Adrian’s Curatorship » John C. Dvorak on Macs. — A Mac user and a blogger who actually agrees with me on my latest PC Mag column about the Mac and the psychology of its pricing. I’ve become quite reluctant to write these Mac-related columns, but the basic concept in this particular column needed saying since I’ve been thinking about quality related issues recently. I’ve concluded that the marketing forces in place that are solely designed to get us to buy junk are perhaps impossible to thwart. When given a choice most Westerners will buy the cheaper product most of the time. It takes an extreme marketing effort to sway people against this trend.
You imply in your article that Mac has sufficiently differentiated itself on ease of use (which is not the same thing as simplicity), and thus should be considered a superior product, but I would disagree. While most people agree that the Mac is an easier interface, the real question is whether it is easier *enough* (differentiated enough) to compensate for the higher price and lower selection of software. Only 3% (according to your numbers) would agree with that assessment.
I’m compelled to proffer a counterpoint to Mr. Dvorak’s column for two reasons: I’m a retired marketing person; I’m a recent convert to Mac (having been a PC freak since one of the first Commodore-64’s off the assembly line landed on my desk).
In marketing parlance, there are six basic options in the consumer equation: More for more; more for the same; more for less; less for less; less for the same; less for more. The gaping flaw in Dvorak’s argument is that Mac is less for more. If you accept the premise that the purpose of a computer is to make your life easier, then how could Mac’s “oft-praised ease of use” be a handicap? I submit that Mac’s higher cost for simplicity is really more for more.
Following Dvorak’s convoluted logic further, if indeed simpler should be cheaper, then why isn’t the PC less expensive than going out and purchasing (if you can) a manual typewriter, file folders, an abacus, and a slide rule (for whatever they used them for)?
Better yet, take the I-Pod and it’s total simplicity. Compare that to the awkward complexity of carrying a portable CD-player around and your entire CD collection in a backpack. What costs more? The I-Pod is unquestionably more (simplicity) for more; the latter option is the same for much less.
Lastly, if market share is the sole judge of success, then let’s compare apples to apples. Take, for example, autos: Lexus wants the lion’s share of the luxury market; GM wants the lion’s share of low-end market. If you were Steve Jobs wouldn’t you be content that Apple has100% of the luxury market for computers.
Is the Mac simpler? At first, my conversion earlier this year was akin to learning to write with my left hand. Then I discovered the Intellipoint, 5-button, optical mouse works marvelously with my Mac G5. It even comes with Mac software!! Now my life is far simpler, and I can do much more than ever compared to what it was like with the unquestionably inferior PC-XP operating system. For about $500 more than I’d pay for a top-end PC, I got much more.
Plus, it’s not just a hardware question. I’ve been online/computing a couple of decades. Every 3 or 4 years, I take a look at whatever is happening on the Mac side of the street. Oftimes, the hardware has been advanced enough to tempt me. The cost of software, feature-to-feature, is a turn-off, every time.
Yes, we finally added 1 Mac in the family. My wife bought an iBook for less than $8/900 a short while back — after rebates. She uses it to experiment with Yellow Dog Linux for the PowerPC.
Duke Miller. If I had that name I’d be in baseball or sales for sure. As for my “convoluted” argument let’s go back to the analogy of the 30K word processor. It is, like the Mac, more (by virtue of efficiency) for more (money) in the last example I cited where it would gather a predicted 3-percent market share. And even at the same price as the 650MB word processor it would have trouble succeeding. This has nothing to do with reality. It has to do with perceptions. As a marketing guy surely you understand this! Nobody perceives simplicity as better or, in your parlance “more.” They just don’t. You can argue against my point all day long but I have the proof in the 3-percent market share. I just don’t understand how you can see it any other way.
“quailty related issues”? Are these issues related to the control of quail? Or if they are related to the issue of quality, wouldn’t the statement have a twee bit more impact if “quality” were spelled correctly? Just a thought, mind you.
The big question I have is what impact a free, relatively easy to use, linux-compatible Solaris 10 for X86 can have on Windows. This could really make Macs even more marginal. Otherwise, once again I’m with you on this one, John. Simpler should be cheaper. And OS X for X86 still makes huge sense, but they won’t do it.
Duke – I like Macs, and even I have trouble justifying the cost of switching. They cost more, and you get less of a lot of things.
All you have to do is compare point by point on several aspects between a PC and a Mac. Like so many of the people who buy computers at my part time job, they go with the PC because the get more of a lot of stuff for less money.
