Screwdrivers vs. Couture

January 16, 2005

The appeal of the Mac Mini is totally lost on me. It's an underpowered, expensive box-- like every other computer Apple has ever introduced. And yet, a certain contingent of PC users are buying this thing on release day. I never understood that.

Ed Stroglio may be the best industry analyst you've never heard of. Check out the way he totally nailed the appeal of the Mac Mini: screwdrivers vs. couture:

For PCers, a computer is a tool, an animated screwdriver. You don't have an "experience" with a screwdriver. It either works well or it doesn't. If it does, you like it; if it doesn't, you don't. You don't admire its aesthetic features, or find one a reflection of your good taste, or a symbol that proves you're an {fill in the blanks: admirable, special, creative, artistic} person.

For Macsters, it's just the opposite. The object is an extension of themselves just as much as their clothing or interior decoration, it's a part of them in a way a PC never is for a PCer.

One might think case modders or overclockers [or developers] in general might be more prone to the Mac outlook, but that's not really so. What such people are proud of is not mere ownership of the equipment, but what they've done to it to make it what it is. It's a much more hands-on sense of accomplishment: what has been done rather than what it was out of the box.

For such people, telling them that a Dell is cheaper and better is like telling them that Old Navy overalls are cheaper and last longer than Dolce & Gabbana jeans. When you do that, what they hear is, "Be a common pig like the rest of us" when the whole point of the purchase is to prove the opposite.

If this is incomprehensible to you, well, that's why you own a PC and not a Mac.

But if this description sounds like someone you know who is already a Mac user, or is prone to becoming one, this is why the standard arguments for buying a PC falls on deaf ears. You're thinking screwdriver; they're thinking fashion outfit.

It's one of those "aha" moments, because the appeal of the Mac Mini really was incomprehensible to me. There's a bit more followup on Ed's site about some of the subtler points in the PC vs. Mac comparison.

Posted by Jeff Atwood
23 Comments

Those are some good points.

But I'm surprised that the "appeal of the Mac Mini really was incomprehensible" to you. A large proportion of Mac users are in it for the software as much as the hardware. The Mac Mini comes with iLife and other pre-loaded software. An estimated $450 worth of software if you look at individual retail price.

I honestly believe the appeal comes largely from the software "experience", it is this experience that Ed's comparison forgot to mention.

P.S. I don't own a Mac, never owned a Mac, but probably would if they weren't so expensive ;-)

Rob on January 16, 2005 3:07 AM

The fashion aspect is only one factor, but it seems to be the one upon which most PC users like to focus. This comparison fails to mention that for many people the Mac is a screwdriver. Out of the box, it will hop on a wireless or wired network. Driver issues are rare. Viruses are non-existant. I have no need for a program to search and destory spyware. And finding the software you need is no longer a problem.

I don't see how people can shrug at the Mac Mini. It's a notoriously expensive computer priced at $500. By the way, I am a Mac guy, but I wasn't always this way.

Adam on January 16, 2005 3:36 AM

I, too, am baffled by the appeal of the mac mini. First off, the chip is a previous gen G4 (1.42ghz). The memory is just 256 mb. Go over to fry's and see how the mac crawls with 256 mb. Maybe it's faster with the MacMini, I don't know. No DVD burner.

It's like Dell was selling a PC with 1.4 Pentium 3 chip and charging just $500. It would never fly.
They do sell a cheap Celeron 2.4Ghz for $399, but there is no hoopla surrounding this event.

rizzo on January 16, 2005 3:52 AM

I think Mac Mini will appeal to people who already have Windows workstations and who want to play with OS X. If you have $500, a KVM switch, and a tiny bit of desk space, you can have a decent second workstation (that can both double as a Unix server and make people go "Ooh! Ahh!").

(We're buying one for our entertainment center.)

Colin on January 16, 2005 4:24 AM

My thoughts here:
http://www.furrygoat.com/2005/01/pleasure_and_th.html

Steve on January 16, 2005 4:39 AM

First off, the chip is a previous gen G4 (1.42ghz). The memory is just 256 mb. Go over to fry's and see how the mac crawls with 256 mb. Maybe it's faster with the MacMini, I don't know. No DVD burner.

- it's actually 1.25ghz unless you pony up an additional $100.
- the hard drive is a 4200rpm model.
- the lowest-of-the-low-end 32mb Radeon video card likely can't handle the heavy 3D OpenGL acceleration necessary for an OS that relies on OpenGL effects for a lot of its prettiness
- WindowsXP runs like crap on 256mb, I can only imagine how badly OSX will run with that

You could probably buy a wintel laptop for the same price with better hardware. And that includes the display, obviously.

