[Gee4orce]

Here's a fine, fine quote from Derrick Story, of O'Reilly:

Regardless of how Apple corporate wants to portray its products, the Mac isn't a machine for the masses any more than red wine is the preferred beverage at baseball games. To be honest, the masses don't have the capability to appreciate the elegance and depth of this platform.

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/ma...wwdc_2003.html

[DaveGee]

Well I guess we can tentatively put Derrick on the 'Pro OS X' list then eh?

[Cipher13]

Regardless of how Apple corporate wants to portray its products, the Mac isn't a machine for the masses any more than red wine is the preferred beverage at baseball games. To be honest, the masses don't have the capability to appreciate the elegance and depth of this platform.

If red wine was more widely sold at baseball games, and cheaper than beer, it may well become the staple alcoholic beverage of baseball fans...

In reality, the Mac is a computer for developers, geeks, power users, risk takers, visionaries, lunatics, scientists, musicians, photographers, educators, and entrepreneurs.

That would be a rather large group of people, if it was accurate. Either way, it sounds rather deluded to me.

Overall it was a decent article, but that initial self-important tone put me off.

[rsh]

Before anyone misinterprets Derrick: he is NOT projecting an elitist attitude... He is very down-to-earth guy.

He is simply saying that most people wouldn't appreciate the quality and sophistication of the current Mac desktop experience and probably never will.

I see a Harley-Davidson, I think "Eh.. a motorocycle. . " and don't give it another thought. A Harley-Davidson owner might be a little miffed that I fail to "get" his or her passion for this incredible machine. That doesn't make the Harley-Davidson owner elitest. Different strokes for different folks.

Similarly for those of us who "think different"... the artists, the developers, the geeks, the dreamers, the "crazy ones"... the Mac experience is sublime. (And getting better!) But we have to come to realize that for most people Windows is "good enough."

[rozwado1]

Originally posted by rsh:
But we have to come to realize that for most people Windows is "good enough."

The hardest part of being a Mac user is NOT being able to tell everyone about it. I always find myself having to hold back because I want every Windows user to try out OS X. I've done all kinds of reports and presentations in school to get the word out, but I've realized that people just don't care...

"why can't they just listen!"

[Mac Guru]

I've never had to HIDE as a mac user, actually it's probably cause I wear it on my cheast and don't give a rodents patoot about who uses what... but I've found that in the last year PC users are getting fed up with M$... cause I've converted AT LEAST 10 people to a new Apple Laptop in the last year at my University just by demoing Jag on my iBook.

Mac Guru

[Superchicken]

Actually with Panther they should finnaly have an OS for the masses not neccciarlyi huge masses, but with decent marketing, and M$'s screw ups it should be good to go.

After all I have converted 2 people to macs, and one who now wants an eMac with a second monitor so he can ditch the PC he just made haha.

The mac is a great machine for doing more than web surfing because it makes it easy to do so.

Either way they forgot about crazed Christians who hate paying money to such an evil company as M$

[Gee4orce]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
Actually with Panther they should finnaly have an OS for the masses not neccciarlyi huge masses, but with decent marketing, and M$'s screw ups it should be good to go.

Yes - now all Apple has to do is market it. I don't think I've ever seen a TV ad for Mac OS X. Why is this ? Even iTunes got a TV ad.

On a totally unrelated note, Phil Schiller is a star ! He's really got great stage presence, in a kind of stand-up comic kind of way, and one of those faces that seems to engender trust. He should be the Mac OS X campaign front man !

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Yes - now all Apple has to do is market it. I don't think I've ever seen a TV ad for Mac OS X. Why is this ? Even iTunes got a TV ad.

After using and supporting windows (NT, 2000, XP) on a daily basis, I truly believe that OS X is better than windows in terms of simplicity, elegance, and stability. I do think Apple realizes they have a great product in OS X. Why they haven't marketed it better remains a mystery. My personal opinion is that Apple is scared of Microsoft. Yeah Steve makes jokes about them at the keynote etc but Apple knows two things. First, for the time being they still need Microsoft for Office. Until you see a viable (Maybe openoffice will get there) office suite, Apple is stuck catering to Microsoft. Second, at this point, Apple and Microsoft are not direct competitors. Apple makes most of its profit off of hardware whereas Microsoft is purely software. Microsoft can probably care less about Apples niche market. But, if Apple would really push OS X hard, and more people started to dump PCs for Macs, Microsoft might not particularly like that. We all know what happens to companies that upsets Microsoft. They either get crippled or they get bought out. Just look where Netscape ended up when it tried to challenge Microsoft.

I bought my Mac for OS X. I never owned prior to the release of OS X. It's been exciting to see the progression each year with this product. I'm so used to windows in the lackluster updates. I like the fact that feedback that was submitted over the past year was taken into consideration by Apple and even put into 10.3. Good stuff.

This is a huge opportunity for Apple. They have a rock solid not to mention pretty OS. They are continuing to get good third party app development. They now have a fast machine to run all of it. This combined with the fact that many people are beginning to get fed up with Microsoft strong armed tactics provides a great opportunity to attract more users. I hope they take advantage.

[VValdo]

First, for the time being they still need Microsoft for Office. Until you see a viable (Maybe openoffice will get there) office suite, Apple is stuck catering to Microsoft.

For what it's worth, I just installed OpenOffice.Org (the final version for X11) yesterday. And it is fantastic.