I disagree that simpler is not perceived as better. However, Mac’s 3% market share has more to do with people choosing simpler over complicated. While I agree that most people perceive the Mac’s interface to be simpler than the PC, it is not the only factor in buying a computer. Beyond cost there is the PC’s overwheming advantage in support availability, software selection, hardware selection and more. In addition, we cannot discount Apple’s generally inexplicable marketing campaigns and product line choices (e.g. not embracing the Mac OS on the Intel platform). Given Apple’s management decisions, I’m amazed that its market share is as high as 3%.
Macs suffer from two problems. One, no marketshare so there is a serious lack of applications and utilities when compared to the PC. Two, what is supposedly simple can be maddeningly difficult on a Mac.
I own a Powerbook G4 and learned these things from my experiences with it. Once the coolness factor wore off I found that getting things done on it usually involved some kind of aggravation. Simple tools that are available for free on PCs are not available for the Mac. I had to spend quite a bit of money getting various applications for it. I also had a hell of a time getting my email from Outlook 2000 into Entourage. I had to buy a script for that too. Oh yeah, connecting to Exchange was an exercise in futility as well. MS and Apple both claim you can do it. I wasted countless hours trying to get it to work with no luck. I thought Macs were simple! I have a masters degree in IS and I can’t figure it out. Macs are simple if you do simple things with them. Try to do something complex and they are just as irritating as Windows, except that its much easier to find someone who knows how to fix your Windows problem. Don’t believe me? Go on some of the Mac message boards and read the pleas for help from Mac users. I never knew what a “Kernel Panic” was until I bought a Mac. It’s just as bad as the “Blue Screen of Death”. Which, by the way, I haven’t seen in years on any of my Windows machines.
My conclusion is that Macs are good for simple things like pictures, music and movies. Unfortunately, when it comes time to get some real work done I have to turn to my trusty, if occasionally aggravating, PC. Anybody want to buy a like new Powerbook?
email typos to john@dvorak.org rather than use them for humor since they get corrected eventually and nobody will get the joke. 🙂
If “simplicity should cost less” is the underlying premise of the Mac must fail analysis, I must disagree. Every scientist knows that (for any given brain) a simple and elegant solution often, perhaps always, requires more effort than a kluge and is, therefore, relatively expensive. Beauty ain’t cheap; every engineer knows that. The question is whether the market for beauty is sufficient for Apple’s purposes. We should all hope that it is. But it will never be a Chevrolet market.
Except for a few items like laptops and digital cameras I always go for cheaper. To me it is a logical decision because of my extreme dislike for dealing with customer service/tech service for warranty issues. If the item is cheap enough and if it breaks, I risk little in attempting to fix it or simply replace it. The DVD player I got for Christmas is an excellent example. It cost $55 and, if it broke, I would simply buy another.
As PC user since 1987 and having grown up at the DOS prompt, my switch to OSX has been pleasant and one which I shall never look back. In the past year, three family members have asked me to recommend a computer. In all three cases, I pushed OSX. In all three cases, my advice was ignored and each person bought a PC with price as the underlying reason. The roughly $200-$300 price differential between entry level Macs and PCs is negated when you consider user support (Apple ranks number 1), ease of use and the fact that virus and spyware are a nearly a complete non issue for Mac users
My theory is that the vulnerabilities (and the complexities to fix them) built (or let into) Windows are far too much of a happy accident. Most Windows users are not adept on sufficient technical level to manage the cookies, virus, spyware etc. that an always on internet connection necessitates. As a result, they give up and buy a new PC, replacing perfectly good hardware for the simple reason that their memory and processing power are completely zapped by these silent background processes. For the most part, consumer software has not kept pace with Moore’s law however processor and memory resources are always somehow being fully utilized (by someone else’s agenda).
In the end, this argument becomes about hardware versus Software. In the beginning, the original IBM PC development team somehow never managed to copyright protect their BIOS, which meant that anybody could build a PC. Conversely, Bill Gates took someone else’s DOS system, copyrighted it and built Windows on top and around it. PC Hardware became commoditized and now expires faster than unpasteurized milk on the shelf (especially when connected to a cable/DSL connection). Software became the cash cow.
Apple has never realized that hardware is just a commodity. Its success (or lack thereof) has been the integration of both hardware and software. For my $300 premium (over the price of a PC), I get to enjoy my computing experience, speak with an English speaking tech support person (without staying on hold for 5 hours) and spend more time with my kids instead of running SP2 updates, managing my firewall, downloading new browsers, virus definitions and spyware scans.
Is it worth it? You bet. I just wish my family would stop calling me for advice on fixing their PC’s.
