Talking Out of Both Sides of Your Mouth

Essay by: Marc Zeedar

Walking the dual-platform tightrope is difficult, but Marc has some ideas on what publications can do.

Traditional graphic artists are no doubt familiar with traditional graphic design publications like How and Communication Arts. Those publications were slow making the transition to desktop publishing, however, opening the door for more computer-oriented design publications. One of the earliest of these was Publish.

From the start I found Publish interesting, but awkward. Unlike most computer publications, Publish made the innovative decision to be a multi-platform magazine, dividing the focus between the Mac, PC, NeXT, Atari, and Amiga platforms. It was a neat idea, but the implementation was flawed.

Publish went so far as to use both PCs and Macs in the production of the magazine, showing a list of the software and hardware used to produce each issue. They didn't want to offend either camp, so they tried to divide content equally, similar to the way a supposedly neutral political newspaper handles the major parties. This meant equal treatment for both platforms, regardless of reality. At the time (early 90's), PCs lagged far behind the Mac in many critical areas. Many of the major graphics programs were Mac only, and even the cross-platform ones often had radically different interfaces. (Anyone remember Aldus PageMaker running under GEM?)

Those early issues of Publish were pretty useless to me, who didn't own a PC. Half the publication was meaningless, or at least it seemed that way. I'd see ads for an intriguing piece of software, only to read in the fine print that it was PC-only. I'm sure the experience was equally frustrating for PC users, since much of the Mac stuff was unavailable for the PC.

I subscribed to Publish for a while. But over time, the magazine seemed to become more and more PC-oriented. (I have no scientific data on this -- I didn't count article lengths or anything -- it was just my feeling as a reader.) Since almost all other design publications were primarily Mac-focused, Publish was a logical place for PC users to flock. But when Publish went almost exclusively PC, I finally just gave up on it.

Once or twice, over the years, I picked up a copy, but it hadn't changed. Recently, I heard that Publish was getting better. The new editor, Pamela Pfiffner, formerly edited MacWorld, which sounded promising. I decided to give Publish another try. I picked up a recent issue on a newsstand.

Frustration set in almost immediately.

PCs and Macs, even in the design area, have converged considerably in the last few years. I've even become somewhat PC-savy myself (short of buying an actual PC). It's good knowledge to have when the occasional PC customer comes in the door. (I work for a commercial printer and we do have some customers that use PCs for graphics work. The scary thing is I'm often more PC-literate then they are!) So I'm not anti-PC. I'm more PC-apathetic, in the sense that PC-exclusive stuff is irrelevant to me.

Why should I care that ScrubNet Pro 4.9 has been released when I can't run it on my computer? Why should I read articles that criticize the Mac or praise the PC? I've chosen my platform: I've invested tens of thousands of dollars in software and equipment, not to mention more than decade of learning in that decision. I'm not likely to change without a great deal of persuasion (such as Bill G. showing up at my house with a semi filled with $1,000 bills).

I'm sure PC users feel the same way about Mac coverage. I don't criticize their decision, just as I hope they allow me to pick the platform of my choice. (New users without an established platform are another story. There, of course, I will try to evangelize my platform as much as possible.)

The Verdict
Publish is still a contradiction. It is difficult to read. First, I find myself halfway through an article before I realize it's PC-centric and I've been wasting my time. Second, the PC-centric articles tend to bash the Mac in subtle ways I can only describe as evil. (I can't say if the reverse is true, but would presume so. It's incredibly difficult to write platform agnostic articles.)

For example, an article in the July issue on Adobe Acrobat 4.0 lacking features on the Mac inserted the following barb: "Why the disparities? The main reason is Microsoft's OLE technology for coordinating the functions of separate programs. Windows has it; the Mac doesn't. Apple's effort to upstage OLE with its own OpenDoc application-interaction technology went nowhere (Apple has ceased the development of OpenDoc). The consequences of that failure are now becoming evident in applications such as Acrobat."

Here the author is blaming Apple for Adobe's failing to produce feature-identical versions of Acrobat 4.0! The bit about OpenDoc is not only inappropriate and off-subject, it's inaccurate: OpenDoc was not a competitor to OLE since OLE would work within it. The lack of OLE on the Mac is more a fault of Mac users, since they generally never wanted it (OpenDoc was far superior), and Microsoft, for implementing it badly (OLE on the Mac is infamous for causing crashes).

Granted, this is a minor quibble in one story. But within just a few articles I found other examples. I suppose a PC-user could find similar items within Mac-oriented articles.

Dual-platform publications have always been at odds with their readers. Adobe Magazine (formerly Aldus Magazine) used to run a feature where they quoted one-line excerpts from user comment cards. Often you'd see something like the following:

The last issue had too much PC stuff. We want more Mac focus!... The last issue was all Mac. Can't you give us more PC-oriented material?... Nice cross-platform coverage. I work with both Macs and PCs and your balance of coverage is perfect!

I always thought those were funny, but they showed the dilemma of the editors, with an audience of approximately half Mac and half PC users. With that formula you are basically guaranteed to offend half your readers with every issue!

Lately, we've been seeing the death of many cross-platform publications. Byte, pretty much the only general computer publication left, died a sudden, nasty death. MacWeek tried to transform itself into EMediaWeekly, a cross-platform magazine focusing on all forms of content creation, and that failed.

