Does OS X Have Enough of the “Good Stuff” to Sway Basic Users?
There are a million schemes for increasing adoption of OS X. Everything from bundling a demo of the operating system on any iPod large enough to hold the data to an AOL style give away of demo copies on CD-ROM. Call it fallout from the Intel switch but since last June’s developer conference Apple fans (including me) have been falling all over themselves trying to come up with ways for OS X to rapidly expand the user base. Yet all the tactics rely on a key assumption: that people will, given a equal choice, choose OS X over Windows in a significant number of cases. Perhaps the underlying assumption is a little too hopeful.
The theory generally proceeds as follows: Not many people have truly been exposed to Mac OS X in a meaningful way. Those that have often love the operating system and vow a return to the world of Windows will come only at gunpoint. If a vast number of people could use both Windows and OS X for a time they would use Windows less and less until they compute solely with OS X in some sort of digital nirvana. Which is a nice thought but not the way things usually happen. A few months after the expressed rapture the cold reality sets in that OS X may be great but it certainly isn’t perfect. Complaints start popping up about the finder or GUI consistency. The users certainly aren’t contemplating a switch back to Windows but they’ve become less enamored with OS X. This is the moment that a switcher becomes a solid Mac user, they’ve become so used to OS X they no longer marvel at round rects or are consistently amazed that they don’t have to run a virus program constantly. The behavior is also a nice example of Hedonic adaptation.
Hedonic adaptation can also be described as becoming accustomed to luxury. If you live in the north, say Boston, and you buy a car with heated leather seats (like Big Mac’s Bentley), you’re likely to be initially impressed with the comfort the seats provide on sub zero days. Eventually, however, the seats become a necessity. The next time you’re car shopping any model without heated leather seats will be instantly rejected. The fancy heating coils have gone from the zenith of luxury to the most pedestrian requirement. In that sense, Hedonic adaptation is a powerful motivator to keep people on OS X. The caveat is that people won’t adapt unless the added luxury is of use to them.
Cast your mind to a completely different scenario. Imagine for a moment the same car in South Florida. Heated seats in that part of the country are only going to be appreciated by chronically chilled octogenarians. The vast majority of automobile owners would find the notion of heated seats to be superfluous at best and wasteful in most cases. Hence, there is no reason to vet your next car purchase by looking at the inclusion of heated seats since that is an option, however nice, that was of zero utility to the driver. Put another way if the improvements aren’t something accessible the consumer the consumer never becomes dependent on them.
With the less subtle aspects of Hedonic adaptation firmly in mind we can turn out attention to the most compelling question: If the masses were exposed to OS X would the experience be persuasive enough for them to switch permanently? First, consider the mountains of anecdotal evidence provided by actual switchers who constantly gush that they wish that they had made the change sooner. Add to the happy personal experiences the media coverage where seemingly every columnist is giving OS X rave reviews while decrying the security woes of XP. Therefore, the only logical conclusion to reach at this point is that if the masses were exposed to OS X they would surely make the switch.
The conclusion, as presented, is logical but perhaps shallow. Those who have already switched are obviously interested in computing. Columnists (myself exempted) are generally keenly aware of technological trends and very well informed about the positives and negatives surrounding both platforms. In both cases the subjects are people who actually enjoy technology. The wider world is not primarily made of this demographic. The vast majority of people don’t care about their computer. For these users the computer is just something that rips music, surfs the web and prints out really bad homemade holiday greeting cards. For these people access to the world’s greatest program iMovie (written by world’s greatest programmer Glen Reid) is going to be akin to heated seats in Miami mentioned earlier. The rest of iLife and other OS X advantages share the same fate. When the things you use a computer for are limited, the advantages of any particular platform are limited as well.
Which leaves us pondering the most basic of questions: Is the most basic experience using OS X powerful enough for the general populace to make the switch given enough exposure? The big thing most will cite here is security but people seem to muddle by and, in fact, have largely become accustomed to securing their computer to their satisfaction. Put another way, as a Mac user, the steps Windows folks go through to secure the computer would have driven me to any other platform long ago. Obviously, the experience is not as bad as I envision it. Which leaves us wondering… Is the OS X experience that much better for basic users than the Windows experience? I have no answer but if Apple truly makes a mass market push, we’ll know.
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Duh, the less you care about the computer as such, the more you should get a Mac. This should be communicated more. On the Mac, you don’t have to know/care about as many things since Apple already took care of it in the initial design of the product. Nevertheless, OSX scales from PC-dimwit to Übergeek. Pure Magic.
