Sure, I take pictures. Sometimes, at least. Actually, no, not that often. The one thing though, that compelled me the most about the so-called "iLife" suite, is the feature which lets you design and order a snazzy book with one's pictures. Of course, that certainly isn't enough to make me buy the iLife suite, not to mention to get me to switch to Mac.
See, I don't like the Mac very much. I know this stings like acid in many peoples' eyes, quite possibly to the point where they stop reading right there and write me off as a raving loon. Some people are touchy like that. Especially Mac folks, I hear. It's amazing how well Apple have managed to advertise the Macintosh though, they even managed to make me think that, whatever my past experience with it is, the Mac is really, really, to sleek to resist.
I didn't like the Mac, for reasons I'll come to later, but I figured I might like it if I try it out for a longer period of time, once more. So, instead of buying one on chance, I started to convert my PC to a Mac. Yeah, I know, it's not the same thing, not at all. I know. I know. Yes, yes, I know. It's close though, conceptually so, at least. Other than that, I was rather curious just how similar to a Mac one can make Windows XP. Pretty close.
The less and less my PC felt and worked like Windows XP, and the more and more my PC felt and worked like a Mac, the less and less pleased I was with it. Most prominently, I just cannot work the damn dock. It just doesn't do it for me. So, instead of giving up, I installed Windows versions of many of those third-party applications that Mac users themselves consider to be necessary. AppRocket, which mimics LaunchBar, for instance.
Maybe this is just my experience, but it seems to me that Mac users are more into keyboard shortcuts than PC users are. Sure, Windows users use them too, but not to the same extent. I mean, Windows users pretty much don't ever mention keyboard shortcuts. They're there, the basic ones, like cutting and pasting, F5 or Ctrl-R for refreshing the browser window, F2 for renaming files, but that's about it. In my experience, Mac users use keyboard shortcuts more than Windows users do. My experience. What's yours?
With LaunchBar, or AppRocket on Windows, which lets you hit a configurable keyboard shortcut, to bring up a command line, you can search your files and applications, and whatever else, and thereby provide instant access to pretty much anything on your computer. Great, eh? Wrong. It sucks. Command line navigating? Yeah, right, that's so 1984. I mean, weren't we supposed to have passed that?
As I was saying, I didn't like my Mac-like Windows environment, with the dock, and the kind-of-like-Finder. It felt like I was unable to move, like all my apps and my files where far-far away from me in hard-to-reach places. So, I concluded, as I had in the past when I used actual Macs, that they weren't for me. I brought back the start-menu, but kept AppRocket and the dock, just in case they'd grow on me. They didn't. First, I threw out the dock. Not long after that, AppRocket too. I still use a soothing sort-of-like-Jaguar-but-more-toned-down theme though. I like the sleekness of the Mac, as long as it works like a Windows PC.
Don't even get me started on one-buttoned mice with no scroll-wheel. I mean, I'd pick a three-buttoned mouse with a scroll wheel over my left arm, if by some weird chance and a mad swordsman I'd been given those options only.
But even so, with that in fresh memory, Steve Jobs made the Mac environment seem extremely compelling in his San Francisco 2004 keynote yesterday. When he went on about that whole iLife suite, I just barely pictured a far less cool version of me, using a Mac, geeking around with GarageBand, iMusic and iPhoto. I love Steve's keynotes, even though I know that they're never about anything what so ever that could possibly be something for me. Well, the new iPod mini maybe, I could probably get used to that.
Comments
Personally, I thought that AppRocket was a pretty poor clone of LaunchBar. I use LB all the time, but I realized that I never used AppRocket at all a week after installing it. Out it went.
I tried Macifying Windows a few times before, but it only approaced OS X in visual appearance. The feeling just isn't the same -- no Dock clone for Windows comes close to the real thing.
And that's just my personal observations, I'm not even close to being a fanatic Mac zealot. (Well, not until I've got a Powerbook, at least.)
Comment by Johan Svensson at 08:52, 08 Jan, 2004 #
Johan: Maybe you didn't use AppRocket because Windows is preferrably used with a mouse, as opposed to a keyboard?
Comment by Tomas at 22:13, 08 Jan, 2004 #
Command line navigating? Yeah, right, that's so 1984. I mean, weren't we supposed to have passed that?
You've never really written code or worked on a server have you?
BTW, When the type sizes on your site are changed in standards compliant browsers your layout gets mangled. Not a flame, or a jab, just noticed it.
Comment by thom at 22:33, 08 Jan, 2004 #
thom: I've written a bit of code, and I've worked with a couple of servers. It's kind of hard to avoid that when you're a programmer, especially when you exclusively work with Linux-servers.
I assumed that all of my readers where capable of understanding that I was referring to desktop systems. My bad.
Comment by Tomas at 23:28, 08 Jan, 2004 #
My gripe was with the qualitative nature of the phrase "passed that", and the belief that a GUI is superior.
Saying that we are beyond using a command line seems to indicate that a gui is somehow superior.
