Wherein John Gruber Picks Windows
Apparently I have raised the ire of John Gruber who writes the often-wonderful (although often uncritical of Apple) blog Daring Fireball.
But in slamming my “stupid” question, he proves my point unknowingly:
That’s like offering someone the choice between a BMW with no gas tank and a Kia with one, and declaring that “the quality of your car doesn’t matter anymore” when people choose the Kia because it’ll actually work.
Exactly, John. Windows does actually work (like the Kia in your example) and if you have a choice between something that works much better (the Mac, although we’ll see after Vista) but without an internet connection and a Windows machine with an internet connection you would chose the Windows box. Even the most die-hard Mac fanatic would. Why? Because without the internet John couldn’t publish Daring Fireball, he couldn’t email, he couldn’t do many of the things that define how we use computers today. When the Mac originally launched the internet barely existed and the web was non-existent.
As the domination of the internet continues, as the backbone of applications becomes the internet (think iTunes) and as applications get ported to the web this is a long-term threat to Apple.
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
Sorry everyone: more words.
I, MAC USER, HEREBY SWEAR THAT I WOULD CHOOSE A WINDOWS MACHINE WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION OVER AND IN PREFERENCE TO A MAC AND I DO NOT MIND ADMITTING IT
Take the plegde. Reinstate Beeblebrox’s faith in humanity.
Beeblebrox I don’t think being so partisan about this issue is helping anyone.
Did you seriously just call me a partisan? First of all, the idea that none of these other irrational shills are being partisan or that you’re not calling them on it is flabergasting. Second, criticizing partisanship is no more partisan than criticizing racism is racist. Only racists make that argument. It’s like when Apple-bots accuse me of being as one-sided as they are when I say I like BOTH Windows and Macs.
And I feel fairly comfortable with classifying the reaction to the original question as, at the very least, hysteria. Why else would the Ann Coulter of Apple, John Gruber, bother with such a simple and innocuous article?
Believe me, I’m not looking for iMadness (an excellent coinage, btw). I don’t want to find it. I wish it didn’t exist. But it does and I will point it out when I see it.
How about this....
A Mac with a monitor or a PC without?
100% choose the Mac thereby making a monitor more important than an OS.
Stupid article
If “the operating system doesn’t matter any more”, then I suppose I can dust off the Apple ][ in my closet (or maybe the Timex Sinclair).
I’ve found your attitude in this discussion more tuned to increasing the amount of partisanship, is what I should have said.
Believe me, I’m not looking for iMadness… I wish it didn’t exist. But it does and I will point it out when I see it.
The fact is, Beeblebrox, I have read and re-read the original discussion up to the point where you declaim the “outright hostility as Mac fans are forced to begrudingly admit that they’d choose the internet over the OS” and assert that “they retreat into bloviated Apple-talking points about every totally irrelevant point imaginable, seemingly to wash that admission out of their mouths.” Considering the previous comments, I am totally flabbergasted at this response.
The first poster is I think making a joke, OK, one which highlights that the desert island situation is unhelpful and irrelevant.
The second poster rightly describes the article is “puerile”, would take the Windows but heaps some heavy praise on the Mac, most of which I would agree with though I don’t know what (s)he means by “transparent with respect to the net”. But the bulk of the argument consists of some discussion of the actual matter of running a Web OS, which Hadley Stern miraculously didn’t deign to touch on.
The third talks wholly in the hypothetical about “when” OSes are replaced.
The fourth is some more of that by the same person.
Fifth, Bad Beaver calls the article “pointless”, acknoweldges the importance of communicating, but without mentioning specific operating systems talks about why operating systems in general are important, contrary to Hadley’s claims.
Sixth, says “Microsoft constantly puts roadblocks in the path to ease-of-use. Apple does everything it can to end them.” Neither of these are strictly true. But they are not that far from being strictly true. Most of the comment focuses abstractly on the importance of local hardware in internet-based applications.
Seventh characterises the mac as a merc and windows as a yugo, and the need for a computer as the need to get to hospital. This person would obviously take the connected windows machine. But they’re actually trying to convey that 1. the question is far removed from reality and its conclusions don’t apply to normal life, 2. that the choice between the two systems may still be important normally, even if in some extreme situations you might imagine, it wasn’t important. (I don’t think this is attributing too much meaning to the author of this post?)
Eighth thinks Web OSes won’t work or will be rubbish. He would go for the Mac, though, citing reliability, but also being based on liking the holiday on the desert island & not wanting to communicate at all! (incidentally this shows how the desert island situation merely confuses the real issue of the choice: ‘mac w/o’ or ‘windows w/’.)
Nine, would buy a Mac Pro with the connection and have it shipped. This takes the desert island part out, effectively. All this person is saying is they prefer macs. Me too.
Ten takes the windows & communication despite Macs’ “superiority”, saying “who in their right mind would give up communication fun and entertainment” - pointing out that the question is daft. Then mentions “full day of guaranteed fun downloading all the service packs and antispyware” (obvious exaggeration.) In non-hyperbolic terms, he’d prefer a mac because you don’t have to worry about spyware or service packs.
