At our apartment, my roommate and I have a strict “Mac only” policy. Between us, we have five laptops (for work and personal use), a set of iPhones and iPods and the Airport wireless system.
We’re technology snobs—in fact, we tend to mock visitors who still use a Windows operating system.
During the work day, I’m also surrounded by MacBooks and other gadgets from Steve Jobs’ company. Arc90 is primarily an Apple consumer; there are 25 Mac users and 6 PC users.
We’re technology nerds–when Apple announced the launch of the iPad in January, we gathered in a conference room to watch the live announcement. Yes, there was even a bingo-style game of “Predict the iPad’s Features.” Some of the people weren’t aware that the State of the Union address was happening the same night but they were very close to guessing how much the iPad would cost. We currently have a desk set aside for the iPad–the gadget is available for the office’s browsing pleasure.
After living in my Mac bubble for way too long, I had to adjust my viewpoints while visiting the Indian subcontinent. It turns out that in some parts of the this world, not everybody knows about Apple C or how to force quit. In fact, some of them haven’t even seen or touched a Mac.
Most of Pakistan’s WiFi operates through a company called World Call. You select a package based on speed (256 Kbps, 512 Kbps, 1 Mbps) and the agent gives you a USB. Just plug in the device, activate the software and you’re connected to the Internet without worrying about modems or power sources.
Sounds easy, right? Well, only if you are using a laptop with Windows or Mac OS X 10.6.
My MacBook has OS X 10.7 so I had the USB, access to an instruction manual but was left without a connection to the World Wide Web. Upon bringing my laptop to the point of purchase, the agent admitted that he wasn’t familiar with Macs and advised me to take it to the company’s headquarters.
He couldn’t even open a new browser window on a Mac? This guy could never be welcome at my apartment.
After an hour long commute to the main office, I had to see two salesmen before the latest software was installed. I’m an impatient New Yorker and it seemed tedious to me to spend all that time just to have a person transfer some files to my laptop so I could surf the Web.
Of course, World Call primarily has a Windows-based clientele (even the website shows an Hewlett Packard laptop) and didn’t bother to update its software for Mac users. The ironic (or strange) thing is that the World Call website has the latest software but if you aren’t connected to the Internet, you can’t download it.
When I began to wonder why I knew more about Apple computers and software than the salesmen, all I had to do was look around me.
Blackberries were all the rage and people with iPhones tended to have American passports. Kids were using netbooks, the stripped down, mini-laptops that have seen explosive growth all over the world. Their parents owned Dells and used Internet Explorer to surf the Web.
When a family member used my Mac, he needed help navigating Safari and was shocked that he couldn’t open an Excel spreadsheet. He also couldn’t get a hang of the MacBook’s trackpad.
As a daily Mac user, I took his comments for granted. At Arc90, we do most of our quality assurance using Windows and Internet Explorer but MacBooks and the last version of Firefox are our preferred tools of the trade. We tend to share spreadsheets through Google documents.
In contrast, Internet Explorer usage dominates the web browser market, with about 60.7 percent of users. Firefox is second, with 24.5 percent users, while Safari is fourth with 4.7 percent of the market.
Mac’s stronghold is the United States, where Apple has more than 220 retail stores. It was the No. 4 PC maker in the December quarter with a 7.2 percent market share, according to research group Gartner. It ranks only seventh globally with a share of less than half that. Although Apple’s online store is popular, Mac’s global retail presence is smaller than that of competitors, with 12,000 points of sale. Top PC maker Hewlett-Packard has 80,000 outlets, while No. 2 Dell Inc. has 24,000.
The company can replicate the strategy overseas that it has used effectively at home–generate buzz and get Macs into the hands of consumers who have never used one. In the last fiscal quarter, international sales made up nearly 60 percent of Apple’s revenue, with big growth seen in the Asia Pacific region, Japan and Europe.
The witty Mac vs. PC commercials have also expanded to the United Kingdom and Japan, displaying Apple’s attempt to take over the computer market in select countries.
With 65 stores in 12 countries, Apple executives signaled their growing interest in China by announcing they would open two more retail stores in Shanghai by summer and they plan to have 25 retail stores in the country by 2011.
But where is India on that list? Or what about South Africa or Brazil?
The growth momentum may be tough to maintain due to the smaller retail distribution network, spreading economic gloom, and Mac’s higher price point. Apple continues to resist a move to substantially cheaper PCs, making it more difficult to win over converts in some emerging markets. The MacBook laptop starts at $999, more than double the price of the average netbook.
