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In the few short weeks since its launch,
much has been made of Apple's aggressively
simplistic ad campaign. Many have noted how it subtly
raises the stakes in the ongoing Windows/Mac rivalry.
Others have discussed the sudden change of focus in
Apple's marketing department. But in my personal
view, easily the most interesting element of these
new television spots centers not on what the eight
converts said but instead on what they didn't
say.
Let me explain.
You see, while media commentators and techno-pundits
alike have invested these ads with all the personal
bitterness of a relationship gone awry -- to quote
one, these ads are a "slap in the face of Windows"
-- I am truly amazed that so few have made note of
just how subtle this bitterness is. Sure, one switcher
calls her PC a "horrid little machine."
Another let's you deduce that her Wintel box "just
didn't work." But after downloading all eight
ads and watching them in sequence, I couldn't help
but wonder: couldn't these have been much more personal?
Couldn't Apple have been much more in-your-face?
At this point, and in the interest of fair journalism,
I should come clean: perhaps I am more than a little
bit jealous at having not been selected from among
those that wrote Apple with their personal conversion
stories. That's right, I am one of the new.
I am a rookie. I am still wet behind the ears, as
it were. And just as many immigrants are the most
patriotic or the newly spiritually converted the most
devout, perhaps my enthusiasm for everything Mac was
somewhat too much -- too personal, or even too in-your-face
-- for the Apple's new campaign.
To begin, my conversion account railed less against
the PC world in some ill-defined, abstract sense;
instead, the focal point of my ire became the clunky
beige box that had occupied my desktop for more than
two years, reigning in my creative spirit and jarring
the already questionable aesthetic of my college dorm
room.
Dear Apple:
Thank you for making me happy again. My new iBook
is the prozac I so sorely needed to lift my downtrodden
digital spirit. I had a desktop PC. It was big,
bulky, and ugly. It was called Dell Dimension 566cx.
It made me sad, it made me bemoan doing my schoolwork,
and chix manifestly did not dig it.
My new iBook transcends coolness. It is uber-hip.
It is sleek, compact, and downright sexy. I've had
people actually ask me what it was. And what's more,
it's an absolute chic magnet ... that is, until
they see all the pictures of my girlfriend I have
stored away in iPhoto. Ouch.
After years as an uneasy PC user, switching to a
Mac has been nothing short of a study in usability.
Before a friend introduced me to the refined simplicity
of OS X, I had always assumed that the way computers
worked and the way my mind worked had to be at odds.
Windows worked a certain way and it was therefore
my job to bend my mind around its redundant complexity.
But OS X was immediately different. If I were to
take my psychology (minus the bouts of irrationality
and neuroticism) and impress it on a motherboard,
the result would be something startlingly similar
to OS X. And I told Apple so.
Okay, chix aside for a moment. How did you get
inside my head? I mean, that's the only explanation.
When I use OS X, it's like an extension of my own
mind. When I save a file, it is stored exactly where
I think it should be stored. No more saving a file
and then having to search my entire HD to find it
again -- only to discover it in a folder that a)
I have never seen before, and b) whose name makes
zero sense.
In Windows XP, digital photography is about as sophisticated
as a shoebox. Literally. When I plugged my camera
into my clunky old Dell, Windows XP would automatically
shunt all my photographs into a single folder. And
that's it. If you want to arrange your picture
collection with more sophistication, you were faced
with the onerous task of duplicating, copying, and
pasting. It was time-consuming, inefficient, and it
just didn't make much sense.
But with iPhoto, for instance, organizing and working
with my growing collection of digital photographs
is a comparative breeze. Like in Windows, my photos
are quickly imported to the iPhoto folder. But that
marks the end of any similarities. After importing,
I can click-and-drag a single photograph into multiple
folders.
Point-in-case: I recently took a picture of the two
most important women in my life: my mother and my
girlfriend. This presented me with a problem: should
this photo be moved to my "Family" folder
or to the "Love of my life" folder? In Windows
XP, I would have had to duplicate the file, rename
one copy, and then cut and paste them into the appropriate
folders. In iPhoto, I simply drag the photo into each
folder. Presto!
