Posts Tagged ‘vista’
Five Bogus Claims Mac Fans Should Stop Making (and what they should say instead)
Posted by Benjamin J. Thompson | Filed under Essays, Technology
Currently I’m using a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p. It’s a nice laptop, but comparing it to the much-more-modestly-powered iBook I used before this, I have to say I prefer the Mac OS X environment over Windows, even though Vista has made significant strides forward for Windows in terms of usability. My reasons are not the typical marketing lines you’ll hear from Apple drones, Mac freaks, or Justin Long. In fact, many of the things you’ll hear from the Get a Mac ads are outright lies, and Apple fans who repeat them are colossal dorks. They’ve chosen a brand loyalty based on a veneer of exclusivity, and mounds of disinformation about the competition. I’m sure that when you’re talking up your favorite product, you don’t want to come across as a tremendous douchebag. So here are a few things to avoid when talking to other people about your Mac.
1. “It’s so much more secure!”
It isn’t. In fact, there’s evidence that it’s less secure than a Windows machine. Security these days is largely a problem that exists in the howling chasm between the ears of most Internet users. Anyone with a wireless network in their home has some manner of firewall built into the hardware, and if they don’t, they probably went out of their way to do it wrong. UNIX is a tried and trusted platform, so bias in favor of OS X for security’s sake is probably fair, but when you’re running everything as Administrator you might as well leave your front door and car completely unlocked, bicycle without a helmet, and hop backwards on your left foot down a flight of stairs, because clearly you have no concept of basic safety measures.
And you know what else? The notorious security checks of Windows Vista are there for a reason. Asking the user permission to do every Admin-level task will draw attention to the malicious software that tries to do something that the user had no intention of letting it do. Vista gives you the chance to stop malware in its tracks. Windows has to support thousands of third-party applications, and the guard rails have to go somewhere.
What you should say instead:
“I prefer the OS X security model over that of Windows.”
2. “There’s no Blue Screen of Death!” / “It’s so much more stable!”
This is like saying Mac OS X won’t give you polio. This is a problem that was cured a long time ago, but the way the Mac ads tell it, you’d think running Windows was an OSHA violation. I can’t even remember the last time I saw even a Windows XP computer bluescreen, and we use dozens of such machines at work. I haven’t yet heard of a Vista computer encountering a system-halting failure.
I worked on a newspaper for a semester and everyone was using Macs. It was a very nice and very appropriate setup, and most of the time everything worked fine, but I’d be a liar if I ever claimed those Macs ran flawlessly 100% of the time. Use your Mac long enough, and you’ll get to see an application hang or crash. You’ll get to lose unsaved work, to see the trackpad stop registering, or see a window refuse to dock, or witness some other unexplainable failure. It’s a computer! It runs billions of calculations each second working off of gigabytes worth of data and code! You don’t think that once or twice something is going to go wrong? Macs are not magic. They will fail you.
What you should say instead:
Nothing.
3. “There are no viruses!”
Yes there are. Remember when Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, told students at Columbia University that Iran has no gay people? He was almost laughed out of the auditorium, and anyone who hears you make the above claim will react the same way if they know anything about computers. People who write viruses are usually trying to turn a computer into a spam-forwarding zombie, or harvest financial or identity information from a computer so they can go commit some fraud and identity theft. They try to cast a wide net, so usually they go the Windows route. So far, Mac users have enjoyed freedom from these threats just because they are such a small pool of users. In all cases, whether with Windows or Mac, the most important tool for avoiding viruses is your own brain. Every email is a suspect. Every website is a potential threat. Be aware and be cautious, because your operating system will NOT save you all by itself.
Sadly, this is a front where Windows suffers severely. Not from viruses, but from anti-virus software. Norton and McAffee antivirus programs infiltrate your computer just like the cooties they are meant to thwart, gum up the registry, slow things down, and can be impossible to uninstall.
What you should say instead:
“It’s less of a target for viruses than Windows, so I feel safer using it.”
4. “It just works!”
So does Windows, you ninny. That’s why nobody uses Linux. What’s worse is that the last time Microsoft bundled important software with their operating system, they had to waste millions fending off a lawsuit from the sore losers in the market. Yet almost every software program on your Mac was made by Apple! Is it any wonder they work so harmoniously?
What you should say instead:
“It suits my needs and I like it.”
5. “PCs suck!”
The cheapest Apple laptop is $1100. The cheapest Dell notebook is $500, and others make them even cheaper. There’s a $600 premium for that MacBook, because you’re paying for specialized hardware and top-notch design. Not everyone places so much value on those factors, and they don’t appreciate being talked down to. If you want to convince someone that the computer you use is such a great product, you will not win them over by telling them they are using something inferior. Finance software on the Mac is still garbage if it’s ported at all, and there is a host of applications specific to a certain occupation or type of hardware that is still years away from running on the Mac operating system. For many people the Mac is a non-option if they’re actually going to get their jobs done.
What we’re left with is the fact that both have their pluses and minuses, and the “better” OS is going to depend on the user.
What you should say instead:
“Macs rock!”
There’s plenty of good things about Apple’s computing platform. The elegant operating system, the slick design, and quality first-party applications are just the beginning. There’s no need to bash the conventional products as inferior. Hopefully, if you’re a Mac enthusiast, this article has helped make you less annoying to your PC-using friends.