Why did these fail? Lack of advertising is always the excuse, but deeper than that I think you'll find a lack of focus was a big part of the problem. Readers, especially in the Internet-era, want personalized content. The 'net is ideal for this sort of thing. If I don't want to read about PC software, there are dozens of Mac-oriented websites I can go to for information. (In fact, if you followed my web-reading patterns, you'd be hard-pressed to find that PCs even exist. I just don't care about them. I suspect most PC users would likewise be shocked at the huge number of Mac sites out there. If they aren't looking at them, they don't exist.)

If I subscribe to a printed magazine where half the content is irrelevant to me, it seems like an incredible waste. I'm better off getting my info from the web.

"I'm Not Dead Yet!"
Going with that logic, one would assume that the dual-platform publication is dead. But hold on.

There are many good things about a dual-platform publication. Some people work on multiple platforms (web designers), or are required to support multiple platforms as part of their job (for instance, a technical support engineer). For those people, a single publication can be more convenient than two.

Even I find certain types of PC articles interesting (such as those dealing with platform conversion issues, or Internet standards). I miss Byte, for instance, which covered CPUs and odd technical issues in more depth than most magazines. Often I'd find myself reading about subjects I wouldn't have chosen on my own.

There's a lot of value in a dual-platform publication like Publish. I'd like to see many more. The idea that Macs and PCs are so different is in part propagated by single-platform publications that build up their own platform by criticizing the other. We can encourage companies to adopt open standards by breaking down these barriers and promoting the Mac and PC as equals (which, to the Internet, they are).

My complaint is in the format and implementation. Take MacWorld, which lately has focused so much on Windows connectivity it's practically a dual-platform publication. I recently read an Adobe After Effects "How To" where the author inserted PC-equivalents to Macintosh command-key sequences. Besides being irrelevant in a Mac publication and annoying to read ("on the PC, Command-F is Control-F"), it's pointless: how many PC-using Macworld readers don't know that "Command" is "Control" under Windows?

A New Approach
I know what I'd do if I was going to create the ideal dual-platform publication. First, and most important, I'd create a ruling that my magazine would only cover cross-platform products.

Think about it. No more platform exclusive items. The only thing my magazine would cover would be software like InDesign, which runs on both Macs and PCs, and hardware like monitors or digital cameras which work with both.

Obviously this would eliminate coverage of many products (and in some cases, some significant ones). But that's okay. There are already more than enough cross-platform products to make this feasible, and with new standards like USB and Firewire emerging, it's only going to get better. If the publication was a successful one, it would encourage developers to make their products dual-platform (or else they wouldn't get publicity). Readers would feel confident that whatever they saw reviewed or advertised in the magazine would work with their platform of choice.

A side-effect of this rule would be that articles would automatically become less biased. Currently a magazine like Publish has to hire Windows-oriented writers to write reviews of a Windows program, and vice versa for Mac products. Naturally, the biases of the author come through, at least a little. With my magazine, platform would be much less of an issue. Reviewers could use the platform they prefer. (Perhaps there'd be sidebars for platform-specific details, like installation issues or system requirements.)

Even if Publish isn't willing to take the above radical step (though I wish they would), there are still things they could do to make reading their publication easier. I'd clearly label articles MAC or PC if they're platform-specific. I'd use platform-specific sidebars, and I'd hire single-platform readers to read articles to weed out biases and misinformation. If necessary, I might even publish Mac or PC specific sections, similar to the way Computer Shopper used to do when it covered multiple platforms. This would be an advantage for advertisers, since a Mac ad might get lost within a bunch of PC ads (and vice versa).

Speaking of advertisers, I'd work with them to label their ads clearly as being Mac or PC, perhaps even implementing magazine-wide standard platform logos, the way some of the mail order companies do when they sell both PC and Mac software.

I'd pick a single platform standard for screenshots and terminology (Command or Control key, not both) and stick with it (offering exceptions in sidebars, not mixing standards within text). Users are smart enough to understand.

I'd also occasionally cover non-Mac and non-PC platforms like Palm and Linux, to help promote the concept of open standards and deemphasize the OS.

Summary
Multiple platforms are here to stay. The computer world, long annoyed at Apple because it wouldn't die, thus complicating what should be a simple single-standard world, is finally learning to appreciate the advantages of having multiple operating systems (mostly to avoid the terror of a world ruled by Bill Gates). As the Internet becomes more and more important, actual platforms become less and less relevant. In the next few years we'll see dramatic growth of many operating systems, like Linux, Be OS, Palm OS, Web TV, Java-based OSes (perhaps embedded in TVs or toasters), and perhaps even Browser-based OSes.

The days of an IBM handing the reins of a standard to a non-entity like Microsoft are long gone. Today companies know the value of standards and fight mightily to control them (and perhaps even more valiantly to keep certain other companies from controlling them). While there will always be exceptions (witness the AOL/Microsoft instant messaging debate), open standards have proven their superiority and will be the future of computing.

Thus there's a real need for publications that cover multiple operating systems, especially in fields like graphic or web design that use more than one platform. I just wish publishing companies would learn to cover multiple platform correctly, in a manner than unites instead of divides.

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Marc Zeedar is a wannabe novelist, graphic designer, and programmer who's been using Macs since 1988. He regularly write the "Less Tangible" column on MacOpinion.

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February 09, 2010