Quote:
Originally Posted by Gideon
I think the "Apple is all about fashion, an the last thing I need is a fashion ebook..." is such a straw man it isn't even funny.
I won't deny there are apple fan boys. There are. But a lot of us who are very enthusiastic about our Apple products are enthusiastic not because it is stylish or cool but because it works intuitively and well. I ignored Apple for over a decade as a PC user, it simply wasn't an option. But last year I got a Macbook, and after a few months, picked up an iMac as well and they were the best decisions I ever made regarding how I deal with technology. Not because they were pretty (in fact, I liked how my PC's looked more) but because it was so damn usable and what's more, a pleasant experience to use.
The same goes with the iPhone. My Windows Mobile phone did just about everything an iPhone can do, but it was a giant pain in the butt to do it, ever.
Apple is good at UI. And UI is a very, very important part of how we deal with tech... dismissing what they do as just pretty is insulting. It's not about being pretty, it's about being USABLE. I swear, everytime I hear this stuff it's like listening to Linux fanboys complain... People don't seem to get it, it doesn't MATTER how "powerful" your product is, what matters is "do people want/like to use it." Linux is not user friendly (though it is slowly getting better) and so people don't use it.
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I fully admit that my opinions are my own, but they're based on two personal datapoints.
1. I used to test a software product that shipped in both Windows and Mac versions. I had to test the same product on both machines, side by side, and we shipped both products on the same day. This was a buncha versions ago of both win and mac OSs, but I HATED the mac systems. And my first two computers were Apple 2s.
2. A couple of years ago, I spent an evening trying to extract photos from a half dozen different digital cameras, and attempting to assemble a slide show for a church youth group event. We were at a rented camp facility, and the only laptop I could get on short notice was a mac. I wasted hours doing something that should have been fairly easy. Mouse targets didn't do what I expected, and I was constantly having to figure out how to go back to where I made the mistake. I didn't finish in the time available.
Mac products just use a different way of doing things. They are fundamentally neither better nor worse than computers using other operating systems, but if they don't fit the methods by which you work, its just painful. I know I could "get used" to a Mac, but it would be time consuming, painful, and I'm not motivated to do it. I don't own an iPod, and the only reason I've even considered one is that the controls are likely to be the easiest for my mother to understand, since she's legally blind. (other brands that I've seen so far have very tiny controls that don't work very well if you can't see the tiny little screen.)
An apple electronic book would have to be obviously and significantly better than the competition before I'd get over my prejudice and try it.