Monday
Jan262009
Real Reasons Why PC Folks Don't Buy Macs
Monday, January 26, 2009 at 9:14AM 
UPDATE: Goodness knows, the last thing the interwebatron needs is another Mac vs PC crusade. The list I present below is stated from my own professional perspective and was a response to a computing culture which polarizes issues, rather than seeing a mix or another set of possibilities. Of course I'd love to hear any considered anecdotes or thoughts either way. I'll also happily save you some time spent writing a 'you're anti-mac!' statement by letting you know I'm one of the guys behind the Mac applications Comic Life and Skitch.
Sensory Metrics is a great blog. Mitch lists some reasons why 'PC people' don't switch to a Mac. The reason for the article is Belkin's Switch-to-Mac hardware/software product, which I've never used, but suspect is a good honest attempt to make the 'switch' easier. It was the slightly snide list which struck a chord. Mitch has inspired me to make my own list.
Real Reasons Why PC Folks Don't Buy Macs
- They just learnt how to use Windows, and don't want to spend a whole bunch more time learning something else
- Cost. You can buy a PC for dirt cheap, even if it is sub-par
- They can't get community support from the majority of computer users around them with a Mac
- Some of the experience is better on a PC:
- Getting to the Desktop is easier
- Managing Windows is easier
- Toggle window visibility with the Taskbar
- Every Document has a window
- You can Command+Tab through ALL windows easily
- The minimize buttons work as predicted
- There are usually more USB ports on the laptops
- Replacement parts like power adaptors are cheaper
- Microsoft Office is usually bundled
- Games work out of the box, no fiddling around
- You can find more software choice at your local store (quality not withstanding)
- You don't want to be associated with snide fanboys and elitists
One more thing…
11. You can find the on/off switch on your desktop machine and don't give up in vain (true story)
Oh, I forgot the Apple Mouse and the loss of contextual menus. The average PC user seems pretty comfy with right-clicking for contextual menus. On the Mac, you either use a "weird" modifier key, set up your trackpad for two-finger click (I see lots of accidental triggerings), or set your Apple mouse to allow for the right click. The right click on the Apple Mighty Mouse causes lots of accidental right-clicks, from my experience. I've no experience with the new trackpads which offer an 'invisible' right click area.
Can you think of any other common reasons I've missed?
tagged Context, Mac, PC in Uncategorized
Context, Mac, PC in Uncategorized
Reader Comments (22)
My experience:
Swap number 1 and number 2. Price is by far the biggest factor that stops people switching (whether the price difference is real or perceived.)
Most people never get past thinking about number 3 before spending their money, whether they buy a Mac or a PC.
That's a great list - LOL - love 10 and 11!
Thanks Pete and Mitch.
Hilarious. Just wrote a long comment debunking your (utterly incorrect) mac taunting - only for your comment field box to not verify the field values, and your site not to remind me to enter an email - and to have the entire comment lost. I then wrote a similar comment to *this* comment, and did the same thing.
You really need a user experience designer to go over your site and give you some pointers.
I work as a software developer at a university and occasionally take on Com Sci students when they want to get work experience.
I'd say a good 90% of the computers in the lab I work in are Macs, mainly because a lot of the scientific software we use is built for *nix, but at the same time researchers need to write up their papers in Microsoft Word, so seeing as Mac enables you to do both, we use them.
Most of Com Sci students we get in are PC users who've either never heard of the Mac, or have never thought that it could be used for serious computing.
I usually spend about 10 or 15 mins getting them setup & going through the basics with them & then leave them on their own & tell them to ask if they have an questions.
The main questions I get:
1) right clicking.
2) UI/UX stuff (eg. buttons on opposite side of window, dock vs taskbar, etc).
3) equivalent apps (eg. what's the Mac equivalent of winamp, outlook, etc).
I also find PC users tend to have a "don't touch that it may break" mindset, you explain to them that they can change wallpapers, dock size, position, etc. using the System Preferences. none of them every go in there & change it, everything is always as I left it when I set it up.
The thing I think that sells them over are:
1) Terminal - once you explain how to use it they love ssh, scp, vim, less, etc.
2) "Drop box" concept - a public folder that anyone on the network can pass stuff in to for you. No more running around with USB drives.
3) VNC - it's pretty awesome to be able to tab into another machine & see what's going on.
Bare in mind these are students working on scientific software development, so probably not the average user, but then different users are going to get different things out of it. I mean I doubt many of these students will be playing with Garage Band for example.
I find in general, the PC lends itself really well to office work & gaming, lets face it, those are the 2 areas driving the PC industry.
The Mac on the other hand tries to be whatever you want it to be. It'll let you be a scientist, a developer, a musician, a photographer, a writer, a blogger, it's your computer to do whatever you want with.
No offense, but I found Mark Bate's comment more interesting than the post!
To Peter Clark, this is presented as a list of real reasons people choose a PC over a Mac. It's not a list of reasons why Keith hates Macs, why Macs just suckity suck, why Keith wants to start a flame war (maybe?)...
