“What is it about Apple products and the Mac in particular that inspires a fanatical, almost religious devotion among users? The question has baffled marketers and others outside the Mac cult for years, so Kobi Shely and a band of documentary filmmakers went out seeking answers,” Asher Moses reports for Stuff.co.nz.
“Over their two-year journey the seven-person team interviewed more than 50 “Macheads” for their film of the same name, which is due for release this year,” Moses reports.
“But at the end of their long journey, during which the filmmakers spoke to virtually every prominent member of the Mac community, Shely hasn’t come much closer to cracking the cult of Mac,” Moses reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Guess we don’t have to bother watching it then.
Moses continues, “He said most Macheads volunteered ‘ease of use’ and ‘design’ as reasons for their devotion but this did little to explain how a subculture could develop around a computer.”
“He concluded that the core reason for the Mac’s unique success was Apple’s ability to appeal to people’s emotions,” Moses reports.
“Shely said he was inspired to create the film after witnessing the vitriolic reaction from the Mac community after Apple announced the ability for Macs to run Windows.
The Mac camp showed its typical air of superiority, saying the move would be like a gourmet pizza restaurant starting to serve Domino’s,” Moses reports.
Full article here.
“MacHEADS the movie,” a movie about Apple Mac fans from “Chimp 65 Productions,” online trailer:
Direct link via Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x44l1c_macheads-the-movie-trailer_tech
I’ve been using macs since windows 3.1. I made the switch in 1993. I’ve never ever thought about going back. I can’t say I agree with everything that Apple does but then again there are only a few things from Microsoft that I can agree with. I mean do I really want a computer with Vista, or are there any reasons that I’d ever buy a Zune (shudder)?
I don’t think most Mac fans are fanatical about Macs – they’re fanatical about the things they do with Macs. Apple simply gets credit for facilitating people’s passion for design, communication, photography, music, video. Those of us who love doing these things love Apple for helping us do them. For people who don’t love what they do, good enough is good enough.
Aperture is a perfect illustration of Apple’s amazing dedication to getting their products right and supporting their users’ creativity. Even though I’ve been a Mac fan since 1992, as a professional photographer, I was blown away by Aperture. Apple had never done a professional photo application (no, iPhoto doesn’t count), and they came out of nowhere with an application that worked the way real professional photographers work, or want to work, and blew imaging titan Adobe out of the water. Suddenly, Adobe products looked like Microsoft products – designed by engineers without regard for real users’ needs. The attention to detail in Aperture’s design shows that Apple went out to lots of working photographers, asked tons and tons of questions, listened carefully to all the answers, and then built an app around the way real pros actually work. Adobe responded with Lightroom and leveraged its imaging processing strengths. But even now, two years later, Aperture still shows that Apple understands its users better. Amazing.
I have always been pro-Apple even if I did not have a Mac. My first computer was an Apple IIc, a wonderful engine. My father had at the same time the first Mac – it was an incredible machine, the only computer back them to look and feel like computers do today.
Then, I was a kid so for me computers were only video games platforms. So at the end of the 80’s I moved to Amiga, and in 93 to my first PC. I always wanted to go back to Mac one day (the day I saw MacOSX the first time, I was dazzled), but between the video games problem and the non-compatibility with a windows/msoffice world, I was afraid. When I heard about bootcamp, and then Parallels, I made the jump – and do not use these programs at all now !
I started using MACs when the switch was made to NEXT because I used to be a UNIX Sys Admin at Bell Labs and always wanted my very own UNIX computer. I never liked Windows but was forced to use it and have gotten pretty good at fixing and tinkering with that piece of dog awful crap. Windows is a challenge and pain in the butt. When I want to have fun I use my MACs.
Moses distorted my answer, for my response is posted at the film’s blog http://www.macheadsthemovie.com
Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald wrote an article about MacHEADS. I gave an email interview to reporter Asher Moses, he writes in his blog “… the issue at the documentary core – why do Mac users love their computers so much – is definitely something many outsiders, myself included, struggle to comprehend.” The article reveals some very interesting details about the film making process and it’s core issues. MacHEADS do confront the question of the phenomenon and as I wrote to Asher there is more than one reason for the creation of the Mac culture, and MacHEADS goes into great length exploring the hidden territories of the Mac community to form a cohesive thesis. I didn’t go into much details because my belief as a film maker that the narrative should speak for itself. Once the film will come out I’m sure that there will be a lot of productive discussion that will share more light on the Apple Phenomenon.