John said: “email typos to john@dvorak.org rather than use them for humor”
OK, from now on I’ll do that–unless the element of irony (as in misspelling “quality” in a discussion of quality control) just overwhelms me. My comment wasn’t so much about a typo as it was about the irony of the typo, and I KNOW you can appreciate irony! Unintentional humor is often a result of “the law of unintended consequences”.
$300 price premium over a PC? There’s no way the 2 machines are comparable. There are high performance PCs as low as $599. The emachines m5405 for example ( a pcmag editors choice). Where is the $899 mac that is even in the neighborhood performance-wise? The eMac? The iBook? Sorry Robert. Neither of those is even close performance-wise. Maybe a G5 iMac could get close, but only if you dropped an extra $100 or so on more RAM. And that’s the low end of the PC market. Spend a grand or more and the performance margin is so wide it’s scary.
When it comes to laptops the story just gets worse. The so-called powerbooks (I own one) are a complete joke compared to PC based laptops. HP offers Athlon64 notebooks for less than $1600. My dell latitude D600 blows the doors of my powerbook and they cost the same but the Dell has more RAM, bigger HD, and faster DVD burner.
When it comes to spyware and viruses the Mac users do have an advantage. However, that advantage is not the result of an inherently better OS. It is simply the result of popularity. Who is going to write a virus or spyware for 3% of the market?
Regarding patches, I have spent plenty of time installing a variety of patches and upgrades to OS-X. In case you haven’t checked. The latest verion is 10.3.7 and 10.3.8 is right around the corner. Not to mention the countless security updates I have had to install over the last year.
Both platforms have merit. Unfortunately I think the Mac is headed for the graveyard unless Steve Jobs changes his strategy. Apple is now making more money selling IPods than computers. That ought to scare the hell out of Mac enthusiasts.
“Both platforms have merit. Unfortunately I think the Mac is headed for the graveyard unless Steve Jobs changes his strategy.”
Uh, huh. Now where I have I heard this before?
I own both a Mac and a PC and it isn’t clear to me which is best.
The Mac crashes less and seems much better with audio and video software (what I use it mostly for) but I get SUPER frustrated with the Mac at times — if the Mac doesn’t do what I like, I’m usually outta luck.
With the PC, there usually is a work-around.
“The Mac platform is essentially stagnant.”
My gut feeling is disagreement, but that does not mean I am right. Though, I’m still waiting for that 3GHz G5 milestone, like many others I would think.
stag·nant
adj.
1. Not moving or flowing; motionless.
2. Foul or stale from standing: stagnant ponds.
3.
a. Showing little or no sign of activity or advancement; not developing or progressing; inactive: a stagnant economy.
b. Lacking vitality or briskness; sluggish or dull: a stagnant mind.
To my mind, it is Microsoft and the PC market that is stagnant. Office97, Office2000, OfficeXP and Office2003 are essentially the same thing if all you need is to write a letter and spellcheck it, and do some home accounts.
My PowerBook does not have a LED to indicate hard-drive activity, but my ThinkPad does. I really don’t care either way. I have better things to do with my day than stare at blinking lights. If my hard-drive fails I’ll know about it and I won’t need a LED.
My ThinkPad has a ThinkPad button which I have never used. Would IBM have sold its PC business if the market was not stagnant? Or perhaps IBM just can’t compete? When did IBM get out of the typewriter business? In late 1960 an IBM typewriter salesman could make over $100,000 a year (I read it on the internet so it must be true). I guess the market for typewriters got stagnant or something.
I think Apple is misunderstood, not stagnant (except in the current CPU line up which is only a component of the platform, not the platform in its entirety).
A brainy person once said “things should be simple, but no simpler”. He didn’t say anything about requiring market share enabling advancement. In fact, Apple are probably in a better position to advance the Mac platform because they have a small market share. Microsoft has a huge market share and is having problems advancing the Windows platform (Longhorn is testament to that).
So unless I misunderstand your initial statement, I fail to see why the Mac is singled out from the computer market as being stagnant. It at the very least also implies that the high-end PC market is also stagnant.
The Mac platform is essentially irrelevant, I don’t know why people even bother writing about it in the 21st century.
Now that MacOS is BSD-based, all your favorite unix/Linux tools should be an easy port, if they haven’t already been ported. TeaTimer (my fav) is available.
I “switched” a month ago to a new iBook G4. If I had ordered my 512KB RAM upgrade from Apple, it would have cost $300! Sheesh! Mr. Jobs does appear out of touch on the hardware scene.
Networking to my WinME box should have been a little easier. Well, actually, I’m embarassed to say, my only (but extremely frustrating) hitch was having left free ZoneAlarm running in silent mode, but Apple really should have put a heads-up in the manual about that.
