Reality Bites
Confessions of a Technoslut
I Have No Mac and I Must Scream
By John Paff
| Sometimes, it seems, every silver lining has a cloud. It's certainly how this long Thanksgiving week started out for me. Still, one can almost always find something to be thankful for--- with enough effort, time, and imagination.. I used up my allotment of all three on that over the last seven days - more or less coming round to the view that my Mac choosing this PARTICULAR week to head west just may be a case in point. Thanksgiving week is, after all, one of the slower - if not the slowest - times of the year for an IT journalist, so all things considered, there was at least that to be thankful for. Besides, I probably should have seen it coming Maybe I even HAD it coming. - SEMPER FI - My current Mac - a pre-release PowerBook 3400 - had been the Apple of my eye since I first reviewed it last year. It was love at first sight. Like Victor Kiam, the 'razor guy', I liked it SO much... I just had to buy it. And from that first day - til this past week - it rewarded my affections by remaining a completely loyal, faithful, and flawless working partner. I wish I could say the same for myself. - CONFESSIONS OF A TECHNO-SLUT - The sad fact is - while I may fully expect my Macs to be completely faithful, ready and available whenever I want them - deep down I'm just another computer USER.. A Technoslut. A helpless pushover for any silicon-enhanced beauty that comes along that's bigger and badder and faster than my current 'love affair'. Now I'm sure it's purely coincidence, but .... Last week, after strenuous fling with a new prototype PowerBook G3, courtesy of my good friends at Apple, I once again found myself falling for some younger, faster, sexier ride. It was just a one-niter. But the next morning, my hitherto faithful 3400 broke down - leaving me with important several assignments looming. Just how do they know these things? Anyway, the effort to cope with it's temporary absence certainly led to a long, interesting - and highly instructive - week. Now you have to understand, I'm hardly one of the "digitally disadvantaged". When disaster struck, I had lots of alternatives. When not writing about computers, I'm an international consultant. So there were any number of other computers around the house for me to fall back on: a SUN workstation, these days mostly used as a server, occasional development platform and, most practically, a monitor stand; and a decent Windows-based PC, to name just two. MIPS to burn. Just no other Macs, at the moment. Hey, no biggie, I thought. I'd certainly be able to work my way through this. So that's what I did this week. WORKED. And THAT, precisely, was what made this week so interesting and instructive for me. It was a valuable reminder. Everything I did - and do - on my Mac I was, of course, able to do on those other, "high performance" platforms. I just had to be willing - and able - to WORK for it! Very hard. Forget about their comparative MIPS - or relative clock- speeds. As I was so vividly REMINDED of this past week, the only clock-speed that REALLY matters is the ONE ON THE WALL. Its the productivity, Stupid. Not the product. Boing! How easy it is to forget - whether you love Apple and currently USE a Mac - or ARE Apple, and currently trying to MARKET them. I just spent a very long week WORKING exactly the way the vast majority of the World does _all the time_ [harder] and as a result, had the benefit of an unexpected, painful, and pointed lesson - a great reminder of ... 'WHY Macintosh'. It now seems to me that perhaps a week - or two - spent the same way wouldn't exactly harm Apple's Marketing Department - or Chiat, Day. Or any of us. It's SO very easy to get spoiled by the Mac that its an easy lesson to forget. Yet its the one message that's most important to convey. Indeed, in the end, the only one that really matters ... "Why Macintosh". After this past week, I can't help but wonder whether that vital message hasn't somehow gotten lost somewhere along the way. "Think Different" might well be a message that can _win_ CLEO's...but "Why Macintosh" is ultimately the message that's needed to win customers. The ultimate question. Successfully and memorably convey THAT and you'll sell a Mac. Truly understand it, and you'll BUY one. For my money effectively getting the abstract message of that experience across has always been the real - and toughest - challenge of marketing - or selling - Macs. It's just past midnight on Sunday. My PC can now turn back into a pumpkin; my SUN back into a server - and monitor stand. Tomorrow I get my Mac back. "Think Different"? Nope. DID that all this week - and I never want to have to do it again. Think better? Definitely! Think Easier? Think FASTER? Think Macintosh. Tomorrow I get my Mac back. Thank God. Something to be truly thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving. ------------------------------------------------------------ Care to talk turkey about THIS week's column? Want to 'bite back' about the future of Apple or the Mac, in general ? Something biting YOU that you want to share or see covered ? Then email me ... John Paff - "Reality Bites" at: jpaff@iol.ie |