Apple Store Macs should have short demos.
When a PC user walks into the Apple Store, the things that let them know that Apple has something special to offer are the Apple brand name, the look of the store, and the look of the computers including Aqua. Most of the people I see are usually playing with iTunes and looking at the interface. I think you can get a good idea that it really is elegant and easy to use by looking at it. But what can Apple do besides iTunes to communicate the ease of use factors? iMovie and iPhoto are great but require demonstrations. I think they should have some Quicktime movie demos of the Dock, the Finder column browser, and OmniOutliner for people to play with.
I think if a person's interest is sparked they are probably willing to spend 3 to 5 minutes learning something. Before OS X came out, they made several Quicktime movies demonstrating different aspects of Aqua. They were very easy to follow.
Windows whole My Computer scheme is really clunky. The column browser is so much nicer and more obvious. You can see how each item is a subfolder of the previous one. You only see one downward path at a time. With My Computer you always have My Documents there and the stupid pluses and minuses. My coworker even says just trying to save a file in Windows is confusing. So how about a simple demo? It starts with just the basic hard drives. Then it goes one folder at a time and shows that you can slide the window back and forth to see the folders that you came from.
And the Dock is even better to demonstrate because you have several visual things going on. (1) You drag the icon into the Dock. (2) You lift the icon out and it disappears in a puff of smoke. (3) You click the icon to launch it or (4) make it the main application. (5) You also minimize Windows to the Dock. So that's five really cool, elegant, visual things that just make sense. Plus you can also put folders, such as the Applications folder, in the Dock. I think a short demo would impress people.
I also like OmniOutliner because it has such a clean interface. You can learn it in 5 minutes. And it's beautiful, too. They could have a really cool outline, say of European History, and show how easy it is to expand and collapse sections of the outline.
So does this sound like a good idea? Anything else that you can think of that could be demoed quickly but make a really good impression?
[ 09-05-2002: Message edited by: spindler ]</p>
I think if a person's interest is sparked they are probably willing to spend 3 to 5 minutes learning something. Before OS X came out, they made several Quicktime movies demonstrating different aspects of Aqua. They were very easy to follow.
Windows whole My Computer scheme is really clunky. The column browser is so much nicer and more obvious. You can see how each item is a subfolder of the previous one. You only see one downward path at a time. With My Computer you always have My Documents there and the stupid pluses and minuses. My coworker even says just trying to save a file in Windows is confusing. So how about a simple demo? It starts with just the basic hard drives. Then it goes one folder at a time and shows that you can slide the window back and forth to see the folders that you came from.
And the Dock is even better to demonstrate because you have several visual things going on. (1) You drag the icon into the Dock. (2) You lift the icon out and it disappears in a puff of smoke. (3) You click the icon to launch it or (4) make it the main application. (5) You also minimize Windows to the Dock. So that's five really cool, elegant, visual things that just make sense. Plus you can also put folders, such as the Applications folder, in the Dock. I think a short demo would impress people.
I also like OmniOutliner because it has such a clean interface. You can learn it in 5 minutes. And it's beautiful, too. They could have a really cool outline, say of European History, and show how easy it is to expand and collapse sections of the outline.
So does this sound like a good idea? Anything else that you can think of that could be demoed quickly but make a really good impression?
[ 09-05-2002: Message edited by: spindler ]</p>
Comments
I know that a number of PC users I've talked to look down on Macs because they think of them as "toys" of some sort. They think you can't get basic work done on them. It reminds me of the "serious business computer" commercial that Apple aired when the PowerMac was released. PC users need to see how functional Macs really are.