I was poking around the iterwebs today and came across a very interesting write-up over at Apple Matters. Here is the complete story.
I agree with the article 100%, especially the following.
1. Ignorance Ignorance is merely a lack of knowledge, and when it comes to Macs, most Windows users, myself included, are extremely uninformed. My experiences with Macs were mostly pre-OS X, before the really good stuff began to happen, and I made a decision that Macs were not for me and never looked back. Many Windows users think they’ll have to “re-learn everything†and that nothing will be familiar.
I had that exact feeling the first time I used a modern Mac. And it is the same reason I am unable to convince anyone in my sphere of influence to switch.
8. Mac Users Okay, I’m not talking about you or me here, but there are some Mac users out there who have just a little too much love for Apple. When they are shouting (or typing in all caps) about how much better Macs are, they’re not convincing anyone to switch, they are scaring them away
I have mentioned this before and it was the number 1 thing keeping me from getting a Mac for so long. It’s none of you (although John gets close sometimes and Josh wishes he did), but it’s the others. Perfect example would be Mr. Daring Fireball who, just last week, got close to 20K views on picture at Flickr that described his true hatred for the menu bar.
You should check the article out. It’s a good read and all of it’s true. And, in my opinion (whoa, I can still spell that), all of those items need to change before Apple gets serious traction in the PC World. Sure, market share is up, but how much more can they get? 1%? 5%? Big deal, especially when Dell and IBM rule the business and HP and Gateway can barely keep CostCo stocked.
And don’t even get me started on the gOS PC. That thing is going to seriously cut into everyones sales this Christmas season, assuming they can build them fast enough.
5 Responses to “Why Windows users don’t/won’t switch”
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November 15th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I think one of the biggest revelations Windows users have is “what, there’s no start button?” Once you get over that it tends to be a little easier.. the one thing that I can’t stand is the inconsistency of the minimize/maximize buttons on osx windows (db- i think you’ve commented on this as well).
Also, I’ve tried twice to install gOS and ubuntu via parallels..no luck thus far…I’m determined though!
November 15th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Now, before DB goes all “VMWare blah blah blah”, this is between me and Chris. How far did you get installing gOS? I got to the boot screen and when it would try to start GUI mode it would error six times before quitting. Did you get any further? I’ve gotten Ubuntu running in Parallels, but I haven’t installed (nor used it, really) since Feisty. What I want is to install it on a separate partition on my MacBook, but until Ubuntu stops sucking on the MacBook Pro I’m not bothering.
And yes, DB, as soon as my free updates to Parallels gives out, I’ll switch to VMWare.
November 15th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I’ve had mixed results..sometimes it quits itself- sometimes it quits when it gets to a portion of the intsall about a unix printer driver or something…
I’d like to try installing gOS on my inlwas ancient dell computers (one clocks in at 233mhz, the other at 400mhz<– my wife’s old computer). I keep trying to get them to buy a mac mini..I will break them.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
Ah, you’ve done better than I then. I wish I still had my old G3 around to play with some times, it seems this would be perfect for it.
November 16th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
by then, there might even be a gOS appliance ready. For now, only Ubuntu