So yesterday Apple had its Worldwide Developer Conference 2008, or whatever. You may have guessed something like that from the title of this post.

I’m pretty new to Apple computers. I mean, I’ve used the 2e, but I did say “computers,” so I don’t know if that counts. I’ve used PCs my entire life, and never really had a problem with them. At my present job we use Macs, though I did have a choice to use a PC when I first started. I went with the Mac because I found the PC world to be severely lacking in Ruby on Rails development tools. Turns out the Mac only has TextMate, but that will be the subject of another rant.

Apple should be tax-exempt, as it is more of a religion than serious company. I had heard my whole life from Mac zealots how wonderful the machines are– you’ll never want to go back. Now that Microsoft released Vista that’s true, but it does (incorrectly) make the assertion that I would stay with Mac.

Where PCs are severely lacking in Rails tools, I find the Mac severely lacking in usability. I quit my last job because of usability concerns, so this is a touchy subject. I almost wonder if the same drunken monkeys that work as interns for IBM/Lotus making Lotus Notes get hired by Apple when they graduate from monkey school. Let me provide some examples:

• Closing the lid on my mac overrides a shutdown sequence, but only enough so that when I open the machine back up expecting to boot it up and do work, I then have to wait for it to shut down. “Don’t shut the Mac down,” you say? I have yet to see the promise that Mac makes about never having to shut the machine down fulfilled. Performance degrades as time since reboot increases, just as with Windows. And even if that weren’t the case, I thought Macs were so usable that I could do what I want with them.
• I can’t interact with application menus via my keyboard, apart from ENTER. Perhaps most users aren’t “power users” who would want to use the keyboard. FINE! But some are. You can provide keyboard support without shutting down the pure mouse support.
• I can’t tab into drop-down boxes (to Apple’s defense, this may be an application problem).
• My DVD drive can only sometimes read a disc if the machine is perfectly flat and not moving. It’s like the accelerometer inside is turned on and if it detects any deviation from the horizontal, it shuts the drive down, causes it to make weird noises and claim that it is “Skipping over damaged” areas. My face. No other drive seems to find problems with the same discs. What’s so bad about a tray and locking the disc into it. That’s how DVDs are shipped, for crying out loud.
• The DVD application is garbage. When it is busy “Skipping over [a] damaged area,” it completely freezes, becoming unresponsive to all user input (including Apple-Q). I’ve learned the force quit shortcut on a Mac as a result of this one machine, and I’ve basically performed DoS attacks on Apple’s servers submitting error reports. Though, I must admit I’d be surprised if those reports actually did leave my computer and Apple didn’t just put together a neat-looking interface to make me think they were getting those reports.
• Speaking of the DVD player, screen captures are completely shut down while that application is even loaded. Copyright issues? Fine, I can cope–even though I get upset when I’m automatically treated like a criminal (which Mac does at every possible opportunity). I like to play DVDs in the background while I work, and sometimes I have to take screenshots for my work. Well, then I have to bring the player back into focus and shut it down. Then I can take my screenshot(s). Then I have to load the player back up and pray to the DVD gods (or maybe I should pray to Steve Jobs, or at least have the Leader get me in contact with the DVD gods?) that it will resume reading the disc it just was (or perhaps closing the DVD reader really does scratch my disc? Perhaps Apple in its quest to expand DRM detects that I wanted to take a screen shot while the DVD player happened to be loaded, assumes I am, in fact, a pirate, and says, “Y’argh!” proceeding to scratch my disc so I can’t watch it anymore.) Alternative solution if copyright is the issue– do what Windows does! Take the freaking screenshot and replace the DVD playback window with black pixels. And if you feel notifying me is important (which I think is a good thing), DON’T USE A MODAL DIALOG BOX, ESPECIALLY ONE THAT JUST HAS AN OKAY BUTTON! Why did you have to interrupt everything I was doing with a box that doesn’t even present me with any options? Do a nice, unobtrusive pop-up that goes away after a few seconds like, *ahem* Microsoft figured out how to do.

So this post is already too long. I realize that software is hard (I write it for a living) and usability is such a personal thing that no one can get it right for everyone. The only deal is that Windows users seem to understand that, and Mac users don’t. It’s like how when a Republican congressman gets busted in an airport stall– that’s news. But a Democrat has an affair with his campaign manager’s wife (a triple betrayal of the worst kind given what campaign managers give up for the candidate), no one cares. Republicans claim to be all about family values and depict the Democrats as godless anarchists, or whatever.

So “underwhelmed” is the word I use to describe the Mac. No Substance is the Bad Religion album I’d use to describe the hype surrounding Mac products, or the promises that emanate from the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field as The Mac Sucks! puts it.

I never got into Linux because of the snootiness of the average Linux user that I met. Mac seems to be like that, only add in a persecution complex as well.

Say what I will about Apple’s products, there is one area where they certainly can’t be beat– marketing.

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