So Apple, thank you kindly for making a machine
that not only works but also works in my life. My
iBook has become such an integral part of my life
that I even gave it a name -- Olivia. Your machines
have also given me a way out of my uneasy relationship
with my Dell desktop.
To paraphrase the semi-moronic Steven, "Dude,
I'm getting rid of my Dell."
Andrew Carson is
a pre-law student at Mount Allison University in
Canada. He is busy conducting research in information
economics this summer. He loves getting email, so
send him your criticisms, gripes, or bromides at
aecrsn@mta.ca.
You can also send him nice stuff, too
Stuffit
7 (10-18-02) Dr. Neale Monks. What purpose does file compression have
in this day of 100 GB hard drives? Is version 7 worthy of the upgrade fees?
Fireworks
MX (10-8-02) Dean Browell. Fireworks is more than just a pretty face;
The last app I needed to convert entirely to OS X delivers in upgrades and
features as well...
Dreamweaver
MX (10-8-02) Joel Davies. Not being satisfied with just carbonizing it's
product, Macromedia made sure that Dreamweaver MX was the killer app for web
design.
SliMP3
(9-6-02) Pat St-Arnaud. The SliMP3 is a small, simple and elegant network
devices that connects to any audio component with RCA inputs and lets you
browse, search and play music directly from your computer's MP3 collection.
Voyager
III v.3 (8-16-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Carina's Voyager is the grandfather
of Mac planetarium programs, but does it still have what it takes to keep
up the current generation?
CodeWarrior
8 (8-16-02) Douglas A. Welton. Doug dives into the latest version of this
robust multi-platform programming tool.
STM
Sports Backpack (8-9-02) Pierre Igot. How will this backpack designed
for the "global digerati" stack up when Pierre puts it to the test
with his mobile digital lifestyle?
Scope
Driver (8-2-02) Dr. Neale Monks. An alternative to the 'point and click'
telescope control paradigm: a powerful list-based utility for Autostar and
LX200 telescopes.
Apple
Final Cut Pro 3.0 (7-19-02) Michael Tate Jones. Tate reviews the video-editing
powerhouse Final Cut Pro 3 and sizes up its competition. Does Final Cut Pro
3 hold its ground?
Strata
DVpro RME (7-16-02) Matt Frederick. Matt Frederick. Matt takes a comprehensive
look at Strata DVpro, Strata's pro-level non-linear editor for digital video.
Stargazer's
Delight (6-28-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Looking for a viable shareware alternative
to the big commercial astronomy software packages? Neale may have found one.
TheSky
(6-21-02) Dr. Neale Monks. Neale takes a look at the easiest to use planetarium
program for the Mac.
NI
FM7 (6-21-02) Matt Frederick. Matt takes this software replica of Yamaha's
DX7 synthesizer for a test drive.
The
Digital Universe (6-14-02) Neale Monks. Planetarium program, astronomy
encyclopaedia and space flight simulator all rolled into one - could The Digital
Universe be the ClarisWorks of astronomy software? Neale Monks takes a look.
After
Effects 5.5 (5-31-02) Michael Tate Jones. Tate reviews the OS X native
version of After Effects and likes what he sees.
InDesign
2.0 for Non-Professional Designers (5-24-02) Pierre Igot. In the second
part of our review of Adobe InDesign 2.0 for Mac OS X, Pierre Igot looks at
InDesign from the point-of-view of the non-professional designer - and finds
plenty to like.
Corel
Graphics Suite, Part 2 (5-24-02) Dean Browell. CorelDraw returns in full
force and Corel R.A.V.E makes its debut.
Corel
Graphics Suite, Part 1 (5-17-02) Dean Browell. CorelDraw is back, and
it's brought some powerful friends that makes this Suite worth the look...
OmniGraffle
2.0 (5-10-02) András Puiz. Analog napkins are so 20th century --
this gem from OmniGroup knows (almost) all about diagramming. András
Puiz wishes all Mac developers developed a similar understanding of Aqua,
and of Mac OS X in general.
Watson
(5-03-02) Michael Tate Jones. Tate discovers a 'Swiss Army Knife' for OS X...
it's called Watson.