Kobi Shely
Moses distorted my answer, my response is posted at the film’s blog http://www.macheadsthemovie.com
Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald wrote an article about MacHEADS. I gave an email interview to reporter Asher Moses, he writes in his blog “… the issue at the documentary core – why do Mac users love their computers so much – is definitely something many outsiders, myself included, struggle to comprehend.” The article reveals some very interesting details about the film making process and it’s core issues. MacHEADS do confront the question of the phenomenon and as I wrote to Asher there is more than one reason for the creation of the Mac culture, and MacHEADS goes into great length exploring the hidden territories of the Mac community to form a cohesive thesis. I didn’t go into much details because my belief as a film maker that the narrative should speak for itself. Once the film will come out I’m sure that there will be a lot of productive discussion that will share more light on the Apple Phenomenon.
Kobi Shely
OK everyone get a grip here. It wasn’t until OSX and the offering of a true multi-tasking operating system was it that I was willing to make a move to macs. If you don’t understand what I just said stop reading…you are a mental midget who will never fully utilize the power of OSX. I do love mine now.
However, open your friggin eyes to the fact that Apple has a whopping 7% of the market. Microsoft bailed them out by injecting cash into Apple otherwise you’d still be working on outdated computers by a defunk company. It was all but dead until Bill stepped up and injected cash. Heck if it wasn’t for Microsoft and PCs you wouldn’t’ see computers in most of the homes in the US because they wouldn’t be able to afford them. Mac’s are insanely expensive for the average US consumer. So I guess windows/linux and PC’s are doing an injustice to those people too cuz if they can’t feed the ego of Apple they shouldn’t be allowed to own a computer.
There are features of the iPhone that windows mobile has been doing for years now that Apple is touting as wow no one has done this before. I agree the interface is better than windows mobile, but the concept was proven long before the iPhone. I love portions of the iPhone and have a Touch, but seriously get off your there is only one company etc. Without Sony portable music wouldn’t have existed.
Without the open platform of PC’s we wouldn’t have seen the explosion of technology because we would be pigeon holed into single solutions by Apple with no variance available to push the limits. There’s a reason why Apple is known for stability. Any time you minimize variables and suppress the potential for options in your product line you can solidify quality and ensure that the minimal hardware line you offer is ‘bullet proof’. Open it up so you can create the ability for other companies/people/inventors to expand your line and you will see a certain amount of compatibility/quality issues. But you will also see expansion in innovation rather than acceptance of what limited line is offered. Ahhhh enter the iPhone. Let’s take a great product then let’s lock it so everyone has to come to use if they want applications and we can force them to use only the stuff we say is OK. Make sense? If not you need to take some business courses and E D U C A T E yourself so you can bounce into reality.
I have had hardware issues with Mac’s just like PC’s. So don’t give me the Apple quality and they never break or lockup BS. If you are a power user of any sort you know you can push the box past its limits and make it surrender period. I’ve had 2 Macbook Pro’s that took a puke. I’ve seen PowerMac’s cause trouble and die. You WILL see as Apple gets bigger and volumes start to increase more and more there will be quality issues that will arise. Nature of the beast. We’ve seen it in every industry including technology and automobiles.
Bottom line. There are reasons and places for multiple platforms. They all have their place. They all have their goods/bads. I could debate all day about various positives and shortcomings of each operating system. None of which is a silver bullet for everyone. If you are that shallow to not see that you really need some mental help.
What’s next here should we start a Star Wars vs. Star Trek war? Why not its another pointless argument built to feed someones mental shortcomings and inability to lead by example rather than hide behind a keyboard.
My Rant.
>SKY LARK wrote: as usual you don’t get it…but please don’t come here with your holier than thou’ attitude. Why do you have to drag it down?
Look. I’m in no way bashing Apple or Macs. If you bothered to read my posts, you’d see I’m actually a huge fan of Apple and have bought many of their products. However, I don’t find the products make me better than anyone or make it okay to bash other people, especially when they’re being perfectly polite even in disagreement.
There are many respectable, intelligent, and open-minded people on this board. But there are multiples more whose comments are completely absurd, rude, and outright offensive.
