Whenever the press talks about Apple...

o-maco-mac
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
When Panther came out a few weeks ago it was another major event in the life of Apple. Lots of new things and improved things enough to make you say, wow, it's like another operating system! Which is great! It's good to see an already excellent product get improved upon.



So naturally, when I started looking for articles on Panther I expected to see what bad things those Tech writers had to say and I was not disappointed. I think the first headline I saw was about how Panther fixed major flaws with Jaguar. Or something like that. Whatever it was, it made Panther and Apple sound like they were pulling one over on the people abd trying to cover up some bigtime mistakes on its operating system.



What the heck???????



I've been following articles like this for a while now and it's true!!! the PC press is always looking for some angle to bash Apple. Whether it be the stock dropping a millipenny or something new coming out, the PC Press will find a way to make it sound bad.



And then you look over at the articles on Longhorn, MS's next bohemoth coming out next year. Only good things about it...Com'n....Get real...



Now I want to know. Can anyone give me ten reasons why The Mac OS sucks?? and if you can possibly do this I bet you a million people will give you 100 Windows OS problems for each one...



Here's a good one: Start up a PC with XP and turn on the automatic updates and sit it next to a Mac and see how many more times the XP PC pops up with "ANOTHER" update....

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 13
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by O-Mac

    Can anyone give me ten reasons why The Mac OS sucks?? and if you can possibly do this I bet you a million people will give you 100 Windows OS problems for each one...



    1. It doesn't have office title X that my PC with Windows has.

    2. It doesn't have game X that my PC with Windows has.

    3. The hardware is way more expensive.

    4. Peripheral X doesn't work on Macs.

    5. Too much eye candy; not customizable enough out of the box.

    6. Samba and networking with Windows is fraught with bugs.

    7. Terrible or nonexistant support for my various AVI/DivX/WMA/etc files.

    8. Library whozits whatzits? Four of the same folder?

    9. Permissions? Why can't I do X? I'm the only user of this computer, damn it!

    10. The interface is slow/laggy (cue window resizing).



    That was too easy. I could go on for longer. I see these all the time.



    There are several factors that you have to keep in mind. First, these writers probably use Windows all day, every day. Like most, they are probably used to Windows and dealing with any issues that crop up. Second, these writers probably use Windows all day, every day! You can't forget this. These aren't smart Mac users. They don't know about all the oodles of cool, sometimes undocumented, helpful features in Mac OS X that you and I probably take for granted. Third and possibly most important, these writers have a certain audience to cater. Most PC magazines, not surprisingly, have a PC/Windows following. You write articles that will sell magazines. You write articles that will sell advertisements. You write to the largest group possible and at 5% market share, the Mac world isn't exactly the biggest target out there.



    I'm not saying this is a good thing. This is just the way the world works. We are a minority. Minorities get pushed aside, discriminated, misunderstood, misrepresented, stigmatized...
  • Reply 2 of 13
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    X gets a lot better press by the PC medias than XP does in Mac medias.



    And generally speaking Panther got surprisingly good reviews in some of the major papers in US.
  • Reply 3 of 13
    superkarate monkeydeathcarsuperkarate monkeydeathcar Posts: 2,407member
    i think every tech writer i read with any kind of regularity is a mac user at home and at heart.

    david poque @ new york times

    james coates @ chicago tribune



    and if you watch techtv most of the contributers are mac users, it's funny, as leo laporte answers problems from pc users many times his answer is "mac users don't have that problem"
  • Reply 4 of 13
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Brad, you were far too coherent. This is more like it:



    1) Mac is owned by Microshaft (somehow these geeks love Windows yet hate Microsoft...)

    2) They're not compatible.

    3) There are no games.

    4) There are no programs.

    5) I-macs are toys for little kids.

    6) Macs are for people too stupid to use a real computer.

    7) They cost a ton.

    8) They are not upgradable.

    9) They can only use a one button mouse (a round piece of crap one, at that).