Jeff Atwood on January 16, 2005 6:18 AM

[appeal to people] who already have Windows workstations and who want to play with OS X

It definitely would appeal to me if OSX ran on x86.

Jeff Atwood on January 16, 2005 6:21 AM

If you want to play around, check out PearPC. I have Mac OS/X 10.3 installed (running in a window on my XP box) for awhile:
http://www.furrygoat.com/2004/06/macosx_on_windo.html

Steve on January 16, 2005 6:47 AM

I'm not sure I see Macs as underpowered and expensive. IBM compatibles are just overpowered and cheap. I mean, IBM compatibles have to be cheap - if they weren't, people would just buy the parts themselves and build them. And they really are overpowered - a lot of a computer's capability is wasted. I mean, it's okay if you're compiling code, or running through complex math, but is three and a half gigahertz really necessary for word processing? Web browsing? I imagine the clockspeed of a computer only matters to the enduser when they're waiting for Windows to load.

Oh, and OS X does not rely on OpenGL. Quartz Extreme is optional. Plus, most Mac games available are years old, so the video card doesn't matter that much. And OS X is not XP. It works fine with 256, IIRC. And if OS X ran on x86, it wouldn't run on yours; Apple wouldn't want to sacrifice stability by letting the user install their OS on just any computer. Plus, there's the profit to think about...

Dezro on January 16, 2005 6:50 AM

This is frickin' priceless:

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/images/iProduct.gif

Jeff Atwood on February 27, 2005 12:24 PM

If you want to play with OS X, do what i did. I bought an older, used G4 Power PC for $200.

Jim on November 16, 2005 10:46 AM

Right. I'm running a five-year-old 2.4GHz screwdriver. I've added some memory over the years (translation: resharpened the bit), and it still drives screws quite well. It doesn't fit some of the fancy new screws (games). It's not as fast as some high end models, but it does everything I need. If it didn't I'd be over at some big-box store looking for the cheapest machine that would do the job. I wouldn't care if it looked like a captcha.

Izzy on October 29, 2007 8:13 AM

Cool, I expect to see your next post be about how much fun you had tweaking your *nix box after dumping Vista.

puppet on October 29, 2007 8:15 AM

I get it, macs are for the upper class snobs, and PCs are for us proles!

I'm afraid I don't have much respect for Ed Stroglio's analysis. He may be right about the snob vs. the proles aspect, but he doesn't have to sound so snobbish about it! :-)

Ben on October 29, 2007 12:34 PM

The fashion aspect is only one factor, but it seems to be the one upon which most PC users like to focus. This comparison fails to mention that for many people the Mac is a screwdriver. Out of the box, it will hop on a wireless or wired network. Driver issues are rare. Viruses are non-existant. I have no need for a program to search and destory spyware. And finding the software you need is no longer a problem.
http://promgold.ru

Nosok on May 14, 2009 1:41 PM

You are forgetting the MacMini media center crowd. You can't build a desktop PC as small as a MacMini. It's a full PC that is smaller then most game consoles. What would you rather try to stick in your living room (OS aside) to play back video, a desktop or a tiny little MacMini?

Anonymous on June 10, 2009 2:02 AM

This post basically mirrors my position on mac users and owners that I've held for some time, with the iProduct graphic hitting it on the head.

What Jobs has managed to do with Apple is create a "Guilt-free" brand for the Mac buyer, and within Apple culture in general. By choosing a machine that has the smaller market share, it gives the person the self-fulfilling notion that they've chosen the "better" option because they can make the claim that they are not "following the crowd." The bitten apple logo on a machine, in my opinion, is the computer world's version of the Starbuck's mermaid logo for coffee products, and the Nike Swoosh for athletic shoes. Let's face it, Macs are "trendy".

Aside from the "It just works/No viruses/Mac is better because it's not Windows" arguments I get all the time from Mac evangelists, the one other common argument I hear (and have yet to be given any backing for) is that Macs are better for Graphic Design/Video Editing/(Insert Creative Outlet Here). Period. Now I've used editing tools on both Mac and Win, and the graphics that get exported in Mac, look just the same as when their displayed a non-Mac machine. Now, if you want to argue that there are particular Mac-only pieces of design software out there that are easy/extremely productive and powerful/etc, then I'll accept that, but that doesn't prove Mac is superior over Win, just that software developers that create these design tools are choosing to make them exclusively available to Mac.

I will concede that Apple does from time to time make strides in innovation (iPhone), but had the phone been made by some other developer/manufacturer, I doubt people would as easily rationalize paying upwards of $700 for a phone that most likely will be made obsolete in less than 2 years by it's next gen model.