I admit that I can do better to be gentler in my commentary, but while I attack ideas, I do not attack the person behind them.
So when you accuse me of portraying myself as holier-than-thou, keep in mind that that you’re the one who persistently attacked me on a personal level. I did not return the favor. That’s hardly being holier-than-thou, just being reasonable and respectful.
>Spark wrote: True Macheads are those that adopted the platform early and resisted the siege of Windows,
If so, what about those who started with Apple. I never owned one of the first machines, but I did start with the ][e and bought a ||gs.
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But you got me, I’ve used Windows quite a bit in addition to Macs.
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@ justified
Thanks for the links, I had a look through a couple of them and they were very funny
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I have no doubt that the people running those sites are Windows fanboys or they’re being paid by Microsoft (if they’re not that’s really sad).
The only problem is that I only found a couple of comments on each site. What I’m really looking for is a Windows site like MDN.
After all if there were more Windows fanboys they’d be camping out for Vista
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@SKY LARK
You’re joking right??? Please tell me you’re joking???
btw I heard that they were rounding up Mac users and putting them in concentration camps, better look out!!
I went from an a2+ to dos-based machines, running wordperfect. then an a2gs with wordperfect. win 3.1 -> 95 -> 98 -> XP, still using wp 8 (from 1997) until last year. my experience with pre-OS X macs was that they were ugly, crash-prone (with meaningless error messages), 3-5 years behind windows in software, had no right-click on the mouse, etc. I would never consider buying one, then or now. then I started doing web development & working with unix, around the time os x first came out. got an imac g5. replaced my xp powerbook with a macbook. now i’d never consider a windows machine. but it’s os x, not the mac per se, that brought me over. and there’s still no mac word processor that comes close to a 10-year old copy of wordperfect for windows.
You obviously haven’t used pages. The only software for Windoze is bloatware. You may be a recent switcher but Mac has always had the best software.
http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/
I don’t know what universe you’ve been in but Mac OS has NEVER been 3-5 years behind windows! When you say things like that you sound like a fool.
At best you’re ill informed,otherwise you’re a Winblow fanboy and you can get the hell off this site!
Re: windowsdailynews.com
Their lead headline is “Upgrading from Vista to XP.”
LMFAO! Oh man, that is priceless.
Macs facilitate the desire to create and explore new ideas. You can do these things on a Windows PC, but my experience is that most people typically don’t. That has something to do with the types of people who choose Macs rather than the capabilities or limitations of the computer platform and associated software. But it is more than that, because I have personally witnessed the difference in the ways that my children use the new iMac that I bought last November versus the Dell PC that I inherited from a relative. The kids played games on the PC, and occasionally used Word to write a story or a letter. They play games on the Mac, as well, but they also create movies and music for fun. One daughter has produced some quie decent Garageband tracks and another produced a very nice five minute family video integrating photos from iPhoto and music from iTunes including various pan and zoom effects. These girls are 8 and 9, and I gave them absolutely no help or guidance. They found the capabilities on their own and figured out how to use them. the iMac is becoming an increasingly important tool for the entire family – email, calendar, internet, homework, fun/entertainment, creativeness… That is why I own a Mac.
Mike said…
“I think the longer your a Mac user, the more passion you have, so new users have passion but maybe not as much or as deep as us early 1980’s Mac users.”
I’ve actually experienced the opposite. In my computing youth, I was grasping at the multi-colored Apple stickers that I got from my tech-teacher in high school and was finding places to put them. But a couple months ago I decided to remove my lovingly crafted white Apple logo magnet from the rear-center of my otherwise unadorned car.
Why? Honestly, many of the comments that I read on Mac sites like this repulse me and I desire to distance myself from the seemingly mindless devotion. The nameless editor(s) of MacDailyNews only encourage this behavior, and anyone who doubts this need only harken back a couple months to the smug reports of Apple reaching an all time high stock price *again*, as though the stock will never fall.
I continue to be a Mac fan, but I tire of being labeled a Mac fanboy when I am not. Just today at work I was literally labeled a fanboy when I said I don’t like Alienware PCs because “they weren’t Macs”.
I’m just tired of the whole thing.
MPC Guy – If you are going to quote me in a reply, I think that would be in order for you make sure it is presented correctly.
