Jeff Chausse
Digital Strategy + Design
Why I Switched, then Switched, then Switched
Back when Apple made a big deal about switching from Windows to OS X, I did. And I really enjoyed living the Mac life. But over time, due to a number of reasons, I drifted back to using a PC.
Firstly, I was stuck using a PC at work (ain’t that always the case). Secondly, (I thought) I wanted a netbook and a gaming PC. I figured maybe I should just standardize on one platform, and with the release of Windows 7, my fate was sealed.
Windows 7 didn’t suck.
I built a custom gaming PC and bought a netbook. Eventually, I realized that I don’t even really play PC games, and that yes, netbooks are kind of sucky and pointless.
But that’s not why I switched back to Mac.
I switched back to Mac because there’s been a crazy role-reversal between Apple and Microsoft in the past few years. I switched away from Windows because there were no good applications for it.
Remember when the number one argument against Macs was that all the good apps were on PC? Oh, how times have changed.
As the web (and web apps) picked up steam, something funny happened. The Windows app developers (mostly rooted in the corporate world) switched to building web apps, but the Apple app developers – mostly enthusiastic, passionate individuals or small teams – kept on building beautiful desktop applications (and passionate fan bases).
Again, Windows 7 does not suck. It is an excellent operating system. The problem was this: once my fascination with its improved taskbar, and Aero Snap, and all that good stuff wore off – once I got around to actually wanting to do stuff on my computer, I realized something. There was not ONE APPLICATION for Windows that I LOVED. Don’t get me wrong, Microsoft Office is good software. But I don’t love it. At this point, I think about Word or Excel the same way I think about “calc.exe”. It’s practically part of the operating system. It’s just something you have to have, and have to use.
The other apps I used a lot – Dreamweaver, Photoshop – were cross-platform, so even if they were awesome on Windows (they’re not – they’re bloated and buggy), they were no pro-Windows argument. The only Windows-only app I’ve come close to “loving” is SnagIt (I’ve always considered TechSmith the most Mac-like Windows development company), but man cannot live on screen capture apps alone. I mostly relied on web apps – using programs I was unenthused about, when I had to use them.
Windows 7 was a beautiful container for running a web browser. What was the point?
Since their respective inceptions, Microsoft has been all about business, Apple all about hobbyists. I’m making a gross generalization here, but Windows-based developers generally care about making money, and Mac developers care about making beautiful stuff. There’s little financial incentive to tying yourself exclusively to the Mac platform. Corporate niche Windows applications and subscription web apps are where it’s at if you just want to make money. If you develop for Mac, it’s because you want to make beautiful software, for people who appreciate beautiful software.
I recently hunted for a good Windows note-taking application, like the Mac’s Yojimbo. After seeing recommendations for OneNote and Evernote (two big, bloated apps) at every turn, I finally came across a small, simple, just-powerful-enough one called “GoldenSection Notes“, buried on the 5th page of some shareware directory. It really is good – try the demo. Then do a Google search for it. Every link on Google is from some cheeseball shareware aggregator site. There’s not one blog post about it (at least as far as I was willing to dig in the Google results). A forum for its users? Nope. A Twitter account from the developer? Keep dreaming. It’s like it fell onto the Internet from another planet. A whole lot of Windows software is like this. I found a really good Windows video converter called Aimersoft Media Converter. You’d never guess that it was good based on their web site, because it’s just one giant SEO trap. Popular Mac apps come with a developer blog, a forum, and one or more Twitter accounts from the developer. Windows software usually just comes with a feeling that you’re on your own.
You can buy decent Windows apps, but you’d be hard pressed to buy Windows apps that are beautiful and come with a passionate, accessible community to back them up. And that’s why I’m moving back to the Mac.
Welcome back, Coda.
Welcome back, Omnigraffle
Welcome back, Things
Welcome back, MarsEdit
Welcome back, Quicksilver
Welcome back, Mac.
Why Apple Will Dominate the Home Computer Market in the Decades to Come
It has nothing to do with OS X. Well, not in the way most Apple fans think.
