Wherein John Gruber Picks Windows

Actually your post was stupid because it was like asking, “If you were going to a deserted island which would you take, water or food?” Obvious it is a no win situation. And having to choose between a Windoze box with internet or a Mac without internet would be the same no win situation. Given that choice I’d have to say, “I’ll take the third choice - a volume of Shakespeare’s plays.”

As someone who uses a WinXP box at work and a Mac at home, I much prefer the Mac.  Even using the “same” apps (Firefox, AIM or Trillian/Adium, Office, web-based email) I still prefer the Mac experience.  I don’t appreciate having to run antivirus and antispyware software on my work machine.  I don’t appreciate how different Word documents take up space on the Taskbar, and I don’t appreciate the clumsy, antiquated interface.

If I walked into a room with a shiny new top-of-the-line PC running Windows and a shiny new top-of-the-line Mac, I’d sit down at the Mac.  That’s what’s important, not some arbitrary “desert island” crap question.

I do get your point. I’ll put it this way. If you’re going to Place X to Place Y in a TAXI, the brand of the cab does not matter so much. Anything with wheels would do - if it’s a BMW it’s a bonus but it’s not critical in any way; and you won’t exactly be thinking about it in your morning shower. Nor will you be bragging about it to your co-workers at lunch.

I just installed Fedora Core on my Powerbook G4 for kicks and I expected to come running back to the safety of OS X after a few days of trying it out. To the contrary, I find no particular hindrance in working on it. And thats because the things I’m doing are mostly web or command-line based, with only a few apps (like adiumx/gaim) which have decent equivalents.

“When the Mac originally launched the internet barely existed and the web was non-existent.

As the domination of the internet continues, as the backbone of applications becomes the internet (think iTunes) and as applications get ported to the web this is a long-term threat to Apple.”

Wait… WHAT is a long-term threat to Apple?

You mentioned that the PC would come with “Firefox, IM, etc.” Are these Windows-specific applications? How is their popularity a threat to Apple? It’s not unobjective to say that Apple’s offerings in these two areas (Safari and iChat) beat Microsoft’s (IE and Messenger) like a little baby - and that’s not counting the fact that Firefox runs equally on both platforms, and Macs get the wonderful Adium.

So what’s your point, again? That the popularity of the Internet is leaving Apple in the dust? That Internet is harder to do on a Mac? How so? An Apple fanboy might say that Apple is kicking Windows ass in the area of Internet usability; no one but an MS fanboy would say that MS is much better than equal.

The whole original counterfactual is bunk. No one picks between Kias and engineless Lexi, or between supermodels and lipsticked pigs, or between connected PCs and disklocked Macs. Of course we’d pick a PC if Macs somehow couldn’t do The Net, but they can - duh.

This article series is just plain dumb. What you really should ask is this:

Would you have a (Mac|PC|Linux|*NIX|whathaveyou) without connection to the outside world, or (anything you dont like) with a connection?

All sane persons choose the latter, no matter what. No need to create a big deal out of it beeing a special OS. Nobody cares!

All sane persons choose the latter, no matter what. No need to create a big deal out of it beeing a special OS. Nobody cares!

Well, exactly.  Why is it that everyone acts like this is such a stupid question but then proves Hadley right time after time after time.  Beyond the fact that he struck an overly-sensitive nerve that causes uncontrolable fits of babbling anger, he’s right.  And you guys just keep backing him up.

Part of the problem is the non-sensical perception that the PC would be the “pig in lipstick” and that the Mac is a “supermodel.”  But that perception is a fucking retarded brainwashed product of the cult of Mac’s propoganda machine.  Even if one acknowledges that it’s a little harder to use, a little less shiny, and more prone to virii, it’s still a very productive and useful tool, and you guys would pick it over a Mac with no internet.

Both articles are silly, but I think the original conclusion that the Internet supercedes operating systems is fallacious… It was just made worse by the badly applied desert island metaphor.

I assume that Hadley is going with the thread that with advent of developments like Google replacing Word/Excel/etc with a browser application may mean that thin client computing is finally here to stay and that the OS will have less and less impact as time marches on… but this is a poor conclusion.

The OS, in this instance, may become even more important, but will become more client-sever based rather than purely client based.

For instance, if you assume that the industry will move back to a “Big Iron” model with large server/mainframe like machines doing the processing for smaller desktop clients, it just means that companies like Apple will need to redevelop their OS into a server flavor and a thin-client flavor… but you still essentially have Mac OS Server and NetBoot (even if heavily morphed).

Google (and whatever others are that will follow) is not an OS, and though they provide some application functionality, there will always be a need for non-Internet based computing for the end user.

Even though we use Mail, Chat, FTP, HTTP and other web-based technologies heavily, it’s the interface to those technologies that make us choose our particular operating systems. Those technologies don’t obsolete the OS… quite the reverse.

Beeblebrox I don’t think being so partisan about this issue is helping anyone.

Beyond the fact that he struck an overly-sensitive nerve that causes uncontrolable fits of babbling anger, he’s right.

I cannot speak for others. But truly there is no “overly-sensitive nerve” for me in the notion that a Windows computer with a connection is more useful than a Mac without one. In fact, as I said in the comments in the article, I do not think the question is a bad one.

Yet the inclusion of a good question does not redeem the article that is based on it, if the article itself draws only invalid conclusions from that question.

The fact is, when even Mac fans would choose internet access over the platform they love, that shows something very important. But what exactly, would make the subject of a very thoughtful and exploratory article. What Mr Stern has done is outline a thought experiment that leads directly into considerations of the current, past and future roles of the operating system, the use and importance of the internet, and how the two tie together, but instead of thinking about any of this and producing any kind of useful discussion, he has produced from God knows where in a totally blasé manner the ridiculous assertion that “the operating system doesn’t matter any more”.

Now the Mac users who read these pages know and feel that their operating system matters a great deal. Even Beeblebrox has stated many times that he wished Apple would release OS X for 3rd party hardware, which shows OS X is importantly superior, or at least importantly different, to the competition even for him - although he acknowledges (in no uncertain terms) that Windows is fine also, which is, of course, a matter of personal taste and priorities.

So what has happened, I think, is that because the treatment of the question has been so poor, it has seemed to people as if the question itself was a bad one. In fact, however, it was the the use and context of the question that made it poor for the purpose it was intended - which was to categorically establish that operating systems are now unimportant.

I can hardly see there is any blame to be laid on people for raising their little red flags and protesting at the article, which asserts misguidedly and arrogantly that operating systems are unimportant, clearly ignoring so much that is important to people’s experience of computers and computing.

I can see a great deal more blame can legitimately be attached to those who find in this discussion a reason to viciously label people mindless Mac apologists that is at least exaggerated, and bordering on imaginary.

I sympathise with your point of view, Beeblebrox, I really do. But, and this is just how it appears to me, I think you sometimes find iMadness where iMadness there is not, and my “advice”, for the little it’s worth, would be to take care that what you’re ranting about isn’t fueled by paranoia.

You may call me a hypocrit if you wish (and I apologise for writing such a lot of words)