The carefully researched random thoughts of Ryan Long

As soon as the MacBook Air was announced, I had friends talking about how cool it was and asking if I was going to buy one. I always told them no I wasn’t and explained that there were several important reasons why.

The processor is clocked at 2.0 Ghz and up. Everything is crammed into a tiny notebook shell, which is made of metal. There is next to no ventilation. It’s going to run hotter than hell. I was one of the people who bought the Titanium Powerbook when Apple started making them, and it had the same problem. Even the guy in the MacBook Air guided tour doesn’t have it on his lap, despite the smug look on his face at the end of the commercial. I think this smugness Apple has relates to my next point.

Mac’s only have one mouse button. The train of thought is, ‘we’ve made it so simple to use, it only needs one button’. Apple has decided that their user base cannot handle the complexities of two mouse buttons and has simplified matters by removing one. Their boolean logic goes something like this: computers with one button mice are easy to use -> Mac’s have one button mice -> Mac’s are easy to use. However, I live in the real world, performing tasks that are more complex than just checking email and sending instant messages about how great my Mac is. Having, at least, a right mouse button gives me a contextual menu at my disposal. This speeds up creating files, accessing programs and editing documents.

This even helps me in organizing my data, which is probably why many mac users’ desktops end up looking like this. I know there are some of you saying, “Mac’s have a contextual menu, just hold down the control key.” But if Mac’s are so simple that they only need one button, why do they even have a contextual menu? This performs the same action as having two mouse buttons. And if having two buttons complicates things for the user, wouldn’t requiring them to hold down a combination of keys to access a menu be even worse? This Brings me to my next point.

Mac’s suck, and the biggest reason of all is OS X. Every time there is a major OS revision, you get to spend another 129.99 to upgrade your current OS X to one that isn’t plagued with glitches. Even then, if you have any major problems with your OS X, unless you’re a whiz with unix commands, it usually results in having to format and reinstall the OS. Besides, what kind of modern OS needs their user to be educated in unix console commands to fix problems anyways? I’d say thats a departure from their simple ‘one button’ logic.

The last thing that gets to me about Apple is their constant effort to bury useful tools in their OS. I still remember finding out OS 9’s secret way to kill a program and avoid a crash, SMFA700A9F4 <return> PCFA700 <return> G <return>. Why did they make that a secret, instead of putting it in the stupid manual? Macworld has an article on this very subject, Mac OS X hints, tricks and secrets. Like how to add an eject drive icon, if you don’t have an eject key on your keyboard. How about creating an alias of your folder, with your one button mouse. Why that’s as simple as 1-option-drag your alias folder to another destination. Inherit knowledge that shouldn’t be bogged down by ‘instructions’.

For now, I think I’ll just stick with my PC and XP. If I really want to work with a console, I’ll go use Linux. At least it will be worth the effort.