I love it. Charlie Brooker, in a distinctly British tone, basically nails Macs & Mac users.
When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, “I hate Macs”, and then I think, “Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?” Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Webb would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Mitchell effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Webb would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel, without ever getting round to doing it, like a mediocre idiot.
Heh. Read the whole thing.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Yes, exactly!
I also don’t think they look cool. And don’t even get me started on the different colors. Bah.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Ok, having read it, these are my two favorite quotes:
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don’t use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.
And
If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that “says something” about your personality, don’t bother. You don’t have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality.
Also, this totally describes my brother, the Mac user.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Well, I don’t totally disagree with the article… but seeing as I now own a Macbook, I can’t disagree more about it being for people who are too nervous to learn how proper computers work. What’s wrong with “it just works”? I mean, that’s what the Windows crowd says to the Linux crowd.
Now, saying that, Macs don’t just work the way I like. For one, I’ve found that a widescreen display has more use of the Dock on the left side of the screen than on the bottom where it takes up more area. Second, as far as the one-button trackpad goes, there is an option to have it work as a scrollpad when you use two fingers, and right clicks can be done with a two-finger click. You just have to enable these… they aren’t set this way by default.