In closing, great article Jeff as always, and I'm looking forward to more.

John on June 10, 2009 2:25 AM

I got one for Boxee. The founder of the company said they are the most well suited for it, etc, etc.

I have to say, it basically did what I needed it to do in terms of a media center right out of the box, and I can't imagine a PC being as nice to work with for this purpose.

The same thing goes for the Mac laptops. I would never use a Mac for my primary workstation, because I'm much, much faster on a PC when doing work, writing things, etc. But, as a Laptop, Macs seem much better suited. Their OS is simply friendlier to the trackpad. All my main programs are gigantic icons at the bottom of the screen, and when I want to sort windows, I just shoot my cursor over to the upper-right corner of the screen which is set to sort my screens via expose. It then makes my windows gigantic icons that are easy to find and click with a track pad.

You have to be much more exact with a PC, which is better suited to an external mouse input. You can't just easily sort your windows into gigantic icons, you have to hunt for them on the start bar. To access any program, you have to get to your desktop to find an icon, or you have to go through the start menu. All of these require you to be very exact with your mouse movements, which sucks with a trackpad. On a workstation with an external mouse and keyboard, this is fine, and perfect. For a laptop, it is horrible.

Stuff like Jolicloud looks to be promising for netbooks, but OSX is still wonderful for laptops overall.

Jimmy on June 10, 2009 5:27 AM

Kinda curious what your thoughts are now, considering the new landscape of development on Apple's platform (iPhone especially).

Nowadays, $650 gets you a Mac Mini with a 2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3-1066 ram, 120GB hard drive, and Nvidia 9400M with 256MB video memory. Add to that the cost of the iPhone Developer Program and you're developing iPhone apps in your spare time for under $900.

Nick on June 10, 2009 8:45 AM

I got 1 problem with Apple apart from them developing snobbish, trendy, metrosexual gadgets:

The shit on open-source and the free market.

Skythe on July 27, 2009 9:17 AM

Jeff, the PC vs Mac link to Ed's site is dead. Blah !

John Kirkham on July 28, 2009 6:50 AM

I'm a programmer. I use XP at the office. I used to use a PC at home, but got tired of having to fix things all the time. At least I have an IT department at work.

I'll probably use Macs exclusively at home from now on.

It's not about how the machine looks. Its about how the machine's appearance reflects everything else about it.

I feel like a huge burden has been lifted from my shoulders. I can just enjoy using the machine, and not worry about what will fail next.

Just try it for a while. You'll see.

tektor on July 28, 2009 1:34 PM

Though this is an old post, it still looks somewhat alive (in the comment section), so I'll add my two cents.

I've used Macs for all my life, though I've also built and used PCs for a significant period of time. It was a blast putting together a PC, and the serious power I squeezed out of it to play nifty games was exciting to behold, but the experience of using/fighting with the computer and its OS (not just XP, but the bios of the motherboard, the compatibility issues with drivers, etc) started to wear on me.

With my Mac, I can concentrate on doing what I want to. I don't really have a need for games anymore, and every other piece of software I might need exists on a Mac. So that isn't an issue.

I work on a laptop (Macbook Pro, 2.6GHz c2d, 4g RAM, 7200RPM HD), and though I payed a not inconsequential price for the machine, I've had it (though it was replaced once, for free, a year ago today) 3 years and I am extremely pleased it it. I added 2 gigs of RAm recently for under 100 bucks (third party vendor, for sure! Newegg is the best) and I think I can keep this machine for another 2 or even three years at least.

Though we (Mac users) pay a premium for the machines, there are little things added into the machine that ameliorate the sting of the 20% or more price jump from buying the equivalent 'core' parts (CPU, RAM, mobo, HD, gfx card) and constructing a PC. There is, of course, the beautiful design. There's the backlit keyboard, the nice touchpad, the satisfactory speakers, the nice HD monitor, microphone and video camera built-in etc. All of this could be added to a PC, certainly, but it would _be a pain_.

I can develop software on my Mac easily, and I can crunch Mathematica equations through it. I can communicate with everyone I need to (Tweetie, iChat, X-Chat Aqua, Mail) and I can view the web using either Safari or Firefox (depending on which one starts up the fastest) just fine.

So can a PC user, the difference here being that my time and peace of mind is worth a one-time 20% premium.

You can configure and reboot and rebuild and repair your screwdriver. I've done that. My screwdriver works without a hitch.

Plus, I've got *nix.

Isaac on August 12, 2009 1:58 PM

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