11’s point is that “The O/S still has an enormous impact on the user experience” and finds the mac OS preferable to windows. He also makes points about the viability of needing a connection to work (viability of the web os).
12 thinks the future is web apps and fears for Microsoft’s future when Google can make them all free. Thinks apple’s web offering is behind and, now or in the future, overpriced.
13 wants a Nintendo Wii.
14 - Beeblebrox “note[s] the outright hostility as Mac fans are forced to begrudingly admit that they’d choose the internet over the OS"… “And then watch[es] as they retreat into bloviated Apple-talking points about every totally irrelevant point imaginable, seemingly to wash that admission out of their mouths.”
-----------------------
Virtually all of these display a pretty rational view. Those that criticise, criticise the article, and do not seem to be reacting badly to having to choose a windows computer in that extreme circumstance.
The one that comes closest, in my estimation, to the “outright hostility” you point to is no. 10. But in my opinion it is an extraordiniary distortion to describe it in that way.
You may not agree with all my interpretations of these posts. But the fact is, this is the way I interpret them. I recognise that you may feel differently. But the fact that this is the way that I interpreted them - and I’ve tried to be really honest here - shows that there is more than one way of doing so. The fact is, neither yours nor my interpretation is “definitive”, because this medium does not lend itself to accurately judging tone and insinuation.
And so, what I think is to react with such agression to one particularly extreme interpretation of what has been said is totally and utterly inappropriate, not to say impressively arrogant.
It may be in your mind or it may not be. But I think everyone needs, to be healthy, and more than anything in this most inadequate medium of communication, to seriously entertain the idea that it is.
Also: note that Hadley’s questions assumes that Macs are superior to Windows. If not, he would not be able to conclude anything - it would be like asking whether you’d like a mercedes with wheels or a yugo without wheels, according to a previous poster’s analogy.
If you really wish to take a totally neutral view, and say that windows and os x are on an equal level, then you cannot also defend hadley’s article because he assumes that the conviction that macs are superior, which you are criticising in the responses I’ve summarised above, is true.
I recognise that you may feel differently.
And yet, I’m the one that should be singled out, despite the numerous “stupids” and “peuriles” labeling the article, despite the guy who canceled Applematters from his RSS. I’m the ONLY one to blame for the aggression and devolution.
You’re full of crap, Ben. But I recognize that you may feel differently.
I am, aren’t I?
From a practical point of view, if I were given the choice between a Windows PC with an Internet connection and a Mac without an Internet connection, I’d take the PC. Then I’d download Windowblinds and apply a Mac theme. The user experience wouldn’t be as pleasant as a real Mac, but at least I’d have working e-mail and be able to browse the web. All the while, though, I’d think: Why was I offered this choice anyway? Why can’t I have a Mac AND an Internet connection. That would be ideal. And in reality, I do have a Mac and an Internet connection. On the third hand, if I were offered—right now—an additional option of no computer and no Internet connection BUT a large, hot fudge sundae… well, I really would be in a dilemma then. Especially if a billion dollars were thrown in as an incentive.
A simple matter of FACT to my fella Mac bots and Windows cynics is that the general purpose OS is what makes the Internet possible and not the other way around. Think about that.
The GPOS, whether in soft/firm form, will not fade into oblivion as Hadley proudly declared. I thought it was nonsense and my main reasoning not to get involve.
But as a technologist, I have to share my points here since I see the “question” as mere F.U.D. and a marketing tactic. Say, a way to attract the attention of pundits like Gruber where he merely pointed out the “flaw” in the article’s main logic.
I agree the “Web OS” graphic is cute and instantly grabbed my eyeballs but the metaphors drew me away. It could have been a lot better if it focused on Google’s attack of MS’s cash cows in this point in internet time. That would have been a lot better reading on my part.
Here’s a better question: if you were sent to a dessert island, would you prefer a Mac or a Windows box? I bet all Mac users and at least some, if not many, Windows users would pick Mac. The vast majority of Windows users DO NOT GET TO PICK their platforms! They are mandated by IT.
“as applications get ported to the web this is a long-term threat to Apple”
This is a bigger threat to Windows since the primary benefit of Windows has been the prevalence of Windows-only applications.
if you were sent to a dessert island, would you prefer a Mac or a Windows box?
A dessert island?! I’d be too busy swimming in the chocolate waterfall to worry about stupid computers!
Or stupid articles, for that Matter.
I can see your point. And turn the tables… What if a die-hard Windows user were forced to choose between a Mac with an Internet connection and a PC without? Which would they choose?
I, however, disagree with your point “the OS is dead”. Without an OS (of any form), the Internet doesn’t exist.
I have to say, after letting this all settle down after a few days, that I find this all very amusing. I was really just trying to set up a thesis, that being that the internet is really what users care about when it comes to computing.
I didn’t think through all the logical flaws of my original statement (my favorite is the person who noted that if I substituted monitor for internet it would prove that monitors are more important than the OS).
Again, I was just trying to prove a little bitsy point, that the internet is increasingly at the heart of what we do. As for the point about needing a OS to run a computer you ever hear of a dumb terminal?