Sorry to be trite and sanctimonious but, you just wrote –
…”but while I attack ideas, I do not attack the person behind them.”
Yet, earlier in this thread you personalized a reply to poster nobodi –
… “you’re so wrapped up in your fanboyism” …
…” yet your little mind cannot comprehend as much.”
…”Step off the high-horse and open your eyes” …
–
You can’t run with the horses and the hounds, it’s one or the other
By being capricious, you dilute and obscure your point of view.
I believe in your right of reply, and mine.
@me
I assume that you are thinking about this part in particular –
“Apple Mac users are without a doubt a minority, we all know a minority is a relatively small group of people, esp. one commonly discriminated against in a community or society, differing from others in race, religion, language, political persuasion or in this case their choice of a computer OS.”
NO, I am not joking, I was
What’s wrong, did I draw too long a bow for you, can you not interpret the candid parallels illustrated.
Do you think that I am honestly trying to equate the way Mac users used to be treated in the late eighties and through the nineties in a world of MS Windows business’s and users, to the plight of people who suffer from real iniquitous and abhorrent discrimination issues.
Discrimination is discrimination regardless of the level applied, all intolerance and prejudice is to be despised.
Your – “btw I heard that they were rounding up Mac users and putting them in concentration camps, better look out!!” – is a typical reply from a MS Windows user who has never reflected on the circumstances I mentioned, I’m sure for you it was all beer n’ skittles, as you were confident you were on the chosen path.
Maybe you are now or were a Mac user in the late eighties and through the nineties, if so you have not made this obvious, so I am convinced that you can not be empathetic to my post. Hows the Linux going?
As for cult Windows sites, I do not think you will find any like MDN as MDN was in all probability driven by the issues I mentioned earlier … it’s a place for some of the minority to express their views.
“NO, I am not joking, I was”
Excuse me, my mistake, scrub the – I was – bit.
</i>What is it about Apple products and the Mac in particular that inspires a fanatical, almost religious devotion among users?</i>
It’s not Apple is that good, it’s that products from others are that BAD.
Once you find something that does work, you tend to latch rather passionately onto it.
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Anyway here’s betting that the documentary will get it all wrong. If you really need to explain Apple to someone, they wouldn’t understand…
>Skylark wrote: Yet, earlier in this thread you personalized a reply to poster nobodi –
You suggest I comment without naming names?
>… “you’re so wrapped up in your fanboyism” …
Was the term improperly used? It’s a label that describes characteristics a person has, without going into unnecessary detail and length.
>…” yet your little mind cannot comprehend as much.”
… as in close-minded to ideas not their own; unable or unwilling to comprehend other’s ideas.
>…”Step off the high-horse and open your eyes” …
The guy was preaching that all Windows users are whack-job fundamentalists with a closed-mind to Macs. Do you not see the irony in that? The guy is preaching about close-mindedness and yet could not see the irony in his own statements! Again… it’s an attack on his ideas and not of him as a person.
As example, here are quotes from you that were very personal in nature. These are direct quotes:
> @ MPC (Minuscule Penis Complex) Guy
> A modest little person, with much to be modest about.
>He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.”
>He had delusions of adequacy.
It’s amazing that you cannot see the huge difference between your personal attacks of me, and my attack on someone’s ideas. You’re either unable, unwilling, or just intent on being an annoyance.
It seems that the combination above is evidenced by your use of quotes. You think they hide your lack of reasonable responses.
And with that, I’ve had my last say in this. A childlike mind with a book of quotes is not the person I’d like to make spend any more effort on.
“True Macheads are those that adopted the platform early and resisted the siege of Windows”
Haven’t you heard, Windows is OK now that Apple has officially made it it run on Macs. So are those faster Intel processors which used to be forbidden fruit to the faithful.
“In my print shop we have a variety of machines, and the Macs always get the job done.”
Congratulations, you are in the last remaining industry where this is true. For all other industries sooner or later people have to use a PC for exactly the same reason.
“I started with Lisa. Actually, the second Lisa in the state of Alabama.”
Ha Ha Ha in 2005.
“It was converted to a MacXL at a later date.”
Just last month actually.
Trying to understand Macheads is like trying to understand why at their cult leader’s direction people put on black nikes and eat poisoned pudding in order to ascend to the level above human and join a spaceship hiding behind comet hale-bopp.