Thunderbird and Firefox files & databases worked with MozillaMac easily. If I ever need to get into my older (and huge) Eudora email archives, I’ll probably pony up for EudoraMac — anyway I sorta feel I owe it to them after freeloading for so many years on the excellent 3.5.3 Personal Edition.
In only 4 weeks, I think I have encouraged several converts just tappin’ and chattin’ at Starbucks (no dates scored yet, but some professional networking opp’s). If Mr. Jobs gets a little more focused on Mac (and absorbs your article), I wouldn’t be surprised if that W3C measure proves to be a curve that just hit bottom.
Apple is now making more money selling IPods than computers. That ought to scare the hell out of Mac enthusiasts.
And that’s only one of the moves Apple has made:
Moving into the server/RAID/SAN market: Final Cut Pro et al for movie production (Cold Mountain, etc). Logic Pro music software.
The are positioned by more than just the iPod/iTunes (and it is the combination of the two that makes it so tuff for “iPod killers”) for a graceful exit from desktop computers.
If they ever get a G5 laptop working, they can probably just live off Powerbooks, iMacs, Xserve, and video/music software.
Mike
Mac-user (at home). PC-user (at work).
Dvorak seems to share that common flaw of many otherwise educated people … they just can not interpret statistics …
John takes a set of figures that demonstrates over a 22 month period a 3.5% decline in MS Windows usage against a 41% increase for Linux OS, and a 50% increase for Mac OS over the same period. From this manages to write an article about the Macintosh being in decline.
From these figures I can imagine more obvious headlines … W3C statistics show that Windows share of Internet activity has dropped below 90% of total, … or perhaps Linux Internet activity rose by 15% in 2004, or even … Macintosh Internet usage continues to rise strongly in 2004 while Internet adds over 100 million users.
The W3C statistics, taken as a whole argue against almost all the conclusions Dvorak draws from them, from his first sentence (“The Mac platform is essentially stagnant.”) to his simplicity/complexity argument. If he wanted to get his pro-Windows message out he could have managed within the figures … Rate of growth of Linux and Macintosh internet activity slows in 2004, or Windows manages to retain nearly 90% of internet activity despite growth by Linux and Macintosh.
The only declining platform here is Windows. Perhaps complexity is not the tonic Dvorak thinks.
I don’t really care how many people buy a Mac as long as it is enough to keep Apple in business and the developer community vibrant. At least till something better comes along. And it will. Perhaps even from Microsoft if they can ever finish Windows.
IMO, support for the developer community is where Apple is weakest. Apple itself has always done an extremely poor job of encouraging new development on its platform. The attitude always seems to be “We’ll make the users want our platform, so you better develop for it.” Whereas Microsoft’s attitude has always been, “We’ll make it easy for you to develop stuff on our platform so people will buy our product to get your programs.”
From a developer’s POV, most of my developer colleagues that worked with Apple, found them to be incredibly arrogant. IMO, it has always been this fatal flaw that would eventually seal their doom. Whether there is evidence to support that feeling is another story of course.
Microsoft talks a good game, and was clever in coming up with their various certification programmes. And if you are successful enough, they put you out of business.
You have to wonder about predictions of doom based on conditions that have been in place for the past 20 years. There seem to be no new reasons for Apple to be doomed, just the same old reasons that were used as past predictions of doom. If Apple is doomed (in the short run), we cannot have much confidence it is for any of the reasons offered so far.
As its ‘share’ of internet usage increases, so has the number of developers, particularly for OS X. The move to OS X drew in a lot of developers for platforms like Sun and Silicon Graphics as BeOS and NextStep. Not a lot of people there, relative to the Windows developer community, or even the Mac developer community, but high powered people for the most part.
OS X also has support in the Open Source developer community that is better than support for Windows. Increasingly this will be a factor in the ‘ecosystem’.
I think the trends are pretty clear … with respect to share of internet activity Windows is starting to slip ever so slightly ( if we accept the W3C stats with some confidence) over the past two years (3.5%), and Linux and Macintosh are increasing at a good pace. On the Linux front the main dark cloud is the SCO affair, and this will probably evaporate as an issue this year. On the Mac front the big question is whether Jobs can subsume his ego long enough to get a successor in who can beat off the suits if he should decide to step down … it was a suit invasion that almost killed Apple in the 1990s, and would do so again.
But in the end it will be Linux and not Apple that forces Microsoft into a OS niche market position (though they will still be a big big player in other software). But wider Linux adoption will also increase Apple market share since acceptance of Linux as an option voids most of the arguments against Mac OS X in principle.
Thanks for the information.