    10) THAY AER TEH SUKC!11!!@@!@!!!@!!!!



    I couldn't have used the improper/l337 grammar without it sounding contrived for the first few... I just presented the general ideas that PC fanbois come up with. No, they don't make any sense.
  • Reply 5 of 13
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Quote:

    This is just the way the world works. We are a minority. Minorities get pushed aside, discriminated, misunderstood, misrepresented, stigmatized...



    As a Mac user, I'm oppressed. Who can I sue for this?
  • Reply 6 of 13
    influenzainfluenza Posts: 146member
    I think Brad hit the nail on the head. The press writes to a target audience, and if they want to keep their jobs they write what the majority of that audience already believes.



    That having been said, I think Apple has gotten very good reviews from the general press lately. People who work in TV, printed media, etc. are very likely to have experience with Macintosh machines, and they appreciate Macs' usefulness within their own field. Your average columnist or reporter is probably no computer expert to begin with, so they also appreciate the Mac's usability and intuitiveness. I suppose we can expect many tech writers to have the exact opposite experiences and biases. You just have to consider the source and take it in context.



    We're all bothered by undeservedly bad reviews of Apple products, and we're pleased by good reviews. You take what good publicity you can get for free, but there comes a point at which you really have to toot your own horn if you want the kind of name recognition and brand loyalty that makes you competitive. Apple's pretty notorious for not doing nearly enough in that respect. Relying on mixed third-party reviews for publicity when you're the underdog is not a good idea, even if you have the superior product. Quality does not equate with success. Popularity does.
  • Reply 7 of 13
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    As a Mac user, I'm oppressed. Who can I sue for this?



    Lawsuits are so much trouble and expense. Just have a wet tart fling a sword at you.



    Brad's point is a good one: The things that Windows users will think about OS X reflect expectations and habits formed around Windows. That's not surprising.



    Another thing to keep in mind with most reviews is that the reviewer has to find something wrong to afford the appearance of objectivity. In this case, part of that has to be an affirmation of the choice that 95% of the computing populace is supposed to have made. After all, if OS X is so great, why hasn't it displaced Windows? People like to imagine that their choices are entirely rational. Tech marketing is built around maintaining that illusion while selling the products on largely irrational grounds.
  • Reply 8 of 13
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    X gets a lot better press by the PC medias than XP does in Mac medias.



    And generally speaking Panther got surprisingly good reviews in some of the major papers in US.



    What? OS X gets better press in PC mags than XP!
  • Reply 9 of 13
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I have to say, it used to be a lot worse in the mid- to late-90's. While we deal with these little ifs and buts now, in the Bad Old Days, Macs were at best being damned with faint praise, if not entirely ignored or dismissed.
  • Reply 10 of 13
    ernest emacernest emac Posts: 108member
    ~
  • Reply 11 of 13
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ernest eMac

    True, you do hear a lot of garbage.



    And I hear a lot of garbage from Mac fanbois too about XP.



    "Crashes all the time", "Full of viruses", "Forever patching software".....swings and roundabouts really



    Yeah I don't think XP is half as bad as I hear people make it out to be. XP hardly ever crashed for me.
  • Reply 12 of 13
    dmband0026dmband0026 Posts: 2,345member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    As a Mac user, I'm oppressed. Who can I sue for this?



    Since your in the US, you can sue anyone you want. In fact, not suing someone is un-American. Lawsuits are now the American way, so start calling lawyers or risk being called anti-American!!!



    To ast3r3x: XP hardly ever crashed for you, OS X never crashes for me. Beat that
  • Reply 13 of 13
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Brad

    You write articles that will sell advertisements. You write to the largest group possible and at 5% market share, the Mac world isn't exactly the biggest target out there.



    That does not justify misleading the readers. Unethical behavior is unethical behavior, period. Too much of that going on in the press. Democracy can only work when the people are intelligent enough to reject being feed lies all day long. We are far from that at this time.
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