Normal to be 'unhappy' with my iMac?

It's interesting isn't it - you do tend to treat a Mac as a bit more of an appliance rather than a computer. I don't tweak or play with mine anything like as much as I would and do on my Windows machines. It just works. On the other hand, I can't remember the last time I rebuilt any of my OSX kit.

I think sometimes it's easy to forget the technical capabilities of OSX too. I design a lot tech stuff so having the ability to virtualise a lot of guests is invaluable. I've never managed to get the same capability on Windows. My 2.4Ghz/6Gb/128Gb SSD/500Gb 7200RPM unit can run 6 guests and still allow me enough guts to be able to document what's going on in the hosts.

Wrote about that here: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/9/28_OSX_&_Virtualisation.html

Funnily enough have also written about the appliance idea: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/E...e,_Pricing,_and_the_idea_of_an_Appliance.html
 
That's weird, because the people I was training (normal people) asked to do all of that stuff.

You were training people that account for somewhere between 5%-10% of the UK computer market.

There are so many people out there with camcorders who want to do something useful with their footage.

They don't give a **** about youtube, they want to show people on their TV.

People DO want to edit their movies - they just don't realise that they can. A lot of people who own small businesses or are sole traders DO want a website, they just don't realise they can make one that looks half decent

Again, I said there was a market for it but it is very small. Apple does not equal the entire market.

You know your mate's dad who plays guitar? He wants to record a song.

Actually no. The only person who I know who records music is my brother. And he uses a PC.

EVERYONE takes photos, and iPhoto is an amazing photo app for 95% of people. I know plenty of pro photographers who still make use of some of iPhoto's features because it's quick and easy. Maybe it's only slideshows for when they're on site, but they're pros and they're using it.

I love iPhoto. There is also Picasa for Windows. Your point?

iChat? Forget iChat. Old people love Skype. You can believe me or you can not, but OLD PEOPLE LOVE SKYPE.

Yeah I know. I love Skype. Old people love Skype. You can get Skype on Windows.

I don't care what you think you know about Apple's market, but five hour long sessions a day, five days a week for a full year (twelve hundred hours, give or take) plus selling macs for six months and doing a few hundred hours of sessions while I was learning, then four months working in an independent APR says otherwise. Bear in mind 1200 hours is over seven weeks solid.

I wasn't talking about Apple's market. I was talking about the computer market as a whole.

But, you know, you know best. You should email Steve Jobs, he'll be interested. I obviously don't know anything about what Apple customers want, it's only my job.

Steve Jobs doesn't know what is important to the average computer user. Otherwise they'd have a bigger marketshare. Guess what that is? PRICE. Instead they are perfectly happy with their low volume/high margin plan. And why wouldn't they...they have some $32,000,000,000 in pure cash to spare.


Go and have a look at the screens in the new imacs (especially the new 27") and then have a look at your Acer 22" LCD. Oh and you can always use the 22" as a second screen (as I will be doing with my current Dell 22" screen)

PardonTheWait has answered the other points so I won't bother repeating them!

You completely misunderstood my point. I have a monitor, a good one, that is perfectly suitable for me. Yes the new iMac screens are awesome, but would I need one? NO. I don't care if it's better, I just plain don't need it and if I want a Mac that powerful I HAVE to get one.
 
Last edited:
I wasn't training a *weird* ten percent though.

It was a ten percent that included pretty much all types of average computer users. The more hardcore computer people wouldn't come in to get taught how to use their macs. These people are just regular normal people. And they all want to get more out of a computer, and are frustrated that Windows won't let them do it easily.

The section of the market that would like to be able to do something useful with their camcorder footage is not small, don't be naive. It's just that they either don't know how, assume they won't be able to, or have tried and given up.

I don't understand why you think Apple's market is so different to the computer market as a whole. Most of Apple's customers are completely bland and normal people, and most have had it up to here with Windows.

There are a large number of people who would love to do more creative things with the instruments they play, the footage they record, the pictures they take, but don't know how. Apple stuff makes it vastly easier for them to do this stuff, and they love it. Then they show their friends, and their friends start coming around to the idea. It's spreading, undeniably.

And the market share is steadily growing. These things take time.

