“To enter the Apple store in Manhattan is to enter a temple. Beneath its high vault, swish thin young men and women dressed from head to foot in black. They hold objects in their hands, strange white and silver objects, objects of devotion which they present to lay visitors, to the uninitiated who wander in from Prince Street seeking retail solace,” Stephen Evans writes for BBC News. “At the top of a set of broad stairs in the sun-lit store is an auditorium, a circle of seats much like those in a chapel, where one of the black-clad priests stands and delivers an encomium to the objects. There is reverence and a sense of being part of a movement.”
Evans writes, “Part of a cult, in fact – the cult of Mac. Devotees of the products from the stylish, small iPod that holds music to the sleek Powerbook computers seem like a tribe. Perhaps, many of you who use the rival Microsoft computer system will feel as though you are stalked by zealous colleagues keen to convert you from your foolish ways to the higher virtues of Mac.”
“It all stems from the top,” Evans writes. “Every year, the chief executive and founder of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs, addresses the faithful in what’s known as MacWorld in San Francisco… Now, there’s no doubt Apple products are very good and it’s not just a triumph of style, though style is clearly important, but, it seems to me, at least, that these gatherings do exude smugness.”
“But there is a global sociological phenomenon going on – to do perhaps with a minority who believe they have seen a truth. I suppose there may also be a type of person who delights in going against the herd. Whatever is fashionable for the masses becomes unfashionable for the minority. Manchester City and the New York Mets both have their loyal followers who would rather die than head for Old Trafford or Yankee Stadium. And so it is with Microsoft and Apple,” Evans writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: For us, it’s not about being different just to be different. The simple fact is that most people who’ve really used both the Mac and Windows platforms know the Mac is designed for the end user, not some rumpled engineer who wants and likes (and needs) to fix things as they break.
“Windows is designed by people who know a lot about computers. Macs, on the other hand, seem to be designed by people who know a lot about people.” – Nigel Kendall.
To use Windows XP, for someone who has really used Mac OS X, is to be assaulted with mediocrity. Windows users who have only used Windows just don’t know any better. Windows XP seems like a wonderful operating system to them. Yes, ignorance is bliss and we Mac users know better. If it makes you feel better to call us smug zealots who believe they have seen the truth and blah, blah, blah, so be it.
We probably wouldn’t be half as smug if the rest of the world wasn’t rolling in shit and proclaiming it to smell “good enough” all while making fun of the freshly bathed.
But, seriously, Windows XP is a fine operating system and using a Windows machine is a fine way to do things with a personal computer — until you’ve used a Mac. This is why Windows-only patchers think Mac users are cultic nuts and why “Mac users who’ve used Windows” pity the patchers stuck using Windows. And what of the few Mac-only users who’ve never touched Windows? Lucky bastards! They really are a tribe unto themselves. By the way, if you’re wondering, there is no such thing as a Windows user who’s really used Mac OS X — they all become “Mac users who’ve used Windows” as described above (except, according to their emails to us, they pretty much all wish they could kick themselves for waiting too long).
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Red Sox and Apple vs. Yankees and Microsoft – October 29, 2004
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 21, 2003
Brothers and sisters,
Take pity upon the great unwashed, for when the Rapture comes (at 10% market share), the Chosen (i.e., those who have actually registered their products with Apple, so they can find your address) will be, oh, let’s say, even happier and more smug, ‘cos we got here first.
As the Good Book says, “Blessed art those who find the Start menu annoying.”
At first reading, the comma before “swish” seemed misplaced. But without it (making “swish” an adjective) it’s not a sentence. With the comma (and “swish” as a verb), it’s correct. I think the author was having fun with Americans, for whom “swish” is most often encountered as a synonym for “effeminate”… while in reality simply making a statement that amounts to “the folks there move with graceful purposefulness”
He has a point though; Mac users do tend to be a touchy lot (no double entendre there!). Myself included. Perhaps this phrasing amounted to flamebait. Hope nobody nibbled…
Any engineer, software or hardware, rumpled or not, “who wants and likes (and needs) to fix things as they break” needs to be fired so he or she can get more rewarding work repairing toasters!
I’m a software engineer. I hate fixing bugs. I hate the idea that my work should have bugs, and I try to eliminate them at the earliest stage possible.