Doing some rough calculations, I realized that a MacBook costs almost a third of the annual salary for households in South America and Africa. According to NationMaster, a massive central data source and a method for graphically comparing nations, Brazil is ranked No. 68 for gross national income per capita, at $2,842.36 per person and South Africa is No. 69, at $2,751.22 per person.
Research also show that high import taxes, including those in Brazil, can drastically double the price of a laptop. There is also an increase in cost if countries, including South Africa, do not have official distributors.
Somebody living in Sao Paulo might invest a smaller percentage of his salary in a PC instead of saving up for a Mac, which can be considered a luxury item in many parts of the world. If you own a Mac and live in Johannesburg, what do you do if your laptop overheats or you spill coffee on your keyboard? Without a local Apple store, you’ll probably need to dip into your savings to cover shipping and repair costs.
Although I’ve become accustomed to an all Mac lifestyle (minus the logo tattoo), it took a trip to a part of the world that isn’t dominated by Apple to realize how different–and PC dominated–the computer user experience can be.
I admit that I wasn’t a fan girl during my college days. When the Mac 3G crashed during late night sessions, I ended up spending extra hours tweaking layouts on QuarkXpress. Over the years, Apple revolutionized its products. I was pulled back in by their sleek designs and functionality. Now, I will never go back.
Stan said:
One thing PC users can do that Mac users can’t:
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant
Slartibartfarst said:
*@Kamni Khan:* I read your post above with interest, expecting the impartation of some potentially new (to me) piece of knowledge. However, when I got to the last phrase “Now, I will never go back.” I was struck not so much by the profundity of that statement and of the post itself – or, more correctly, their complete lack thereof – but by the entire post’s vapidity.
I seriously could not see the point of the post. I apologise if this seems rude – I don’t intend for it to be a rude or unkind remark – but I just said to myself “What was the point of that?” I even reread the post just to make sure that I hadn’t missed some erudite point. Nope. not a one that I could see. It seemed to be a completely pointless post.
I say this as an IT and management consultant and an ex-IT manager, I am technology agnostic about computers. I use whatever my clients use. Windows, Unix, Mac, thin client, fat client, cloud – they are all good, and all have different pros and cons and some differences which are merely “interesting”. I love using a Mac, and I fret about the lack of resilience of Windows technology, and I like the cost-effectiveness of Unix platforms. I mainly use a Windows laptop, simply because it’s the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) for the majority of my clients. I have seen PC bigots and Mac bigots, and I enjoy introducing the former to Mac technology and watching their eyes pop. (You can’t do that in reverse with the Mac bigots though.)
I was still puzzled, thinking that I must have missed something in your post, when I read @Stan’s comment. I followed the link he provided. It was only then that the penny dropped. Then I got the “point”. *There was no point.* There was only you singing your quiet song of praise, expressing your Belief. The song was of gratitude and adulation for the Mac path of belief that you have chosen, the belief in which had been vindicated/reinforced by your bad technology experiences in India/Pakistan. The song was for anyone who cared to listen.
I would like to offer some pertinent knowledge to this “song”.
*However, before I do:* – there are two main points I would make.
(a) You talked about “visiting the Indian sub-continent”, and then told of your bad technology experiences in Pakistan. Perhaps you found it pretty awful over there, what with their terribly backwards or nonexistant Mac technology, not to mention how the people might smell different and eat strange-smelling food, and have strange customs such as the Indian one of using the Hindu Dhalit caste to manually remove excrement under cover of darkness from the cesspits of homes belonging to people of higher castes, and the quaint habit for some Pakistani men to throw acid in the faces of women who reject their proposals of marriage. But surely, this is simply cultural diversity in it’s raw form – no?
(b) I think you should avoid knocking these cultures – even obliquely – because they do not live up to your expectations and paradigms.They are surely developing just as fast as they can, and it will all take time before they achieve the objective of giving every man, woman and child a Mac notebook – which objective is hardly likely to be a priority for them right now, I would suggest. So, give them time.
Now, back to your “song”. Please bear with me – the following points are relevant to the use of some new knowledge that could be imparted to you on this.
Firstly, a premise or given: Belief is irrational, by definition (since it requires no rational proof). QED.