You completely misunderstood my point. I have a monitor, a good one, that is perfectly suitable for me. Yes the new iMac screens are awesome, but would I need one? NO. I don't care if it's better, I just plain don't need it and if I want a Mac that powerful I HAVE to get one.

Understandable. But the thing is, and this is the thing you're refusing to see, most people don't want to keep their old monitor. Regular people who come into Apple retailers very rarely say 'but I've got a smaller screen that doesn't look as nice as that, I really want to keep it! This sucks! I really want to have extra cables and wires and stuff everywhere and have to perch my webcam precariously on the monitor and connect it with more wires and get drivers for it and hope it works with everything.'

If I want a faster motorbike or a better car, I don't buy a new engine for my bike, I buy a new bike.

If you want your computer to be made up of distinct bits that you can swap out as you see fit, that's fine, but Apple know their market and that's not it. Most people do want a simple, clean, elegant looking unit that does pretty much everything.
 
Last edited:
You completely misunderstood my point. I have a monitor, a good one, that is perfectly suitable for me. Yes the new iMac screens are awesome, but would I need one? NO. I don't care if it's better, I just plain don't need it and if I want a Mac that powerful I HAVE to get one.

Then buy a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro or don't buy a Mac. I don't think Apple will ever make a mid-range monitor less desktop - it simply doesn't suit their product range.

As for me I like getting a top-end screen in my iMac (after all the 27" iMac is a bargain given the price of similar 30" screens alone) and the ability to extend that screen onto my existing monitor.

There is a reason that even in these less robust financial times that Apple is rolling in the money. However they are not for everyone and Apple know's that (I'm tempted to say cheapskates but a decent PC has its place especially for gaming).
 
People come into my work, and they came into my old work (Apple store), and they're used to the purple shirts.

You pick your product, then some oik says well you NEED to buy this and you NEED to buy that and you NEED to buy this and the total tots up tots up tots up.

You buy a Mac, and the vast majority of the time, what do you need to buy extra? Office software. That's it.

That's more the sales technique, the hard sell, not what you actually need. I could go into a purple shirt shop and come out after buying one product, a PC with a mouse, keyboard and monitor, take it home and type my name to set up my user account and be running in 5 minutes. No need for the extra bumf purple shirts try and make you think they need. I bet people buying macs in there will also have the same problem of apparently needing this that and the other...

(Oh, unless I wanted to write letters etc, then I would need office software to go with it...)

here's another (very cheesy) way of looking at it. And I'll set the scene first.

As an employee, I strongly dislike Apple Retail. I don't like Apple Retail as a company, they crap on their employees. Not always, but often.

But I worked as a Creative for quite some time. People will come in, not really know what they're doing with computers. Six months down the line they're doing things they had no idea were possible, and they're doing it on their own. I know on this place we focus on the advanced user, and I consider myself an advanced user as well.

But day in day out I would teach little old ladies to do things they didn't even know were possible. I can teach a 60 year old woman to edit movies from her camcorder with music, titles, cool transitions, in an hour.

So she goes from having four hour long, unedited crap holiday videos, to making a 20 minute video of her escapades that's actually watchable and interesting. And to do that with her Mac she didn't need to buy anything, she didn't need to sit down and learn something difficult. It's amazing!

For the average joe to be able to make a pretty decent flick from their camcorder and put it on a DVD with proper menus with relative ease.. I mean come on that has value.

I've been using Macs for about seven years in a professional capacity. I completely overlooked the entire iLife suite. When I went to work for Apple I learned all of this stuff, then went on to teach it to regular people.

The things you can do out of the box with a Mac are absolutely incredible, and tragically overlooked by people that 'know what they're doing'.

I 'knew what I was doing' with Macs. I could take a 72 page newspaper to print with my eyes shut, but I couldn't bang together a decent film and put it on a DVD, I couldn't record a song, I couldn't make a passable website in 20 minutes.

There's somewhat of a gap between the novice user and the advanced user, of course, and I think that Macs appeal more to the novice, but I know my **** with computers and if I can help it I'll never touch Windows again. But I think a lot of 'computer people' completely miss the point of Macs and will never be convinced otherwise, and it's a shame.

Tons of questions on this forum get asked, how can I do this, how can I do that, what software do I need to buy or download blah blah.. and the answer is 'you can do that right now with the software you've never looked at because you thought you were too good for it'.