My wants and likes (and needs) are to build fine software that is useful, useable, and is kind to the end user. By “kind” I mean not only easy to use, but also does not induce headaches and stress, does not insult the user by blaming them for things that go wrong (check some of Microsoft’s start up screens that blame the user for rebooting after a blue screen of death), and interfaces that are beautiful to look at. That’s what I like about Apple’s computers and software, the good engineering and the kindness to the user run through all the hardware, the software, the development tools, and the support.
As to the cult thing: Apple wasn’t the ones who put guys in butterfly suits (complete with plastic wings) and inline skates, and sent them hollering through New York plastering plastic signs all over the city to advertise a product. Nope, the genius behind that scheme was Microsoft! And they call Apple users cultists?
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I may be a Mothra fan and an Apple user, but you will *never* catch me in plastic MSN butterfly wings and inline skates!
Evans’ premise seems to be that Apple only sells it’s products to people who want to appear to be cool by being different to the herd.
If his piece were simply about Macs, then his argument might be a starting point for some rather familiar discussion, but he makes multiple references to iPods too.
When you look at the herd that listen to music players, the fact that 90% of that herd listen to Apple players makes a complete nonsense of his argument about Apple only selling to the rebels who want to be different to the herd.
Hmm. Couldn’t the press just write ONE “apple users seem like kooky religious zealots to me” article and reprint that same well-worn article every time they feel the need to be unorginal and shallow in their perceptions?
The funny thing is, that even with their famed journalistic detachment, not one of these keen reports ever stops to ask the question – “Why might these swish, switched-on people be so enthusiastic about comsumer products made by a publicly listed company?”. Nope. They just figure they’re insane weirdos and leave it at that. You mean they actually enjoy their computer stuff, source of misery to billions; insanity is the only possible explanation. Way to dig for the story, guys.
Like Random said, “swish” is an adjective, it goes along with thin and young, describing the men in the first sentence, which is poorly written.
Re: Chomper:
“I use both, honestly, in business, you can live without a Mac but can’t with a PC. “
BULLSHIT!
My company totally migrated over to Macs when Jaguar came out and we have no problems communicating with the ‘windows’ world.
The only difference is that we have virtually NO downtime, virus’s, malware etc and our servers have NEVER fall down.
And before you cry ‘you use macs because its a design company! – NO WE ARE NOT!
MY COMPANY IS A LEGAL CONSULTANCY
“People are different. Some people hang clown paintings on the wall and think it is art. They use Windows and are not annoyed. Aesthetics means nothing. They are the masses.”
The masses are asses.
The only reason you need Windows in business is if some idiot created a windows only piece of software. That is the only reason. Same software could easily be made to work on the Mac. The worst type of this problem is when it’s a web based program made to only work with Internet Explorer for Windows. There is no need to do that other than pure laziness on the part of the programmers.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591840279/qid=1114101561/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-7329158-6948947?v=glance&s=books
All this guy did was LIFT a few sentences from Douglas Atkins’ book, “The Culting of Brands”, which is an pleasant read BTW. Nothing new or insightful here.
Ho-hum~
But to tag those who choose the Macintosh platform or Apple lifestyle products over another company’s offerings simply because it works better and provides a more enjoyable and productive experience, while at the same time satisfying one’s desire for above average aesthetics has always escaped me.
Another thing…
All my 40+ staff use Ibooks and ironically, since we have migrated over to macs my company’s perception by our clients has increased 20 fold.
Since migrating, our clients think we are the ‘coolist’ and forward thinking legal company out there and we have actually increased our profits and client base due to this perception by clients.
The legal business is so conservative. And because our company image has changed to a modern approach we have now also expanded into legal representation for the entertainment industry – because of the image that our macs have helped us attain.
The other day I was in court and there was a powercut.
Because I had an Apple powerbook with the backlight keyboard I could carry on whilst other people were running around trying to find some light!
The judge was so impressed he asked my to loo into his company getting powerbooks and going over to macs.
I of course said ‘yes’ your honour and he now has 12 employees using macs , and no doubt he will tell his friends at the golf club and they will want to use macs too!
Doesn’t sound like a cult now does it?
It’s just practical business sense.
Companies do not need windows.
Pete B,
It’s not about connecting to a PC world, which is no problem for a Mac, it’s about integrating with other companies that rely on PC software. One of the comapanies I work with uses software that is only available for Windows. Thus, I need to use the same software. Sometimes I use the Remote Desktop Client, sometimes I use VPC, but neither is as efficient as actually using a halfway decent PC. If I remember correctly, VPC emulates a 200 Mhz PC, which is pretty useless or pretty frustrating when trying to run programs that take a fairly decent amount of processing power to run. In a perfect world all software would be able to run on Macs and PCs, but since that is not the case, some businesses/people are forced to use a PC from time to time.