Secondly, some questions:
Q1: Why does a young man attach his ego to a sports car to the extent that he will race it recklessly against other users?
Q2: Why would two parents, who are devout members of the Jehovah’s Witness cult, refuse a vital blood transfusion to save the life of their child, even though it means her inevitable death not to have the transfusion?
Q3: Why is it not uncommon for fathers who are devout members of the Islamic cult and with Islamic families, to deliberately kill their daughters (“honour” killings), because the girls had been dating unbelievers/infidels? Why would the eldest son (if there was one) and even the mother of the girl have been likely to assist the father in such a murder?
Q4: Why would an ant-abortionist (or “pro life” campaigner) deliberately kill a doctor who performed abortions?
Q5: Why would an anti-vivisection campaigner deliberately set fire to a vivisection laboratory with scientists still inside, intending to burn them to death?
Q6: Why would a pacifist protester punch an opposition heckler in the face – when pacifism is a concept; an imagined thing?
Q7: Why do otherwise apparently rational people tend to jump into the use of irrationality – for example, such as argumentum ad hominem – against someone who disagrees with their point of view, often as the first/initial knee-jerk reaction?
For a long time now, I have thought that the answer to all these things lay in philosophy, somewhere in our being in a state of ahamkara – a state to be avoided.
http://knol.google.com/k/slartibartfarst-anon/ahamkara/3twzpmiarr7la/3#
Then I discovered not long ago that someone called Leon Festinger had already turned to psychology to explain WHY to all these questions, in what is recognised as a classic study of cognitive dissonance – “When Prophecy Fails”. I saw a recent reference to this in the article about belief in “Anthropogenic Warming” per link below. It’s a good article, and some of the comments following it are very interesting.
From: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/wounded-warmists-attack-its-what-happens-when-prophecy-fails/?singlepage=true
So, why did you write that apparently pointless post? Because you HAD to. You are a Believer in the Church of Mac. You would probably rate a tick against every single criterion in Festinger’s book.
Some people might say that my comments (above) provide a more constructive response than Stan’s comment, and that Stan’s comment could be unnecessarily offensive – but I couldn’t possibly comment on *that*. ;-)
A non-believer said:
@Slartibartfarst. now why did you spend such a big amount of all our precious life time for writing such this insight of a comment? It might lead to further thoughts elsewhere – here it just seems like a monologue from one of those movie-street-preachers: “The end has come, listen or be damned.”
Now honestly, who gives a apple-pie about the wind outside when reading a receipt in a cookbook? It`s hailing? Let`s close the book and read something about Hitler.
You read something, undoubted something interesting, and now you try to tell the poor salesgirl in the bakery, the hot dog salesmen in front of your supermarket, [...] and where ever else you go when the sun is shining and you feel like you have to go out, about what you and they should better know.
Leave if you can`t.
Good night.
Otherwise you were right, the article wasn`t worth to be written.
Brandon said:
I use a Mac at work. I use a PC at home. I enjoy the fact that the one of these two that I bought was less than half the cost of the other. That being said, maybe one day I’ll be cool enough to buy a Mac (I still hope I can just win one in some kind of contest). It’s good to know I chose the one that is more internationally accepted.
Mr. Man said:
Woah, 10.7?? We’re only on 10.6!
Jason said:
I’m a PC user. My wife is the Mac addict. I’ve learned to despise both systems. I’ve come to see those that praise the Mac as something far greater than Windows as people that really just don’t understand computers.
Just recently I had to connect a Mac computer to a Printer that was shared on a Windows 7 computer. On windows 7, I had to enable lpd. I went to Windows Services, and enabled the service (which is not on by default, which makes sense). Anyways, I enabled it.
Next, I had to go to Mac and enable it to look for the lpd printer. However, in the “Add a Printer” window, you can’t just add an lpd, nor search by it. Their isn’t even an option to do it. No, in order to Add a Printer that you want to connect to via lpd, you have to first Add a button to the Add a Printer toolbar.
Yes. Seriously, how is that in any way intuitive? I’d understand if it was an option I had to enable (it is), but in order to enable it, I have to drag the button on to the toolbar, and then I use it.
Listen, I understand I might be nitpicking, but understand this is just one example of many. Windows isn’t perfect either. I know. But I don’t pretend for a minute that Apple is any way better.
Mac OSX isn’t better than Windows, it’s different. That’s fine. That’s good.
Alex said:
Hey … you should see Eastern Europe.