Some people can have a Mac sat right in front of them capable of stuff, but they can't see it can do it because they can't pull their head out of their arse for five seconds to find out. They think it has to be more work than it is.

That's all very well but you can do almost all of that on a windows PC as well. Windows movie maker for one, very easy and very quick to use, you could also record a song, however you may have to download a program to make a website (although you do have notebook ;)). The funny thing is those sort of things you are mentioning are exactly the things that microsoft are getting slammed for time and time again by the EC for "anti-competetiveness". If Windows came with a full on clone of iLife there would be third party programers queueing out the door to put in a complaint and have it removed, even Windows Movie Maker is being looked at as another fine!

The other thing that always gets me about arguments between the windows and mac systems is the fact mac users always bring out the issues they have had with XP. Well sorry XP is about 8 years old now and superceded by two other operating systems, if the newer versions of OSX aren't better than XP then there is something seriously wrong there! no one seems to want to compare OSX 10.1 or even 2, 3 or 4 with Vista or 7, but it's perfectly fine to do it the other way round! :confused:
 
Last edited:
I really loved my macbook but sadly it broke very early on and due to a stock shortage I ended up getting a rather decent HP vista laptop instead. I have a desktop pc which was purely for games but now im finding im using it for a lot more than my laptop, including writing up uni work, 3d mapping for half life games and general web browsing.

I did vastly more on my macbook though including a lot of blogging, web design, photo manipulation and dvd conversion as the software on it was far easier to configure and use. General internet use seemed a lot nicer as well.

If I had the cash, id get a macbook pro straight away for my uni work as it would be so nice to go into the library where the wireless hotspots are and sit down and not have to worry about my battery life which is a problem with my HP laptop :(

Have a look at a 13" inch XPS if you really are interested in battery life. With the 9 cell battery I could easily last for 7 hours while web browsing and working in the library, saved lugging a cable around for those all nighters. I'm pretty glad I chose it over a macbok in the end.

Go and have a look at the screens in the new imacs (especially the new 27") and then have a look at your Acer 22" LCD. Oh and you can always use the 22" as a second screen (as I will be doing with my current Dell 22" screen)

PardonTheWait has answered the other points so I won't bother repeating them!

You mean the glossy screen? The thing that a large number of photographers (and probably film makers) are a bit annoyed at? Glossy screens may look nice and make you go WOW! but actually they are a pain if you want a proper representation of what you are editing. There's two sides to every coin hwever, if you just watch videos and don't edit your photos then it's pretty good as they make them more vibrant and colourful.
 
I wasn't training a *weird* ten percent though.

It was a ten percent that included pretty much all types of average computer users. The more hardcore computer people wouldn't come in to get taught how to use their macs. These people are just regular normal people. And they all want to get more out of a computer, and are frustrated that Windows won't let them do it easily.

No, you were however training an apple 10%, there is another 90% of the market you are missing. Now consider the (proven) fact that apple users are more gadget oriented than a large proportion of the othe 90% and you must see his point!

The section of the market that would like to be able to do something useful with their camcorder footage is not small, don't be naive. It's just that they either don't know how, assume they won't be able to, or have tried and given up.

I don't understand why you think Apple's market is so different to the computer market as a whole. Most of Apple's customers are completely bland and normal people, and most have had it up to here with Windows.

There are a large number of people who would love to do more creative things with the instruments they play, the footage they record, the pictures they take, but don't know how. Apple stuff makes it vastly easier for them to do this stuff, and they love it. Then they show their friends, and their friends start coming around to the idea. It's spreading, undeniably.

As I pointed out they can do this with a windows PC as well, however there are very few people that go in for a session when buying their new windows PC, so not learning how to use so many of the programs that most people ignore entirely (as you mentioned, either they don't know they are there or they think they are rubbish). If people who bought their windows PC went in for sessions to learn how to use those programs then they would be able to do those things too without buying extra software.

The main thing Windows PC's have against them I think is the purple shirt brigade and the similar hard sell companies, as well as the really cheap and nasty computer builders. These are what have blighted the image of windows the most I think. You go into a massive cluttered store and get pestered to buy things you don't need. Instead in an apple store is seems much less hard sell, cleaner and generally more friendly.
 
Back
Top Bottom