I recently stumbled across two different, unrelated articles which point to the same conclusion. In order for comptuters to truly shine, the software MUST be tied to the hardware.
The first article, “Has Vista Lost all Credibility?” talks about how product development and product marketing conflicts between Intel, Dell, and Microsoft led to a lot of the faults of Vista (and provides 158 pages of internal email evidence backing it up).
The second article, “Why I Quit“, by former Linux kernel developer Con Kolivas, talks about how even with complete control over the software, the PC platform architecture has become so convoluted over the decades that machines that are technically 1,000 times faster, they’re 10 times slower in “doing stuff”, like playing audio or moving windows.
This problem is only getting worse, and Vista has proven it once and for all. The open “Wintel” architecture used to matter, when people were regularly building and upgrading their own systems, but those days are long gone. With $250 PC’s at Wal-Mart, the average user is as likely to upgrade their own computers as they are their pocket calculator. PC’s are disposable commodities now, and people are fine with that.
Apple knows this, which is why they developed the Macbook Air the way they did. You can’t even (officially) replace the battery in this thing. It’s a sealed, black box for the average user, and even though it comes at a premium price, people don’t care. They want the illusion that the computer is just a single thing that just does what you want, whether it’s powered by Intel, Motorola, or magical fairies.
True innovation in computing (in this day and age) will only come from an integrated hardware and software platform. The Amiga was a quantum leap ahead of its contemporaries (as Con Kolivas points out) because of its hardware innovations. Apple is currently the only company following this path, and this is why Macs will become the defacto home computer within 20 years, regardless of how cool OS X is.
My Thoughts on Microsoft/Yahoo.
An acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft would undoubtedly be a boon for Microsoft, no matter how bad they bungle it, if only due to the subtraction of competition. But is it good for the consumer? Well, my initial reaction was one of fear and trepidation. Microsoft has a history of buying valuable properties, stripping them for parts, and baking them into their same old bread and butter offerings (Office, Windows, and MSN). Can you think of a single major online “brand” that has come out of Microsoft in the past 5 years? Windows Live? Maybe, but that’s a stretch.
Yahoo, on the other hand, has successfully acquired and fortified brands like Flickr and del.icio.us. “Microsoft™ Yahoo!™” is one thing, but “Microsoft™ Flickr™”, Well that idea can bring your typical Web 2.0 utopian to tears. Stripping Yahoo for parts would be terrible for the average Joe. Yahoo is loaded with so many interesting technologies and tools (Pipes, anyone?) that would undoubtedly be lost in the shuffle if Microsoft tries to pick it apart.
However, what would be good for Microsoft, and for the consumer is if Microsoft plays it smart and realizes that Yahoo is a far more relevant brand in this day and age, and doesn’t mess with it. What the Yahoo acquisition can do for Microsoft is allow it to stop their hopeless and incredibly annoying strategy of building desktop software that tries to supplant the web.
If Yahoo became Microsoft’s “bread and butter” (which would mean figuring out how to beat Google in the advertising market – no small feat), it would take an enormous amount of pressure off of Windows, which could actually once again become a useful, streamlined OS, instead of a bundle of “Look, you can’t do that on the Web!” whiz-bang eye candy features.Time will tell how this will play out. The great thing these days is that for every Yahoo site or feature that Microsoft ruins, there will be 10 scrappy startups ready to jump in and pick up the slack. And let’s not forget that Google was a scrappy startup a mere 10 years ago. Play your cards carefully, Microsoft…
Windows Live Writer and the Big and Small
Microsoft has a major Web 2.0 PR problem. I’m an avid blogger and I had never heard of Windows Live Writer (which has been in Beta for over a year) until now. It’s out of Beta and I’m using it to write this very post, and I have to say, this is a killer “desktop” blogging tool. I’ve tried out several, and this is by far the best I’ve ever used. Do get it if you’re a Windows-using blogger.
If this program were developed by a small “Web 2.0″ startup, the blogosphere would be all over it, raving and gushing. But it’s by Microsoft, so it’s gone practically unnoticed.
