The Problem with Mac Fanatics: Revisited

I've used both macs and pcs over a period of 15 or so years. I've stuck with macs because in general things seem to work easier, peripherals connect easier and sorting out my network was more or less done by the machine. The only thing I may use a pc for these days is gaming. I can't say I've ever noticed this mac zealot thing your all talking about. Is it a us specific thing? Oh and finally, aside from macs being a lot easier on the eye, they seem to hold their value a lot longer than pcs. My tuppence worth.

I actually happened upon this site from the Autoblog one since I don't own a Mac but felt compelled to post. I used macs in school many years ago and have had some experience with them here and there over the years. The Mac is an excellent machine and OS however there is this stigma of all Mac users being zealots. Not true of course but that's the sterotype. My main reason for using a PC over a mac is 2 fold: 1. I am primarily a PC gamer and the mac does not always get the latest and greatest of games and 2. I have alot of PC software that I am not about to re-purchase just to use a mac. Face it Photoshop and Dreamweaver on the PC and Mac are the same so why spend $1000's to change over. It's just like cars, some prefer American some japanese and others german. All in all they are just cars, tools to get you from point A to point B.

I'm an ad guy (not for Apple, or any Winblows products) and have always respected (and tried to take advantage of) the power of "the detractor." When someone tells me that a computer is just a complicated abacus, and that my Mac-jones is unwarranted, he/she is a detractor, and he/she just makes me jones harder re: my Mac affiliation. For me, this is an important psychological phenomenon associated with branding. If a brand is simply the narrative/aesthetic 'spun' around a product/service that affects the user or considerer of that product/service, then detractors and zealots do a lot to legitimize/contextualize the narrative. Simply put, good branding makes food taste better, cars driver better, clothes feel better...and computing more enjoyable. Mac zealots are just a logical consequence of detractors, and both contribute (positively!) to what is otherwise, generally, a utility relationship. To be really cynical about it; Mac people (myself included) feel good about themselves for using Macs (classier, more enlightened [re: design], etc.), and this feeling of edification is created and/or amplified when some gearhead talks about their winblows machine being as fast, stable or useful.

What PC owners don't get, and have the luxury of never needing to be worried about, is the possibility mac users faced of their entire platform vanishing. I work in graphic design, and in the 90s there was a very real possibility that all my equipment, programmes and expertise would be made redundant by a rampant and ruthless Microsoft. Fortunately that never came to pass, but the view over the edge of the abyss wasn't pleasant, and accounts for a lot of the mac zealotry you still see today.

Oh-ho, I've been on the receiving end of flames for daring to be critical of Apple and His Holy Steveness, let me tell you. For the heinous crime of not liking MacOS X I had my parentage questioned, my sexuality questioned, and was regularly told to go back to my [expletive deleted] PC. (I STILL don't like it, but it's the only game in town, so...) Mac users can be rude, condescending and arrogant, not to mention complete a**holes. There's no question that turns people off. I don't think it's the biggest reason Apple's where they are-you can't blame the users for Apple's idiotic failure to advertise their products, for instance, or their decision to Steve the clones. But the preception that Mac users feel smugly superior to people using Windows XP can't be helping a whole lot.

I agree with Jonathan, and I have to take exception with narco when he says, "i consider someone a Mac zealot when they refer to Microsoft as "M$" or Microsux" because I use those terms. I use those terms not because I'm a mac zealot - all tho I do evangelize - but because I was a slave to the Microsoft system for 10 years, and I gradually learned to hate it with every virus, reinstall, the spyware that came later, and the ever-present promise that new version will make things better. It's all palaver. That's why I refer to Windows as Winduhs and Microsoft as M$. Yes, I love my iMac and call it Monty. I also love my 1951 Hudson Hornet and call her Hannibell. And in both cases I think they are both superior pieces of machinery and will defend and extol their virtue when needed. Does that make me a zealot? so be it; at least I care about something. As pointed out, without zealots Apple would've been dead in the mid nineties, and, with the case of the Hudson, if they weren't any Husonnuts around, the cars would all be crushed. But I do agree that the general, pointless flaming that some participate in is childish, stupid, and puts a bad light on all of us. If I disagree with somebody, I'll call them out, but I'll always try to be civil.

I'm sorry, but if you want to hear (actually, read) some Mac zealots (in a bad way), go to Mac Daily News. They're quite bad over there.

What a load of smug pillocks! I defy anyone that uses a Mac to not be a zealot - ie highly enthusiastic about Macs. The evidence is all around you, and just take a look at lovemarks.com... I am a trainee Mac zealot with just five years experience but I am always happy to extol the considerable virtues of Apple and her Macintosh family. Microsoft, HP, Dell only dream of producing products that engender such brand loyalty. And what's more, it has little or nothing to do with the Jobs' reality distortion field. Its just damn good design aimed at people like us...

The dangers of zealots could be the fact that they spread false information about Mac too passionately. Example Windows (3.1) crashes *all* the time, with blue screen of death, while Mac (OS X) *never* crashes. Such statements could get tiresome in forums where one is looking for objective comments or discussions.

I have to agree with #12, when times were bad it's those so called zealots that kept Apple in business, so lets not chide them too much, when we should be actually thanking them as a lot of us were not mac users in the mid nineties (well I know I wasn't!).