I spend a huge amount of time on the command line on every system that I work with, including Windows. I am not some kind-of "Command Line" snob, I just quiver at the thought of renaming the server paths for 350 files using a GUI. Plus there is alot of stuff in XP (netuse comes to mind) that you can only do from the command prompt. GUI is for speed, command line is for power, both happy on the same system.
Again, not flaming, just discussing.
Comment by thom at 01:19, 09 Jan, 2004 #
I like Mac. Never had one, and probably never will. Still like it though, except for a few things. The Macs I tested at friends' houses didn't have a delete button (or was it the other one, what's it called, the one that erases text from right to left?). That was not pleasant and I swore a great deal since I tend to write fast, but sometimes sloppy, and use both the delete button and the other one. That's the first thing that ticked me off. The second thing is that poor excuse for a mouse that Mac has. One button that just do fuck-all? What's that about. Where's the scrolling device, or the second (or third) button? I really like the keyboard on Mac powerbook, though. It's simply wonderful. Who knows, maybe when I get stinkingly rich I'll switch to a bad-ass Mac. That has a normal mouse, and a delete button (or the other one, whichever is missing).
Comment by the skeptic at 10:32, 10 Jan, 2004 #
I've been a mac user (with small bits of pc and SGI thrown in for good measure) since 1984. I don't think I've used an Apple mouse or keyboard since 1995 or so. OS X comes with built in multibutton input device support.
I could care less what OS other people use--use whatever works. I got my feet wet in graphics, and back when I did freelance work most service bureaus would charge a surcharge for files from PCs, so I planted myself firmly in the mac camp then. My few recent adventures in the PC world have been nothing but frustrating, but that's probably due more to my inexperience with windows.
One of my best friends has a nice 17" powerbook that runs no apps except the terminal window, where he does extremely sophisticated statistical computation for biogenetic projects using standard unix tools, all from the command line. His text editor of choice? EMACS.
He switched from years of using a PC, and vows he'll never go back. Which is only to say that command line people can be quite happy on a Mac.
As for me, I got over that whole vi thing years ago.
Comment by resonance at 00:55, 12 Jan, 2004 #
Thomas, it's time for you to get a Mac. Stop clinging to XP, grab an iced latte and join us.
Comment by Greg at 16:46, 13 Jan, 2004 #
I've got a Mac at home and Windows at work, and that should tell you which I prefer. Naturally, I've tried "Macifying" Windows a few times. It was a complete waste of time. The more I customized Windows, the worse it worked, and the less it was like a Mac. Somehow all those sweet little Windows apps just make it harder to use. Maybe they bring out the problems rather than mask them.
If you want to try a Mac, then you really need to try the real thing.
That said, I can't say that Apple has done a good job building user-oriented computers in recent years. Sure, their industrial designs are top-notch, but they've really screwed up their customer focus. The keyboard and mouse that come with the iMac are classic examples. Bruce Tognazzini, one of the original Mac designers, has ripped in to Apple more than once for this.
Regarding mouse vs. command line, my experience is just the opposite. Most Windows users seem to think that the keyboard is more efficient than a mouse, even though it's demonstrably less efficient, while many Mac users I know don't know that there are keyboard shortcuts.
Comment by Tom at 15:29, 18 Jan, 2004 #
Tom: As much as I expect different people's experience to be, well, different, I think you're "wrong" about keyboard navigation being common on a PC, as opposed to on a Mac. Windows users most prominently use the mouse for everything, because everything, and I mean everything, is accessible via mouse-button context-menus. On a Mac, however, the context-menus and other contextual alternative behaviours, are accessible via, well, the keyboard.
Comment by Tomas at 16:19, 18 Jan, 2004 #
It may be that there are different "communities." I deal a lot with people who "grew up" on DOS but are not what you'd call "expert users." Maybe they haven't matured in to Windows, while the people you deal with have.
For my part, I make heavy use of the mouse--not the keyboard--in Windows if for no other reason than that (in the past, at least) the keyboard shortcuts are not stable from one application to the next (e.g. the old Notepad used different shorcuts than almost any other Windows application).
Comment by Tom at 12:58, 20 Jan, 2004 #
I'm a mac user. I think you should try it an actual Mac soon. Of course, maybe the Mac just isn't for you. I wouldn't like that, but then again, I would accept it.
As for CLIs, LaunchBar is not really a CLI. Also, it uses the mouse to configure, select items (optional,) and activate it (optional.) It also has a GUI-ish interface, with small icons and lots of color. Of course, to people like me, that doesn't really matter: the GUI is a more efficient way to do some things.
And another common complaint is that the Mac isn't customizable enough. The Dock on my Mac is smaller, on the right side, has magnification on, has a shadow, and makes Hidden apps transparent. The window look is new, called Gray Milk. It looks very different; it's a mixture of grays & whites. It's applied with ShapeShifter. Most of my system icons are different then the original. Icons for Word, Excel, MSN Messenger, iChat, etc. have new icons. My Apple menu looks different. Etc.
Comment by ryan at 04:02, 16 Mar, 2004 #
The discussion has been closed on this entry. Thanks to everybody who participated.