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Last week I had a visit from a lady to whom I sold a new WallStreet PowerBook back in 1998. I worked hard on that sale, which involved several hours of discussion and multiple phone calls over a couple of weeks. The customer was then using an ancient pre-286 PC to do her business accounting on, and was anticipating the Y2K deadline.

Anyway, she eventually settled on a 233 MHz WallStreet, which has worked flawlessly for her now for five years, so she brought her friend who is shopping for a first computer around to ask my advice. There are no Apple dealers within about 150 miles of here, so all this person had looked at were PCs.

I haven’t sold new computers for years, but I was of course happy to make a pitch for the Mac, aided by the latest MacWarehouse Canada catalog, which, to rural Canadian Mac enthusiasts, is analogous to what the old T. Eaton Company and Simpsons-Sears general merchandise mail-order catalogs used to represent to Canadian farm folks back in the days before better roads and television. There are only to Apple dealers in Nova Scotia, which has a population of nearly a million, while there are multitudinous PC dealers in every city and town.

My former customer’s friend said she had a maximum purchase budget of Can$2,000, preferably less. I noted that an iBook 800 MHz at Can$1419, or an eMac at Can$1195 would fall comfortably within that range. She wanted a desktop machine, and the all-in-one compactness of the eMac seemed to appeal. And based on what she said she was being quoted locally on downmarket PC hardware, the eMac is also price competitive. She made no decision while she was here, but left clutching the MacWarehouse catalog tightly in her hand.

However, I will be surprised if she actually ends up buying a Mac. Notwithstanding her friend’s happy experience with the PowerBook, there will be no shortage of armchair computer “experts “advising her to steer clear of Macs and get a Windows box.

Which is a shame, because a Mac would be ideal for this person -- a new computer user who basically just wants to do word processing, email, web surfing, and the like, with no particular requirement for Windows compatibility. For such users, the Mac is hands-down superior for a variety of reasons, important examples of which are:
• ease and pleasure of use
• aesthetic and functional elegance
• reliability, stability, and low maintenance demands

Even with Windows having become somewhat more Mac-like in recent versions, the Mac is still easier use overall, and dramatically easier for the average person to use and maintain. Not to mention being essentially immune to Windows viruses, of which there are reportedly some 77,000, compared with about 50 for the Classic Mac OS and so far none for OS X. This relative viral immunity would be a compelling reason to choose the Mac even if there were no other advantages.

Most denizens of the Dark Side are simply ignorant of these facts. For them, driver conflicts, configuration hassles, system and application reinstalls, tech support calls, worrying about viruses, etcetera and so on, are simply a normal, everyday part of working with computers. They often don’t know, and have trouble believing when they’re told, that these travails are rare on the Mac side of the street.

Some cross-platform-informed PC types tell me that it’s all just a matter of what you’re used to, that Mac fans who criticize the PC as clunky and user-unfriendly “haven’t taken the time to work with PCs long enough to unlearn their Mac orientation and think the way the Windows requires you to think,” one suggested. However, that phrase “the way Windows requires you to think” speaks volumes, and captures the essence of the issue nicely. Microsoft software demands that you conform to its way of doing things. The Mac has traditionally been satisfyingly flexible about accommodating the tastes and preferences of the user. That happy facility has eroded somewhat with the introduction of OS X, but the principle still applies.

The real issue that influences the masses to buy Wintel PCs is fear. IMHO, the ‘I’m buying a PC because Windows is more popular,’ folks are petrified of being perceived as oddball or nonconformist. They aspire to belonging to the popular mainstream and are scared skinny if being thought weird or different. They are timid followers -- the people who always made sure to ape the dress and behavior code of the popular cliques in high school. Bereft of imaginative vision (the ability to “think different”), they settle for the perceived safety of popular mediocrity -- as philosopher Richard Weaver observed: “looking wistfully for the sources of genuine value. In sum, they wish to know the truth, but they have been taught a perversion which makes their chance of obtaining it less every day.” It is this sort of outlook that explains the vacuous fatuity of network television, and of late 20th Century popular culture in general, as well as the overwhelming market dominance of the Wintel computer platform.

The average Mac-user is less conformist and more willing to run apart from the herd, although some lack the courage of their convictions. I’m always saddened when I ask someone I meet for the first time what sort of computer they use, and they mumble apologetically “Well, er --- I have a Macintosh,” or something like that, as if bracing for a barrage of scorn and derision, no doubt based on painful experience. This is NOT the image we want to project. The Mac is not something to apologize for! You’re using the best all-round computer in the world. Arm yourself with the facts. Windows is a monument to mediocrity.

Daring FireBall posted some musings this week on why so many first-time computer purchasers choose Wintel PCs without even seriously considering the Mac. A few snippets:

And that’s it in a nutshell. I think it’s fair to say that most new computer purchasers are scared of making a mistake and blowing a substantial wad of cash on something they are apprehensive about and don’t understand. Computers are intimidating to newbies and there is a steep learning curve to scale at first. The inclination is to seek the safety of the herd. And the herd unfortunately lives in Windowsville.

Never mind that Macs are better, especially for neophytes; that Macs consistently score at or near the top in user satisfaction surveys; that viruses are a relatively trivial concern to Mac users, with not yet one OS X virus propagated more than two years since the system’s release; that Apple hardware has an enviable reputation for quality and longevity; that Macs have a lower total cost of ownership than Wintel PCs, and that Apple doesn’t hound its customers with “product activation” hassles a la Windows.

Those are the sort of things I told my erstwhile customer’s friend. Maybe it sank in a bit, but I won’t be surprised if the Windows advocacy she’ll get from virtually everyone else she talks to in this neck of the woods will speak louder. As I said, It’s a shame.

Charles W. Moore

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