In an editorial posted this week, the University of Denver Clarion's
Alex Gallegos asks rhetorically:
"What's So Great About a Mac? Alex says he's becoming increasingly
"annoyed at the number of people who seem to have become enamored with
the Macintosh operating system," further explaining that his annoyance
is kindled by most of the arguments he hears about why Macs are
superior to Windows machine are, he alleges, "based on an almost
complete lack of knowledge about how computers actually work."
Some of these ignorami, he concedes, are "former Windows users who
encountered one Blue Screen of Death too many," while others have been
convinced into believing that Macs are the simpler yet more powerful
cousins to the Intel market," and others think having a Mac is
downright cool.
"I just don't buy this argument," he says.
Well fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but with due respect
I just don't buy Gallegos' argument.
Real Men Don't Use GUIs
He starts off with a variation of a dismissive trope that reaches
back to the "real men don't use mice" canard from the era when Macs had
mice and PCs didn't (and didn't have Windows either), calling the Mac
GUI a "Fischer (sic) Price" interface, while PC users "can
indulge in customization, meddling and fiddling to an extent that would
shock a Mac user's socks off."
Well, if "customization, meddling and fiddling" are what floats your
boat, they're abundantly available in OS X as close as starting up
the Terminal and interfacing with the OS's Unix underpinnings - and on
a more sophisticated level than anything that's possible with Vista.
Hold onto your socks!
But most non-geek real-world users would rather just get on with
their day.
It's the Software, Stupid
As for Macs being "better artistic machines" - another timeworn
(albeit true) rubric, Gallego says: "What people don't quite seem to
understand is that these are questions of software, not the operating
system. Software is software."
Yes, and software has to operate in the context of an operating
system, and the context provided by OS X is far more satisfying
for graphics work than Windows, not to mention that the software itself
is often better. Where are Windows versions of Pixelmator or ToyViewer or GraphicConverter?
Even cross-platform graphics apps look and work better on the Mac -
just look at Photoshop Elements.
Malware Doesn't Matter
Gallegos dismisses the relentless malware siege Windows users have
to contend with by arguing: "Just because you don't get viruses,
doesn't mean that nobody can write one. It's not an impossibility by
any means."
No, it's not, but the operative reality is that no one has; there's
never been a destructive OS X virus in the wild. As one
commentator quipped: "Viruses: Mac OS X - three; Windows -
eleventy-zillion."
I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but I've been working with Macs
on the Internet many hours a day for over a decade, and I've never
bothered with antivirus software, firewalls, or any of the anti-malware
tedium and ennui that is obligatory in the Windows orbit. I never felt
the need to.
It is difficult to persuade ordinary computer users who have only
used Windows that - at least up to now - viruses have been a non-issue
for Mac users.
As
Why Are There No Viruses for Mac OS X? on Switch to a Mac put it
this week:
With today's cyber-threats and focus on computer
security, it's no surprise that many people are ditching their Windows
PCs for Macs running OS X . . . The requirement to
protect Windows installations from viruses, spyware and malware, have
prompted many to make the switch....
It's well known that there are no known viruses for
the Mac OS X operating system despite it being on the market for
over seven years. As of this writing, Mac OS X is virus-free.
There have been some attempted exploits in the past but those relied on
social engineering....
If they had noticed it, Windows fanboys like Gallegos would have had
an "aha!" moment earlier this this year when an Apple Web page
encouraged Mac users to install virus and security software on Macs,
but the page is no longer linked from Apple's Website (you can still
view it
in the Internet Archive.
Macs Are For Lazy Folk
As the summary shot in his broadside of Windows-acolyte conventional
wisdom bromides, Gallegos casts Macs as having "a very specific set of
uses for a very specific niche of users - namely people who aren't
really comfortable with computers and want things to be as simple and
easy as possible without having to go find appropriate software for
themselves."
This guy really needs to get out more - perhaps to a software
developers' convention or other geek-fest venue where he could count
the high proportion of users running Macs these days.
Why I Use a Mac
Windows is one of the reasons I use a Mac: the clumsy and obtuse
angularities, the general clunkiness of PC hardware, the malware
plague, and the irritation of having to deal with Microsoft DRM
issues.
On top of that, a lot of the software I find "appropriate" to my
work as a professional tech journalist is not available on the PC, but
that's just poor ignorant "not really comfortable with computers" me.
