i’ve never knowingly slept with a windows user

omfg.

caution: rant.

ok, sure, i like macs. and this actually holds true for a lot of apple products. sometimes i’m even tempted to say i love them. but after using “ibm compatible PCs” and their predecessors for more than a decade before getting my first apple computer, this is not something religious but just because of the pure contrast to all the other products out there that are mostly a major disaster when it comes to specification, usability, durability etc. etc.

apple products are still far from being perfect – they have to deal with the same laws of physics, economics and user stupidity as all other companies – but somehow apple is doing it better and even if apple products are also flawed, they’re always less flawed than the competition. i mean, why on earth should i buy another laptop than a macbook pro? because they’re cheaper?!

this may be a valid argument in case of a hobby user. but if i schlepp around a laptop bought at the supermarket for 18h a day, just because this is the fucking tool i need for EVERYTHING i do, day in, day out, besides sleeping, then it simply falls apart after 4 months.

and this already rules out me smashing the damned thing into pieces because i bought crap again just to save a few bucks and now have to deal with a  power adapter that’s half as big as the laptop itself, develops loose connections and dissolving isolation after three days in the backpack, a screen hinge made of plastic that greets me with screeching noises everytime i open it, leaving me in fear about how often i can actually do this without breaking it – and other  technical train wrecks like small firewire ports, ram doors and screw holes that don’t survive fastening screws three times and a keyboard and trackpad that feels like a mockup in a furniture store.

but that’s just me. on the other hand there were also those lemming style fanatics that just have to jump on anything that sports the apple logo. there’s a reason for that: apple always tried to embrace the creative folks, the artists, all the people that are used to rule style over pricing  – those people were the perfect target group for the apple product philosophy that states: think something through. carefully. think about design and usability. and don’t try to trade off those things just because of being able to make the product cheaper.

on the other hand, those people are just perfectly suited to make fun of them – and hell yes! it was a never ending source of fun for ages!

but now this all changed a bit. apple managed to gain a lot more market share – just because they think about their products and try to imagine a product’s life AFTER selling it  and therefore fucking around with all the entertainment electronics companies by developing a more appealing mp3 player, by fucking around with the music industry by setting up the first successful online store for music, by entering the mobile phone market and creating a device that again (after the ipod) just becomes pop culture – sneaking the apple logo into the pocket or mind of every urban citizen. quite a jump from being the strange overpriced brand for the highty-tighty artist snobs.

and now we’re there – the reason for this rant:

the old mac fanatics, following blindly the path of uncle Jobs, are just a small crowd now compared to all the customers who joined the party during the last 3 years. sitting in a typical starbucks in berlin or some other capital on this planet you can spot at least 10 apple laptops and a ton of ipods, iphones whatever. and now give it a shot: ask them about all the religious apple topics. Ask “Woz?” and learn that they even don’t know Steve Jobs or what the word “keynote” meant to hardcore apple followers.

and what did i just see? a trailer for a movie/documentary called  “Macheads, the movie”.

and yes, as you can see, the trailer includes this “i’ve never knowingly slept with a windows user” line by some hipster chick, the comparison “muslims go to mekka, mac users go to macca” and other stereotypical stuff being known as “the cult of mac” for so long – and being outdated.

what’s up with that? trying to make money out of this old mac/windows war thing in form of a movie as apple is now known by every single mobile phone user or music enthusiast instead of a bunch of computer nerds?

i mean, this is soooooo 1999! can’t they just try to come up with something new and do a movie about how apple managed to do the jump from being the golden calf, worshipped by rich douche bags without any computer knowledge to become the company that starts to create the mot successful everyday entertainment and communications devices for the mass market? and therefore having to do the sacrifice of actually leaving the former die hard followers behind with glossy displays, virtual whoopie cussions on touchscreen telephones and compelled feature sets (fw and the macbook) in order to create different product ranges, forcing you to decide if you are a “pro” or not?

rant over.