There are obviously reasons why people go with PCs, and here are some of the possibilities from a buyer's point of view. I'd dispute some of them, especially a lot of the weirdness in number 4, not just because I personally disagree, but since I also wonder if anyone actually believes those points.
@ Syphon, no offense taken.
@ mark bate, thanks for your considered thoughts. In the science fields, I'm sure the appeal of real Unix under the hood is a real tempting carrot
@ Peter Clark, my humble apologies. I'll look into this right now, and is inexcusable.
Testing new Comment validation
@ Peter Clark. My apologies again for you losing your comments. I've now added comment validation which should fix the problem.
UPDATE: I will also add that the list I put together is my own thoughts, I have no data to back up the statements, only my personal and professional experience and opinion. Don't want to cause any nose-bleeds around here. :-)
Thank you all for your comments.
@ Syphon - thanks mate.
@ Keith - no worries mate. yeah different users really get different things out of the mac. it'd be interesting to see some kind of stats on fields of interest & apps / features used.
To be truthful, i have 2 Mac and 2 PCs (running Server 2003) in my office. At home - we're all Macs. I'm just glad I can run Comic Life anywhere!!!
12) They can eject disks whenever they want, and do it by hitting a physical button on the disk drive, not hidden somewhere on the keyboard away from the disk.
12.5) Soft eject keys on a PC http://vgable.com/blog/2008/12/31/mac-os-x-redesign-feedback-for-hold-keys/" rel="nofollow">give immediate feedback.
Re #4, "The minimize buttons work as predicted". Did you mean "maximize"/"zoom"? If not, what unpredictability did you have in mind?
On a sidenote, the comment form has a label reading "Email_me_followup_comments" with underscores and all.
Would like such a list for PCs...
1) Viruses, Spyware etc.
2) Hard to use
3) unsophisticated
4) Almost impossible to find the right window
5) Impossible to configurate without expert knowledge
6) Insanely slow if cheeper than a mac or on the same price level
7) Usually have a worse battery life
8) No color in the so called color-screens
9) No Support
10) Heavy - "Never trust a computer that you can't lift"
11) Way too much identical programs
12) Windows uses more than 400MB RAM only to run
13) Usually Windows comes packed with useless Software
...
should i go on?
greez
W
The little colored circles atop Mac application windows boggle me in the same way the seashells boggled Stallone in Demolition Man.
I presume they minimize/maximize/close like in MS Windows? I guess one could try them all out on some safe app and try to memorize them.
But wow, colored circles? Really?
@ Mitch Thanks for the kind words :-)
@ Vincent, nice blogpost. A good point.
@ W Nice list, I agree with many of those points, as long as they've got a friend with Mac to compare to
@ Vance I agree the circles are not intuitive enough. I think some subtle animation (and probably better symbols) would solve that issue.
@Henrik I mean the green button sorry, which aims to optimize the size of the window to match the content. And_regarding_the_underscores, sorry it's a work around to fix a formatting issue I'm trying to fix.
I think the "X", "-" and "+" symbols in the title bar circles are fairly explanatory. Plus, once you've clicked them once or twice there shouldn't be any more mystery.
Steve, check out the screenshot here:
http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/i/dwp_t_01.png
No icons in the circles. This is the version of Mac OS I've most-recently used. Have they added icons in later versions?
Hi Steve,
The symbols appear on mouseover. Personally, I've given up on using the green button as I find it doesn't do what I expect, usually in a browser view. In addition, I've often accidently pressed the wrong button due to a mouseing mistake. I've experienced other people doing this as well.
From a UI Perspective, this is to be expected due to Fitts' Law; Right now, on my screen these targets are currently 838 pixels away, and yet the targets are only separated by 7 pixels.
OK more UI related than a reason why PC users don't buy Macs, but Mac modifier keys are such a mess.
The option key has Alt on it (causing every ex-PC user to call it Alt, but then the Alt word doesn't appear on any menus or documentation). Until relatively recently, the Command key has also had the Apple symbol as well as the swedish campsite symbol. At least on my keyboard, the Control key doesn't have the ^ symbol used on menus.
At least on a PC, users stand more of a chance - with modifier keys shown by name in menus and no graphical symbols adding another layer of confusion.
Martin, that's a good point.
Modifier keys (especially on the schizophrenic Mac keyboard) are a strange hidden mechanism which confuses many casual/new users.
The answer is probably found in touchscreen keyboards which would work dynamically to provide contextually aware (change for each application, etc) label buttons and other control elements on the keyboard.
I only recently (i.e. last few years) moved to Macs and I reckon one of the Top 5 reasons people don't buy them is because they're an unknown quantity.
To your regular member of the general public, especially before iPod, information about Macs was scant, whereas PCs were everywhere. To buy a PC is just easy.
I only got a Mac because I had someone to firstly show it off and then walk me through the OS and UI.