On a sidenote, maybe Apple should have busses go round with big screened ads saying “It’s no problem to steal Mac software from the net, and you won’t catch a virus doing it!”. Of course this is me being sarcastic, but whenever I hear someone telling me “there is no software for Mac” what they do *mean* is “I cannot walk over to my buddy and rip his copy of Office, and stealing software from my workplace is also out of the question since it is all Windows there”. That is what people mean by “no software”. Sometimes I feel totally alienated because obviously I am the only person on the whole dang planet on broadband *not* ripping software, music & movies off the net 24/7. :(
Anyway, what Apple could do is to push the enterprise market. That’s where people spend a lot of time on their machines, the best opportunity for plenty of OS X exposure.
There is that and the fact that they don’t see nasty $10 3rd rate rubbish software on sale at Wal Mart or Best Buy… Now i know that most Mac users don’t care a hoot about that cause they’ve got used to good software that works… and don’t want to waste money on aforesaid tat.
Actually there is a ton of good software for OS X available for free anyway… Scribus, Inkscape, Gimp, Seashore (aquafied gimp), DigiTools, Onyx, TinkerTool, LiveQuartz, AbiWord, NeoOffice J, etc etc etc. but as you say we who come here to read are not the demographic that is being discussed....
The basic fact about Macs is that someone who knows a little bit about Macs has to show it to a Windows user in order for them to understand what the difference is between it and Windows. I would guess that only a small percentage of new mac buyers will make the move without some type of personal introduction - be it a knowledgeable salesperson in a store or a friend. this is, I believe, the main reason for Apple opening stores around the world - they want to give a potential customer some experience in actually working with a Mac sot hey will buy.
I have dazzled friends with iMovies, iDVDs, iPhoto slideshows and books and iPod mini playlists. I’ve explained how easy it is to use iLife and shared my ease of mind when banking online with an OS which is virus free.
I’ve shown them the iMac G5, the Powerbook and the Mac mini and the new low prices.
They complained about Windows virus infections and not being able to get things to work as they expect.
They still buy HP laptops and Dells.
My experience tells me that people are unaware of Apple’s new OS. They get new OS’s from Microsoft (95, 98, me, 2k, XP) and they experience a slight improvement, but nothing major. They think Apple’s OS will be nothing special or different, except that less people run it, which to them is scary. Explaining to them the modern aspects of OS X and how it’s been rebuilt from the ground up and how it’s years ahead of Windows is hard for them to comprehend. Think about it. Microsoft is a giant corporation with tons of money, how can a smaller company do better. Their minds have been polluted with MS FUD.
OS X has enough “Good Stuff” to easily sway basic users.
I don’t think you can woo people to OS X by telling them it’s easier. I don’t think you can woo people by telling them about the killer iLife applications. If you want to woo the basic user, the receptionist, mother, aunt, uncle or friend, you have to show them that they wont have to deal with:
1. Constant virus update reminders
2. Mulitiple Spam tools
3. Updating Spam tools
4. Unexpected crashes
5. Security
Even if they have to do some of these things on OS X, it’s not nearly as annoying on the Mac as on Windows.
After you ingrain those 5 principals of the OS X experience into their head, you can then reinforce the ease of use. There’s one caveat: you must show them. Those that I have switched are bright people, but they IM, email, and call me all the time on how to do stuff and then they feel stupid because it’s right in front of them. They need to be shown the way. Silly little features like the slideshow in mail and being able to import photo’s from the slideshow go right by them.
They never notice many of these features because they never expect it. Walking them through each step of iLife applications from ripping and burning cd’s to importing photo’s and making a coffee table book to importing video and creating a slideshow dvd. It’s simple and most of us take the time to figure them out on our own, but the majority will never open it because they are afraid they’ll run into problems. That it will be too difficult or they’ll never figure out how to add a song to their iMove. So if you want to help switch, you have to sign on as a long term teacher. It’s very rewarding to see their expression when you show them the latest tools and tricks. It’s like a light goes on.
About once a month, as I’ve written before, I come back to this site to read an article, and as usual, I can’t get past the first paragraph (Chris Howard’s fine pieces excepted) without getting enraged by the poor writing, especially the inattention to grammar and mechanics.
This time I wasn’t enraged but amused, and that’s usually the effect of misplaced modifiers. Siebold’s third sentence says that Apple fans have been falling all over him.
Who wants to keep reading a writer who doesn’t even mean what he says?
The Macintosh’s benefits are not always clear to the basic user.
Example:
I was showing Paula, an elementary school teacher, how to add scanned images to her classroom handouts. As we worked together, Paula told me that she preferred her Windows PC at home because it was so much easier to use. I was puzzled. How could it be easier? I asked her a few more questions, and suddenly it was totally clear to me. At least 20% of our training time together was spent covering the steps to save her image files. At home, Paula never saves her work. She simply prints one or two copies of her work then she shuts down the computer.
Paula wants very little from her home computer. The truth is that there are more Paula type users than there are users like myself.
