I have a Macintosh... duh!

[This post was originally written on July 18th, but I saved it as a draft to finish it later, so I'm posting it now.]

This is a funny story that has been leaked from Newsweek in regards to the 4th generation iPod that is supposed to be unveiled this coming Monday. The beginning of this little tidbit is where they are talking about the 100th million download contest that Apple finished last Sunday night and Steve Jobs personally called the winner to congratulate him.

Apple had promised a prize to the person who moved the odometer to 10 figures, and as the big number approached, fortune seekers snapped up files at a furious rate. At around 10:15, 20-year-old Kevin Britten of Hays, Kans., bought a song by the electronica band Zero 7, and Jobs himself got on the phone to tell him that he'd won. Then Jobs asked a potentially embarrassing question: "Do you have a Mac or PC?"

"I have a Macintosh... duh!" said Britten.

I can't believe he said that to Steve Jobs the way it seems here, but I think I would have done the same thing. In fact, maybe Steve Jobs kind of embellished what he said just a hair to make it sound good, but I think it's great anyway.

Another good quote:

Even though Macintosh sales have gone up recently, he [Steve Jobs] knows that the odds are small of anyone's owning a Mac as opposed to the competition. He doesn't want that to happen with his company's music player. "There are lots of examples where not the best product wins," he says. "Windows would be one of those, but there are examples where the best product wins. And the iPod is a great example of that."

That is basically what I have always thought. I've owned both and I can honestly say that Apple beats Windows hands-down. The only thing that Windows does better is support more games, but they don't really do anything out of the ordinary to accommodate this. They are just the consumer giant (for now), so game companies naturally cater to them. It's not like they do anything out of the ordinary to help out this natural flow of business, they just happen to be the one raking in the cash for it.

To me, this is the old market share argument. People say that since this is a capitalistic society, the best product wins. Not always. This is also the BMW vs. (insert lower-quality non-luxury car here) but we'll use Isuzu, just for this scenario because I've owned one. No one argues that Isuzu (I'm pretty sure, but I could be wrong) has a higher market share than BMW because it's more economical, but I think it's safe to say that BMW is a better built car. Or so I hear. Actually, I think for clarity, I think this argument would be better if you used the Lexus vs. Isuzu argument. This is because Lexus (Toyota Motor Corp.) remains the most dependable in a study done by JD Power last month. This is the 10th year in a row that they have won. From the article:

Toyota Motor Corp. remains the automaker in the United States with the most dependable vehicles, led by its Lexus luxury brand, a survey shows.

Going on the market share theory, whoever has the largest market share in any industry is king. That doesn't necessarily make it better. Quantity does not equate quality. Not to mention, the BETTER a product is, the less it needs replaced. That obviously has something to do with the inflated market share numbers for any inferior product because people have to replace it more often. The thing is, Windows (and many products) work just well enough to keep people buying them without totally pissing them off to consider another option. Most people consider it their lack of knowledge in computers as to why their computers don't work properly (which in some cases might be true), instead of questioning the operating system and considering something else. Sure, Windows will work for you nearly hassle-free if you are really tech-savvy and know what you're doing, but you still have to go out of your way to make that happen. Spam blockers, virus protection, pop-up blockers, daily updates, etc, all takes away from your time.

But I will stress, you get what you pay for. You might pay more in the beginning, but it pays off in the end. I have a low tolerance for being bothered with the daily updates, website pop-ups, those annoying warning boxes every time I booted the machine, software being installed on my computer without my knowledge (spyware), viruses, etc. My Macintosh lets me do what I do without bothering me every five minutes to update something or other and none of that other stuff is ever a problem. I haven't had a software update in a while and when I boot my computer amazingly nothing is popping up telling me to renew this and do that. The whole idea of the Macintosh is that it is intuitive and it doesn't assume that you know everything about the technical side of computers enough to understand the most complicated of warning boxes. Windows is not intuitive. I work with Dells with Microsoft 2000 installed at work. You don't know how many times they will freeze up for 30 seconds to a minute at a time, at least 5 times during the time I'm there. Pop-ups come up on every other website I visit because it has spyware on the computer that I can't delete because I'm not an administrator. If I type something into Google, a separate search page comes up giving me shopping information on whatever I typed in. On some of the other computers, when you log off you get a warning box telling you that if you log off some program will be terminated (which the average user doesn't understand what the hell this means, nor do they care), so you have to hit 'end now' to log off. Not to mention the shitty Internet Explorer browser. IE is easily the worlds worst browser. The whole experience is just aggravating.

The other problem is that Windows has gained an advantage because it has become the default computer for everyone to use out of a seeming lack of options due to consumer ignorance. Most people don't even question it. Every time I bring up Apple in conversation with those that are just basic computer users, they know very little about it. It's always been regarded as "the other" in the computer world, but nothing to really compete against Microsoft. I got into an argument with a guy in my shop about this. He was saying that Microsoft was a monopoly, but I said it wasn't. He goes, "Well, there isn't really any other operating system to buy." Yeah there is - Apple. And it's better. I explained it to him, but he disregarded it, as I had until a friend showed me how much better it really was.

The other problem that Windows causes, is they make many would-be great computer companies (Sony, for example) look bad. I won't argue that I didn't like my Sony laptop before I sold it to my cousin, but it was Windows that I couldn't stand. The daily Windows updates, the way I felt like I was trying to train a little kid when I used it, the list goes on and on. But I did like the Sony laptop for what it was, and for the most part, it never failed me.

The only thing I'm saying is that I think it's disheartening that a computer company as good as Apple is generally regarded as the inferior when, in my opinion, that is by far not the case. I'm not going to say that Apple is perfect, but it is considerably better than Windows, and I say that coming from a Sony computer using Windows XP. When I say considerably, I mean I will never again buy a Windows-based computer. I read something in the book, In Defense of Elitism recently about how immigrants who come here are usually much harder working and their survivability factor is higher than the fat-cat WASPS (a member of the dominant and the most privileged class of people in the U.S.) who have no reason to further themselves because they are already loaded with money. This is an example of how I see industrious immigrants compared to the precious privileged like I see Apple vs. Microsoft.

"Being a poor and persecuted outsider can also be a source of strength, because it forces the immigrant into a ruthless self-examination, reinforcing the values that are crucial for survival. [In this scenario, Apple is the underdog immigrant]
...
Older and more secure groups such as WASPS [Microsoft] in America face decline precisely because their established social status deprives them of any need to claw their way to the top. [for this scenario, innovating new products]"

That's why I think Microsoft will hopefully one day topple. They are getting too fat and too rich, and eventually that causes people to get lazy. This is perfect evidence of that same trend. They don't innovate. They just hawk the same crap year after year to people who don't know any better.

One last note to this argument. I didn't know how great Apple was until within the last year. For all I know, Windows could have been better than Apple until the last couple of years or so, although I sincerely doubt it. But I can say, without a doubt, Apple is by far better now. If by some miracle you took every Windows user on the planet and brought an affordable Macintosh to their house to use for a week with a small tutorial on how to use it and comparable programs, you would see Microsoft go under within a couple years.