W

[sadie]

Originally posted by passmaster16:
for the time being they still need Microsoft for Office. Until you see a viable (Maybe openoffice will get there) office suite, Apple is stuck catering to Microsoft

This is what really annoys me about the relationship between Apple and Microsoft: the fact is, Office is crud. It's truly, appallingly bad. So is OpenOffice, and so was AppleWorks last time I tried it. In the decade or so i've been using computers, i don't think I've seen any half-decent office program. As a programmer, I thankfully don't have to use an office app very often.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by sadie:
In the decade or so i've been using computers, i don't think I've seen any half-decent office program.

Agree. They are either far to big (bloat) or falll over just when documents are starting to get big......

DAlex

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by sadie:
This is what really annoys me about the relationship between Apple and Microsoft: the fact is, Office is crud. It's truly, appallingly bad. So is OpenOffice, and so was AppleWorks last time I tried it. In the decade or so i've been using computers, i don't think I've seen any half-decent office program. As a programmer, I thankfully don't have to use an office app very often.

Yes I agree. Unfortunately MS office is used by a lot of people. Whether it is good or not is not relevant. The only reason I use it because it is cross platform (at least for now) If open office or any other product gives me decent compatibility with M$ office, I'd consider switching. I don't really mind Office X although it is painfully slow compared to its windows counterpart. Surprising? No because M$ wouldn't want the product to run better on a Mac. This is a huge issue though because many of us need a cross platform office suite. With keynote being released, I wonder if Apple is working on a full blown office suite similar to MS office. Appleworks just won't cut it for me.

[P]

The reason that Apple isn't marketing OS X outwards is that you have to buy a Mac to get it anyway - it's only for us repeat offenders that the latest cat upgrade is relevant. No, what they market is the newest Mac - hardware & software, and by software I include both OS X and the iapps. This is in many ways a smart move - to the average Joe Schmoe, the hardware and software is a package. It's that package Apple is selling.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by P:
The reason that Apple isn't marketing OS X outwards is that you have to buy a Mac to get it anyway - it's only for us repeat offenders that the latest cat upgrade is relevant. No, what they market is the newest Mac - hardware & software, and by software I include both OS X and the iapps. This is in many ways a smart move - to the average Joe Schmoe, the hardware and software is a package. It's that package Apple is selling.

True, but get people interested in OS X and the only way they can get it is with a Mac. Tell people the iMac has a 1 GHz G4 and SuperDrive or get them interested in OS X. Back when I switched it was the OS that interested me the most (OS 8.6 that is.)

[Brass]

Originally posted by passmaster16:
Just look where Netscape ended up when it tried to challenge Microsoft.

Except that Microsoft trampled Netscape into the dust without Netscape actually doing anything at all to challenge Microsoft. Netscape were happily working a market that Microsoft had publicly stated they had no interest in, and which they certainly had no applications in whatsoever (IE, wasn't even a twinkle in Bill's eye when Netscape owned the web browser market).

Microsoft only had to notice that it was dopey in thinking the internet was irrelevant, changed it's mind, and decided to take over the market, and illegally kill any product in that market so that they could take it's place (as proven in court).

[Brass]

Originally posted by sadie:
i don't think I've seen any half-decent office program.

GoBe Productive was a fantastic office/productivity application fro the BeOS. Truly superb. I'm disappointed they didn't bring it to OS X when the BeOS didn't catch on.

[passmaster16]

Originally posted by Brass:
Except that Microsoft trampled Netscape into the dust without Netscape actually doing anything at all to challenge Microsoft. Netscape were happily working a market that Microsoft had publicly stated they had no interest in, and which they certainly had no applications in whatsoever (IE, wasn't even a twinkle in Bill's eye when Netscape owned the web browser market).

Microsoft only had to notice that it was dopey in thinking the internet was irrelevant, changed it's mind, and decided to take over the market, and illegally kill any product in that market so that they could take it's place (as proven in court).

You pretty much proved my point Microsoft was no where to be found when Netscape had control of the browser market. Microsoft realized how important the internet would become and released IE. The reason why Netscape didn't do anything about it is what they didn't have many options. What could they possibly do? Microsoft was bundling IE with windows and Netscape could do anything about it. I remember getting a new pc with windows 95. At that time windows 95 was bundled with IE 1.0 and it was horrible. But the fact is, people used that horrible browser because it was already there on the desktop. To many of them, they didn't know that Netscape had a better browser. Also, wasn't Netscape still selling their browser while Microsoft was giving IE away? It was no different then than it is now. People tend not to pay for software when they can get an alternative for free. Not saying that IE was anywhere close to Netscape but the price is a factor.

I don't think Netscape really had much choice in the matter. Maybe they could have prolonged the inevitable but in the end, when Microsoft wants something, they will do what it takes to get it.

[ryanng]

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Here's a fine, fine quote from Derrick Story, of O'Reilly:



http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/ma...wwdc_2003.html

Just the reverse. Windows should be an 'ideal' platform for developers, because it is so much fun to dig out the hole in the OS

For general users, a robust, secure OS core with a well designed GUI is actually what the general users should received. This sounds more logical, isn't it? Apple's OS X is making the point, and that's the reason why I switch.

Before OS X, I use my PC for word processing, DVD, email, and all serious programming works were done on UNIX machines. Now I can do both on a elegant 12" PB. Bye to Window viruses and crashes!!!

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by rsh:
Before anyone misinterprets Derrick: he is NOT projecting an elitist attitude... He is very down-to-earth guy.

He is simply saying that most people wouldn't appreciate the quality and sophistication of the current Mac desktop experience and probably never will.

I don't think it was a misinterpretation.

When he says most people wouldn't appreciate it, that's absolutely true, no doubt.

I intentionally avoided the word elitist... I think self-important was more accurate, and I think it rings true.

But hey, I get the impression you know the guy better than I do (whether personally, or following his literature, or something), so my opinion doesn't hold much water.