If I’m to understand from the comments here so far, Windows users are stupid, ignorant, brainwashed, and thieves.
Gee, it IS a mystery why they’re not lining up to join the welcoming Mac community.
Obviously, the experience is not as bad as I envision it. Which leaves us wondering… Is the OS X experience that much better for basic users than the Windows experience?
The problem I think is that Windows users choose the platform for different reasons than the average Mac user. And I’m not talking about security, which I regard as largely a red herring. It’s not like Mac users who spout endlessly about viruses on the PC would switch back if somehow all those viruses went away forever.
I think most Windows users pick that platform for reasons of ubiquity, software/hardware availability, and compatability with their work, and then there’s the whole gaming community. And like it or not, Macs are at a severe disadvantage in each of those categories.
My feeling is that there are two main reasons:
(1) Pure intertia - people continue to use what they use. If they never use a mac, they never know what they’re missing. Even if they are briefly exposed to OS X at an Apple Store or friend’s house, it’s a lot different from using it for a few months.
(2) It’s different, used by a small percentage of people, lots of unknowns, and some minor annoyances (sites liking IE only, random software that someone has gotten used to, etc
One of the reasons that most computer users shy away from switching to Macs is because a large majority of Mac users talk so fanatically about OS X and Mac hardware. I am an avid Mac user. My trusty G4 iMac with only 512MB RAM card is still going strong. But I STILL USE WINDOWS. Why? My job demands it.
I’m currently in school, attending the University of Cincinnati, trying to earn my Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology. As a student, I was able to score a job as a consultant for my school’s large number of campus computer labs. Our labs have both Macintosh’s using OS X 10.3 (We haven’t gone Tiger yet :( ) and Dell PC’s using Windows XP Professional. Most of the students and faculty that use the labs are used to working on Windows naturally. But when all of the Dells fill up, usually around Finals, I direct users to Macs that go largely un-used. Most are scared to use them as they have no prior experience with them. After I give them a 15-20 minute run thru on how to open, save and print their work, they usually come by desk before leaving and thank me for giving them such a pleasuable experience on the Mac. And most of them usually return to the Mac when needing to complete projects in the lab again.
In my conversations with these students and faculty I learned that other people have tried to convince them to switch, but they talked them as if they were stupid or retarded. That’s not the way that Mac users should be interacting with those users who chose not to use OS X or Mac hardware. Instead of bashing XP mercilessly, we need to speak to them in humble, but empowering manners. We should be showing them how they can intergrate OS X into their everyday lives without feeling that they have to learn a totally new way of life in order to do the things that they are used to doing with XP. After using OS X for a while will they then begin to see the positive aspects in switching to a beautifully built software.
Instead of bashing XP mercilessly, we need to speak to them in humble, but empowering manners.
Humble? Yeah, good luck with that. I have a theory that most Mac fanatics don’t actually WANT the Mac to become the dominant system, despite their protestations otherwise. After all, how can you feel superior or smarter based on your choice of consumer product if everyone else is using the same product? And feeling superior and smarter is what Mac fanaticism is all about (just go back and read those comments).
Beeb, the problem with being the dominant system is: You have more problems. Largely I’d say I don’t care anymore whether “those others” suffer from their PC experience. Even if it limits our prosperity. I don’t have the energy to care for all that at this time. But just yesterday I talked to a fellow student who yammered about his 2001 PC running ME being so incredibly buggy, slow & fragmented & whatnot & him not having the slightest clue what to fix first. When I asked why he doesn’t use a Mac I was actually snotted at for being able to afford one (people still think Apple to be expensive), and my notion that in return I could not afford not to use a Mac found no understanding at all. So this is not about superiority, but about a certain kind of logic & spending philosophy that “the majority” is not quite able to grasp for some odd reason.
So this is not about superiority, but about a certain kind of logic & spending philosophy that “the majority” is not quite able to grasp for some odd reason.
So the “yammering” PC user can’t “grasp” your more logical way of doing things, and YOU’RE the one complaining about being “snotted” at? And you don’t find your attitude to be in any way about superiority?
And you don’t see how your recommending a system that is a) more expensive and b) may not be the most viable choice (you could have just as easily recommended XP to replace ME) could alienate the very users you’re supposedly trying to switch?
Maybe he couldn’t recommend XP. I know I wouldn’t recoomend it to anyone in case I was also expected to support it, and I don’t know how to do that. Partly selfish reasons, sure.
But I would always ask what it was going to be used for. Macs are not the appropriate machine for many. That would include games, of course, but in my recent experience using the Open University in the UK, they just expect the PC that’s being used for study to be a Windows one, so many of the online facilities are simply not available due to proprietary clients. If someone was buying it for mainly their OPen University studies, then I’d have to suggest a windows PC. (At least until dual boot Macs appear in Jan