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THE iMAC DEBATE RAGES ON | PAGE 1, 2
Behind much of the negative mail I received lay an assumption that I was a PC user or "Wintel guy" who had obstinately and irrationally decided to bash Apple despite all the enlightening evidence out there against me. One reader even suggested that I must own Microsoft stock. (I don't.) Another told me, "22 million people use Macintosh computers every day ... and you have just made close to 22 million enemies." So let me repeat: I own three Macs at home. I am typing this on a Mac at my office. I use Windows PCs too, but I firmly believe that the Mac is, overall, a more elegantly designed and easy-to-use system. I recommend Macs to my friends and relatives. But I also refuse to believe that holding these opinions obligates me, as a Mac lover, to applaud every move Apple makes or to withhold criticism of Apple when I think the company has goofed. Apple's more extreme followers have adopted a bizarre corporate loyalty program under which they not only maintain that the company can do no wrong but also believe that Apple is locked in a Manichaean struggle with Microsoft in which only one company can survive. I tried to address these fanatics at the end of our iMac debate, when I wrote, "I fear that a lot of Mac lovers are engaging in an orgy of wishful thinking as they imagine the iMac winning over droves of Windows users. As a survival move, the iMac may be savvy, but it's not going to turn the world upside down." This passage elicited dozens of rational arguments from reasonable Mac fans who believe that Apple is no longer at war and doesn't need to "conquer Wintel" to thrive as its own segment of the computer marketplace. One reader reminded me that it was Steve Jobs, after all, who told the crowds at MacWorld last year that "we have to lose the idea that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose." To these readers, let me say: I agree with you. You're right. But there's another contingent out there that's still fighting the last decade's war. "iMacs and G3 have completely killed the WinTel platform," wrote one overexcitable correspondent. "Apple is in control of the entire industry once again." These members of the Apple corps are determined to twist every argument in Apple's favor: Thus, Apple's omission of a floppy disk becomes a praiseworthy move that "gives people the choice of whether to have a floppy"-- and choice is what Apple is all about! -- whereas Apple's one-piece iMac design, which limits users' monitor choice to the built-in 15-inch screen, is praised for its "convenience." It is this group that needs to learn the basic lesson that Apple is not a religion or a cause -- it is a corporation looking to make a buck. Corporations sometimes create wonderful products (and Apple has historically produced more than its share); sometimes they make mistakes. More often they muddle through. My view remains that the iMac is a muddle-through kind of product that, thanks to relentless marketing, happens to have captured the public fancy for the moment. This view received some support from a former Apple employee who wrote in to explain the history behind the iMac's lack of a floppy drive: The iMac began life as Apple's "network computer" (NC) project. NCs are designed for corporate networks and expected to store everything across such networks, and so the proto-iMac didn't even have its own hard disk, let alone a floppy drive. Since the iMac is an NC repurposed late in development as a consumer machine, the former Apple engineer wrote, "It's no surprise that it's a bit of a mismatch." Now, there's nothing awful about this -- technology companies change plans all the time, and if Apple was nimble enough to do so successfully, it's a sign that the company has grown more flexible. But it's hard to hang on to an "Apple can do no wrong" attitude once you accept that Apple, like all companies, must make imperfect choices in an imperfect world. Cheering on Apple as an alternative to Microsoft has always made a lot
of sense to me. But I'll never understand what motivates the people who
feel that any criticism of their favorite computer company is an act of
treason. Where's the "Think Different" spirit in that?
Join the iMac debate in Table Talk's Digital Culture discussion area. |