Joe Wilcox is right: The Microsoft “I’m not cool enough for a Mac” campaign has really struck a nerve. The Mac sites are abuzz with rebuttals, cries of foul, and general wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The reason for the attention is probably because there’s a grain of truth in what Microsoft is saying. The argument is pretty simple: the limited range of Mac models means that you can end up paying way over your budget to get a single feature. If you want a 17in machine and don’t want to pay an eye-watering £1,949, you’re out of luck. Yes, you get a lot of machine for that £1,949 – but some people just don’t require all the features that you get with a Mac.
This is exactly the argument that I made in my post on why I switched from Mac to Linux, and it’s one that the more fervant Mac promoters either don’t comprehend or willfully ignore.
I needed a 15in screen. However, I didn’t need two graphics cards, a 1GHz system bus, or the absolute top-end performance that I could have got from a MacBook Pro.
That meant that paying £1800 for one would have been bad value for me, giving me features that I just don’t need or want. In the end, I paid £900 for a Dell XPS 1530 which gives me all the features I needed at half the price. As I put it in my swtiching post:
But does this mean Apple is doing something wrong? Not necessarily. Apple’s strategy since Jobs’ return has been to limit the number of different models deliberately, refusing to be driven into the “niche” market strategy of a Dell or HP where there’s a large (and often confusing) range of machines. This makes sense when you’re a small player, as it makes buying decisions easy for the customer and reduces the company’s overheads (lower stock, lower marketing costs, etc).
However, it also means – and Mac fans might not like to accept this – that there are plenty of people for whom buying a Mac makes no sense. I was one of those cases, and “Lauren” is another one. The key question is whether, in a tight economy, this kind of definition of value becomes more important – whether getting “the best machine for your needs and budget” triumphs over “the best machine, period”.
There is, though, one cloud on the horizon which makes me wonder if Apple’s strategy is sustainable. For the past month or so, I’ve temporarily put Linux to one side to do some serious testing of Windows 7, and there’s no doubt in my mind that as a consumer operating system it significantly closes the gap between Windows and Mac.
With Windows Vista, the difference was obvious. Vista was a pain in the behind to use, thanks largely to an over-zealous implementation of User Account Control and performance issues on slower machines. Win7 fixes those, adds in some nice features of its own, and generally looks like a serious contender.
This leaves the Mac with two key advantages: security, and applications. Apple and its advocates have done a great job of beating Microsoft over the head about security, but it’s really a non-issue day-to-day as long as you have up to date anti-virus software. And Microsoft has seriously raised its game with regard to writing more secure code.
Where Apple’s advantage still lies is in applications – quality, rather than quantity. Much as I loathe its stupid use of a non-open default formats, iWork really rocks. Despite silly quirks, iLife is lovely, and Final Cut Express is a great piece of software. Third parties keep churning out exceptionally cool applications, from Omni Group’s brilliant OmniGraffle, OmniPlan and OmniFocus through to the delicious Bento.
Mac applications beat the crap out of their Windows equivalents. Despite the fact that Windows has many times the number of applications, I can think of no occasion when, given a free choice, I’d use any Window app rather than the Mac alternative. Even Microsoft’s own Mac applications are better than their Windows counterparts.
I still have lots of issues which Apple’s failure to use and encourage open formats, which will keep me off the platform. But I think that Apple needs to recognise that, as with the iPhone, applications are a strength on the Mac – and promote the platform accordingly.