BTW, his use of the word “smugness” reeks of his own personal “envy”.
keyword: short, and the article’s author is surely short on vision.
Inline Bladers suck. Skating is the future.
And I quote: “Rubes!”
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re: king_alvarez
There are always alternatives to windows proprietary specific apps.
If your company has tied themselves into one app with no alternative then that is a very bad and dangerous risk to your data – and a VERY bad business decision.
Because OS X is unix based – we can find any number of open source apps out there that can do the same thing as the windows apps.
All you need to do is make the leap to mac.
Another reason why we had to go over to macs was that we lost alot of critical legal data because of Mr Gate’s inferior security protection in windows. We lost a case and alot of money because of that.
It didn’t take long for the board members to approve going over to macs after that believe me!
When we were using XP we had constant problems and IT costs went out of control. Our last IT windows invoice was over £20,000 – that was to sort out trojans on our old windows server.
Now we use macs, all we have is an external authorised Apple IT company with a maintenance contract that only costs us £3000 per year (for 40 macs etc).
Ironically – we have never had to call them out in 3 years!
(that reminds me – must negotiate a cheaper deal when the contract need renewing as we never need to use them)
I am a Mac User and a Dead Head. The only thing I still need is a Harley… and maybe an Alfa Romeo.
Some times an Apple store is just a store
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I used to be loudly smug, but since I realized it doesn’t help the cause, I’ve been quietly smug.
There are two types of people in this world: those who want the best user interface design, and those for whom near enough is good enough. Unfortunately the vast majority are in the latter category. Face it, folks: usability just isn’t a priority for a lot of people.
Then there are those in the former category who are yet to discover the Mac. They must be shown the way…
Yeah, Actually thats more like
“Exuding smugness, the Mac cult minority believe they have seen the hole in Steve Jobs Ass”
Does Steve (MW) Force the Dick in ya’lls asses? I think So..
Mwhahaha, Mwhahaha, Mwhahaha
I love that first paragraph!
and lookie there! MW: love
The stars are aligned. Praise be to Steve.
Man, I am getting so sick of being labeled a cultist just because I use a different product than most people. I use Pepsodent toothpaste but that doesn’t make me a member of the Cult of Peps. If I drive a BMW, that doesn’t mean I’m an elitest snob; it just means I like to drive a nice car.
And just why the heck are Windows people so et up with Mac users, anyway? Why this vitriolic abuse of what they admit is a niche OS? What the heck do they care what kind of computer I use? What difference does it make to them? Jeez, they own the world already! If they’re happy with whatever they use, then maybe they should just mind their own business.
*MOOOooo!*
Longhorn BBQ at my place!
After actually reading the article, which many here apparently did not before commenting, I have to say the author is RIGHT ON.
Mac culture is sort of like a religion, but not really. The products have a smugness. That’s not to say they are evil, they are self-confident in their design. Apple products are the cream of the very deep crop.
I think the author does a great job illustrating how people, once they see the light, flock around Apple like so many moths. It seems crazy in a way. Look at yourselves. Me too!
We can’t help it though. No other company can seem to make such wonderful products. They seem generations ahead of everything in their categories in quality and vision. Apple product make just about anything less than a very expensive automobile seem very bland.
The incredible part is that Apple product cost the same as all the crap they compete with. C’mon people! It’s amazing to us that everyone else rejects Apple/Macintosh.
It’s not that we are cultist, it’s just that everyone else is fatalist anarchists, depressed and disinterested. But I’m preaching to the choir.
Where I work we are about 80% Mac and 20% PC and I must admit that we do have a few PC users who, because they are used to PCs and dont know the Mac platform to the same depth tend to think that the PC platform is better when there is something that they are wanting to do or view on the Mac but cant find a way to do it. I often hear the comment “on the PC I just do this when I want to see ….. but you either you cant do that on the Mac or I dont know how to. Sometimes it is just a matter of “knowing” how it is done on a Mac.
Somethings are not necessarily intuitve you just find them or get to know them from playing around or having to find them.
Can you Windows/PC bashers explain how to connect RS-232 devices to a Mac (without conflicts or adaptors). How about ISA cards. If you think this stuff is not in use, think again. Both oilfield companies I have worked at over the past 6 years still use these devices, and still will be for many more years.
I’m in favor of the Mac platform. But get a grip on reality.