Microsoft is a purveyor of big, expensive software like Windows and Office. Any time they release a small, inexpensive/free, but totally useful program (the very essence of Web 2.0), it just automatically feels like a “throwaway” app. I’m wondering how they can shake this sort of bias. Clearly creating the “Live” brand is a step in the right direction, but I think they have a way to go.
Is Web 2.0 not only about what is developed but who develops it? Spend enough time in the blogosphere and you realize that the conversations around products are often as much about the creators as the products themselves. Cults of personality are built up around single developers or small teams, and people root for the success (or failure) of the product based on these perceptions. This generates significant buzz.
Can a truly successful Web 2.0 app be made by a small anonymous team in a small division of a giant corporation? Just putting that out there… I don’t know the answer.
Tafiti – Microsoft Bob for Search?
OK. I’m always reluctant to jump on any anti-Microsoft bandwagon, partly because I worked there for a year and learned that it’s not 50,000 person army of evil – it’s mostly just a bunch of people looking to make cool and useful stuff (with mixed results). So I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. But, then I’m disappointed when the bandwagon seems to be right.
Microsoft recently launched “Tafiti“, a search tool based around their new, ahem, “Flash-killer”, Silverlight.
Clearly what Microsoft was attempting was to demonstrate the Silverlight platform as it could apply to something practical, like search. They obviously aren’t claiming Tafiti is the Search Engine Of The Future.
Wanting to see the glory of Silverlight in action, I actually went ahead and installed it on my MacBook Pro – Yes, Silverlight is cross-platform – assuming your platform is Windows or Mac – and went to Tafiti.com
I was expecting to see beautiful, smooth animation effects – you know, something that would demonstrate why you’d want to build a site with Silverlight instead of Flash (which 98+% of Internet connected computers have installed).
What I saw was jerky animation more associated with mediocre DHTML. Hardly an argument for abandoning DHTML, let alone Flash. As for the search functionality itself… Well, reread this post title.
Mac Users Sure are a Productivity-Minded Lot
I’m now a 100% Mac user (aside from the incident where my mom wanted to show my wife a “how-to-knit” CD-ROM that was Windows-only. I have an iMac in my home office, and i use a MacBook Pro at work. One thing I’m learning about Mac culture is that Mac users are a productivity-minded lot. Contrary to the stereotype that we’re noodling on GarageBand or iMovie all day, Mac users like to get things done quickly, their way.
There are so many Mac apps devoted to this goal. Some examples:
VoodooPad: A personal Wiki tool that lets you do damn near anything.
TextMate: A text/code editor that brings the “customize everything” ethos of Emacs into the modern world.
TextExpander: A tool that lets you create really cool text abbreviations that expand into long chunks of text that you would otherwise repeatedly type out.
Quicksilver: I haven’t even quite figured out what this does, but it’s some sort of major productivity enhancing tool with a cult-like following.
I bring this up now because I came across this great quote from a Mac user stuck working on a PC for a while:
One thing Windows does is make me want to give up earlier. I actually just don’t care if I can’t figure out a good way to do something. This is an exciting new feeling – I just give up and get back to work, and each time, I feel a little more like a real grownup. You know, how you feel after all your youthful dreams have died.
Microsoft’s Plan to Combat Google – Outright Bribery
Microsoft’s new plan to boost its search engine usage is to pay “service credits” to enterprises which “promote” the use of Live Search in their organizations. Companies will earn $2 to $10 per computer which complies with Microsoft’s demands – including the removal of non-Microsoft IE toolbars, or setting Live Search as its homepage. Will it work? Perhaps. This sounds exactly like the kind of thing “An Enterprise” would go for – saving a few bucks at the expense of letting employees use what work best for them. Is it pathetic? Yes.
Apple Jabs at Vista Security Model
Anyone who’s used Vista (especially back in the beta days) knows why this is funny.
iPod vs. Zune – Another Zinger from Jobs
Here’s another Steve Jobs “Q&A” that beautifully sums up Apple’s approach to technology vs. Microsoft’s.
QUESTION: Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried?
ANSWER: In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable.
He’s got a point.