But there, for the grace of Steve Jobs, go I

As someone who works, at least part time, as a design professional, I come into Mac fans on an almost daily basis. Sadly, whilst Apple products are generally rather good, they are intrinsically spoiled by their legion of unquestioning followers. You’ve probably met them. A conversation with a member of the Apple harem will go roughly like this:

Steve Jobs, talking out of his bum about netbooksMe, working on my laptop.
Mac fan: Why are you using a PC? You need to use a mac. SOOO much faster.
Me: Really? Isn’t that a Macbook Air – aren’t they pretty underpowered…
Mac fan: Nope, fast as lightning. Mac OSX literally makes the electrons in processors and RAM function at a higher velocity.
Me: Ok.
Mac fan: Seriously, why are you still using that steaming pile of failure? I’ve had Macs ten years, and I’ve never had one crash on me. I bet your Windoze heap is crashing right now!
Me: Actually, I’ve found Win7 pretty good. And OSX has crashed on me frequently.
Mac fan: No. It hasn’t.
Me: Sorry? Are you overuling my ability to discern truth?
Mac fan: WHY HAVEN’T YOU BOUGHT A MAC YET?!
Me: Well, I feel they are somewhat overpriced; I don’t really like how they look, nor do I find them ergonomic; I don’t like the operating system, I feel it doesn’t provide as good a workflow as Windows; the warranties are overpriced and underfeatured, and in my experience, overutilitised; I’m happy with my current machine…
Mac fan, screams and eats my PC.

Obviously, this is an exaggeration. Although the exaggeration is mostly on my side. Many Mac fanboys are really that bad, but I’m rarely as gentle and understated. In fact, I generally take the time to point out every single failing of Macs, in my opinion, and an explanation of how each point is adequately countered by Windows/Linux. I have become so insistent on the matter, I have turned into a mirror of the exact thing I despise – an anti-Mac fanboy.

Clearly, this is not a positive thing for my life. I don’t want to enter into arguments with people who, besides their weird quasi-religious dedication to an particular technology company, probably have a lot in common with me.

I don’t want to be that person, so I am going to use the mightiest weapon in my arsenal: grace. From this day forwards, unless specifically asked on my opinion, I am going to attempt not to voice my feelings on the matter.

If I break this promise, I promise to buy this machine (probably).

See you around, whatever hardware you use!
Chris

PS. Yes, I took the survey below. I was, I’ll admit, slightly disappointed not to score zero.

How addicted to Apple are you: 2%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

8 thoughts on “But there, for the grace of Steve Jobs, go I

  1. I believe the correct term is ‘Fanboi’ with an ‘i’ at the end. And not an ‘i’ cos it’s an Apple thing, it’s just generally been an ‘i’ 🙂

    Anyway, I’m one of those awkward ones who still sits in the middle. I own a Mac and a few Windows machines (XP and 7). I use them all. They all crash to some degree depending on what you’re doing.

    Anyone who says Mac’s never crash is an idiot. In fact anyone who says one OS is better than another is an idiot. I used the following in a blog post (http://maft.co.uk/musings/2010/microoft-or-crapple/):

    “Both have their pro’s and cons. It’s pointless, in my opinion, just to say one is better than the other. You could make the same poor argument about which is better between a Ferrari and a Fiesta. Well, it’s a Ferrari, isn’t it? Well, no, actually, as I was referring to which is better for parking in a tightly packed car park in a busy shopping centre – in which case it would be the Fiesta.”

  2. Dictionary.com has Fanboy. Urban Dictionary has 8 pages on Fanboy, and just one on FanBoi.

    I think my problem is that I always gravitate towards a Fiesta anyway – fits more shopping, two dogs, better fuel consumption. I’m just not Cool!

    1. Hehe, about right, except that having used both extensively, I definitely prefer PCs. I think you’ll need to find ” as well… And Ctrl gets screwed up too.

    2. I tell you what, even if I do end up getting one, it’s always going to be the ctrl key to me. Not the apple symbol key, you absolute bastards. The ctrl key.

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