used Windows in the ’90s because the classic Mac OS was, quite frankly, a relic stuck in the ’80s. However, with the return of Steve Jobs and the release of OS X, today that situation is reversed.
I can’t stand reading articles like this, because the writer is so used to mediocrity that he can’t possibly believe that a computer combined with superbly written software could inspire passion in its users by its own merit. There has to be some “reality distortion” or drugged “kool aid” or something…it couldn’t be that the product just plain fscking rocks, could it?
Nowadays, Windows is a relic stuck in the ’90s. A Windows users has no idea that computer technology has actually moved forward since 2000, and he reacts with confusion when he encounters someone who is excited and passionate about a computer in 2007, since his own computer platform is so stagnant and boring. His first thought is that something must be wrong with that happy Mac user, when in reality there’s something wrong with his antiquated operating system.
Did you ever notice how people who use AOL hate computers and hate the internet? Have you ever tried to explain to one of them that the problem isn’t the computer or the internet, it’s AOL and that there’s something much, much better out there? It’s like talking to a scarecrow. They just don’t get it, because they have no way to conceptualize anything better than AOL. AOL users and Windows users are basically the same type of people; those so conditioned to accept mediocrity (or something below mediocrity as the case may be) that their brains don’t even have the proper framework to understand that excellence exists. They have no concept of excellence in software design, no frame of reference. Does not compute.
How do you explain icecream to someone who’s only ever eaten mashed potatoes his entire life? You don’t. You just give him a taste, and he’ll take it from there. The hard part is just getting him to taste it. The older he is, the more resistant he will be to new experiences.
wow! best MDN retort i’ve ever read! keep it up!