“Apple is a master at hype, everyone knows this. Its founder, Steve Jobs, is well-known throughout the industry for possessing a “reality distortion field” which makes people crave Apple computers and one-button mice despite their exorbitant price and in the face of all rational logic. Both the Apple hype machine and Jobs’ reality distortion field have kicked into overdrive this year with the recent release of the bold, innovative and affordable G4 Cube…oops I mean the Mac mini,’ Jorge Lopez writes for Divisiontwo Magazine in an article which is obviously meant to be a joke.
“I’ll admit, we were excited at first to get one in the lab to put through its paces. I had heard about the machine and seen a few clips on G4 of Steve Jobs’ keynote at Macworld San Francisco in January. My curiosity piqued by the pronouncement of a $499 computer from Apple, I checked out Apple.com to look up its specs. While the hardware is about roughly equivalent to a Windows PC circa 1995, what got me interested were Apple’s claims about its size, weight and footprint,” Lopez jokes.
“The Mini has got some built-in software for basic computer functions, but it can’t do many common things as well as its grown-up brothers in the Windows world can. The little things can add up to big frustration for someone who might accidentally buy a Mini expecting it to be just like Windows. For example, there is no Outlook Express for email, but Apple includes a program called Mail, which is like a stripped-down email client that can’t execute scripts or open attachments without user intervention,” Lopez writes. “So is the mini a maxi value? For me, clearly, no. When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware–none of which are available for the Mac platform–it doesn’t make sense for me to “switch” to a Mac at this time. But will Apple’s famous marketing team be able to sell the the emperor an invisible computer anyway and turn the mini into a maxi hit? That’s the question that remains to be answered.”
Full article, funny stuff, here.
Unfortunately there will be lots of people who read it and just don’t get the joke. But for those of us who do, it’s quite funny.
Um… What…the…hell?
If it this a joke …ok… otherwise, be happy. This kind of Mac-users Apple-Cupertino is not waiting for.
Is this a joke or a real review?
On the one hand this guy is complaining about a security measure – scripts not running automatically in Mail – and on the other hand he complains on the lack of software for restoring security breaches, like Ad-Aware and Norton.
Remind me of this African country where people couldn’t imagine I had to pay for malaria pills in Holland.
This guy hits every Mac lover’s sore points so precisely that I have to think he’s doing it on purpose, either as a joke, a way to get hits, or just to be an ass.
Can we be sure it was a joke?
What an ignorant buffoon.
eh?
If you can’t tell this article is a joke then I feel sorry for you.
Magic word: square
Strangely fitting in this case
What an idiot ….
IS he back from 20 years Afghanistan or what ?
Actually it was hard to tell if the guy was serious or not because PC people write articles like this one all the time. This is the first one that actually was a joke.
We have discussed this blog in a German Mac Forum (MacGadget) and, frankly, I suspect this guy was serious. Moronic, but seriously moronic. Even when I tried to see satiric elements I could not find them. In my view, he’s just some guy who does not know his ass from his elbow.
But, hey, it’s a free world and even morons are entitled to their views.
what gives it away as not a joke is that he graduated from devry, has an MCSE license, aparently has an IQ of 50, most likely makes about 16,000 per year, and writes for some nonsense website.
I think the magic word for this article should be “TROLL”
Let’s hope it’s a joke. But if it isn’t, it certainly explains why MCSE’s have no value in the work place anymore.
Read the article on “how I replaced Grandma’s computer with the beast”. It is hysterical. This site is awesome.
Come on guys, READ THE FRICK’IN ARTICLE. Then, read the other articles on the site – it’s a sarcasm site. Brilliant.
Eric24601,
Lighten up, man. It’s a parody of PC-users’ ignorance about Macs. DivisionTwo has removed the disclaimer now, but a couple days ago, there was a tiny line of blurb at the very bottom of the main page that stated that all DivisionTwo journalists were fictional, and that the articles “written” by them were for comedic purposes only.
Check out this hysterical piece about building a Linux system for Grandma.
No one who reads the sentence near the end where he lists his most used programs, the ones he needs to keep Windows running, then says they don’t exist for Macs so Macs are not for him, no one who reads that can possibly beleve he is serious.
I would like to see them continue this trend, possibly strike a deal with China to use inmates to assemble the Mini for even less, like Lenovo does. Think about it, a Mac mini for $299.
So is the mini a maxi value? For me, clearly, no. When I consider that a good deal of my time is spent running applications like Disk Defragmenter, Scandisk, Norton AV, Windows Update and Ad-Aware–none of which are available for the Mac platform–it doesn’t make sense for me to “switch” to a Mac at this time.
I think this is hilarious. Very well done.
Check these out if you want a laugh – nothing to do with Apple but very funny:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AA9IP6AYACFK5/103-4670838-7889462
There are some points that are quite clearly sarcastic (or intended to be), however they’re so subtle that it would be easy for people who didn’t no better to confuse it with a real article, albeit a grossly inaccurate one. Windows users are likely to skim read it and think its real, irresponsible writing in my opinion.
Mac users know that when we read; “none of which are available for the Mac platform” it actually means; “none of which are remotely required for the Mac platform”, windows users are too indoctrinated to realise this.
I read this a couple days ago (the link was on macsurfer) and the brilliant thing about it is that it seems real at first and almost to the end. There are many other funny articles on the sight, but they are all clearly comedic.
one of my favorites:
“This is where the first noticeable problem with Apple design arises. While there is a Mac-style “donnnnggggg” when the Mini is first turned on, during normal operation the unit makes no sound whatsoever. This could make it very difficult for a novice user to know whether or not the computer is on. In fact, it took our techs about fifteen minutes before we realized the unit itself was operating normally and it was the monitor that was not plugged in properly.”
Hilarious.
And Thomas, lighten up. Out of context, all satiric writing would be “irresponsible writing” according to you.
I’m having so much fun reading all these worried posts wondering if the review is a joke or not. Maybe ignorance is a bliss for those not getting it… LOL!
oh my god, i just actually read the whole thing…This guy is like a clown XD! Somebody send this “graduate” back to pre school now! Biggest moron in the world, please, all of us should email him and ask him to learn some common knowledge before writing a review!