| Tuesday, December 19, 2006 |
09:05 - Seven Habits of Highly Annoying Non-Mac People
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1. Referring to "Mac" as though it's the company name, and "Apple" as though it's the computer brand. "Mac makes nice computers. I'd get an Apple if only there were more games for it."
2. Capitalizing "MAC", as though it's an acronym. Though it's true that there is such a thing as a MAC address in networking, I associate this one with the same sort of people who turn "WEB" into an acronym. "FTP didn't work, so I downloaded it off the WEB using my MAC."
3. Gratuitous, even intentional misspellings of product names. Whether it's "I-Pod", "Itunes", or even relatively minor things like "Mac Mini" or "iPod Shuffle" (the second words of these brands should be lower-case), it feels sort of like an intentional psychological rebellion against the company's capricious marketing sensibilities, which I can understand. But it's also about as mature as saying "Micro$oft" or "Windoze".
(I don't so much take issue with people who pronounce "OS X" as "Oh Ess Ecks" rather than "Oh Ess Ten"; even dyed-in-the-wool Mac people are starting to consider having the same version number hard-wired into the product name for the past six years to be somewhat ridiculous. Not that that's an unusual practice in the UNIX world...)
4. Completely misconstruing the DRM restrictions on iTunes music. Tech journalists the world over seem to make it almost a point of pride to remain ignorant of the terms of Apple's DRM. It's amazing to me, considering how many people own iPods and therefore must have some inkling of what they can and can't do with them, that so many well-paid pundits don't seem to grasp that iTunes does not restrict your ability to burn purchased tracks to CD or store them on multiple iPods, or that being able to copy them to an infinite number of hard drives is not exactly a reasonable thing to demand of the record labels, or that the DRM is enforced at the computer level (within the installed QuickTime architecture) rather than on a per-hard-drive basis anyway. In some cases, where people talk about avoiding iTunes music because of "Big Brother" peeking over your shoulder (not true—once you've unlocked your computer you never have to make another transaction with iTunes as long as you live, and your music remains playable) or because iTunes AAC files are unreasonably restricted (I'd love to know if there's anything people might legitimately want to do with their music that they can't do in the iTunes model), it amounts to good old-fashioned FUD.
5. Assuming that the state of the Mac today is the same as it was in 1997 or 1986. No, you don't have to reboot all the time, nor do you have to set "preferred memory sizes" on your applications, nor does a Mac cost $7000 without the monitor. It can even display color!
6. Making moronic comments about the mouse.
"Name me one thing you can do on your PC that I can't do on my Mac!"
"Right-click?"
Now, it's certainly fair to criticize the fact that the freaking mouse pointer scoots off into the corner of the screen every damn time I pick it up. But making fun of the way Apple has approached the concept of multiple buttons makes about as much sense as mocking Windows for having too many drivers.
7. Assuming that Apple fans will get worked up into a purchasing lather over even an unsourced rumor about a product that'd be about six years late to market. This reminded me of nothing so much as that exchange from that one Venture Brothers episode:
Monarch: Hank... what would you say if I told you that your mother was someone you've met before?
Hank: What?
Monarch: And what if I told you that your father is not your real father? Hank... Hank! I am your real father!
Hank: No way. No way, that's not true!
Monarch: Psych! Hahaha, you were all, "Oh, daddy, you're my daddy!" You are so gullible, what is that like?!?
I mean, yeah, real grown-up there, guy. If Apple's going to come up with something exciting enough for us to get all dribbly over it, it'll be a surprise. That's why Macworld comes so close to Christmas.
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Brian Tiemann
