On why I use a Mac
Two weeks.
That's the mean time between someone writing that Macs are either overpriced or under-featured on some mailing list I'm on. The posters usually write that they could get a Linux box or a Windows laptop for a whole lot less than they could get Mac laptop. Once they've dismissed using a Mac as their work machine they then go on to explain why they wouldn't pay extra to buy a Mac for their family either.
Sometimes a high profile guy like James Gosling blogs about leaving the Mac for another platform. He wrote "I no longer carry a Mac laptop. As much as I love the Mac's eye candy, it really hasn't been keeping up as a developer's machine - their attention has clearly been elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Solaris folks have made huge strides in Solaris's usability on a laptop". I thought about the usability of his laptop as more than one hundred of us waited ten minutes for him to reboot (twice I think) and continue to fuss with his laptop to get his slides up on the screen at a recent developer conference.
I think Gosling, like the posters on my various mailing lists is wrong but I don't think I'll be able to change his mind any more than he'll be able to convince people that Java isn't slow. So here's the thing: Java isn't slow. But no amount of facts that Gosling or others present is going to erase the perception that it is. In fact, the research is clear that when you use negative words to make your point, those words disappear. So when you say over and over "Java is not slow" the word "not" fades in people's memories and the perception is actually reinforced instead of defeated.
Gosling doesn't think that the Mac has been keeping up as a developer's machine. I suppose that depends what kind of development you do. I pop open a terminal window and cd over to /usr/bin and see a ton of tools that seem to target me as a developer. I click a button and am running Apache. Screen sharing is presented as eye candy but it allows me to help my mom or muck around with my server no matter where I am. In fact, it allowed an Apple engineer to diagnose a subtle error that I had made from three thousand miles away. We now have Solaris' DTrace on the Mac along with a suite of performance tools (Instruments, Shark, ...) that are included for free on every machine. I could go on - but it wouldn't make a difference.
Developers complained about the one button mouse long after the issue had been resolved. The OS handled a multiple button mouse - just buy one and plug it in. The machines continued to ship with a single button mouse and that seemed to be the right decision. I watched my youngest daughter struggle with the two button mouse while my eldest daughter loved it. So each of them had their own mice for using the iMac downstairs. My mom never got the hang of the two button mouse. She would click the "wrong" button and get unfamiliar options and wonder what the machine had done wrong. For her, the one button mouse was perfect. So I looked and saw a great compromise - build a machine that can handle as many buttons as you throw at it but ship a one button mouse standard.
I once ran a workshop at OOPSLA where we set up a network of Macs in a matter of minutes using Bonjour. I hosted a wiki and a subversion repository off of my laptop and the others began contributing code and working together in deep ways without a lot of time spent configuring.
I could go on and on, but I wouldn't convince you. I probably wouldn't convince myself if I were in your shoes. No amount of telling me that most everything I need is already installed and QA'd would convince me. So here's another story. For this we need to go back longer.
Two years and two months.
That's when I unwrapped the new iMac and set it up for my wife and daughters. I set up logins - one for me and one for each of them. I started to show them something and Maggie, then nine, said "I know already."
She opened up Photo booth and started taking pictures of her and her sister Elena posing. "How could you know about Photo booth", I asked, "you've never seen it before. You've never had a machine with a camera on it before."
"Dad," Maggie rolled her eyes, "it's a Mac. It's just obvious."
And it was. Over those next two months Maggie made movies starring herself, her sister, and their friends. Whenever someone would come over, Maggie would take them in the computer room and have them do something for the camera that she could put into a movie.
And that is the only way that we have movies of Elena's last two months of life. Two years ago today, Elena lost a tooth. Kim and I figured we'd take her picture in the morning. But she woke up with a little fever and so we never got around to it. The tooth fairy had placed a dollar under Elena's pillow - for her it was the most perfect dollar ever.
Later, much later, Kim said "we never even got a picture of her with the missing tooth".
Maggie said, "Oh I did mom." And there in iPhoto was the most perfect picture of Elena wearing a big floppy hat and a big smile with a gap where her tooth had been.
I'm sure when you're an Apple engineer heads down in a room grinding out code you can lose sight of the people you are building these products for. You could. I'm just glad you don't. I'm grateful to every Apple engineer who took the time to make this machine powerful enough or me to use every day and easy enough for my daughters to do everything they can dream of doing.
Why do I use a Mac? I can't imagine that I would have these memories of the last two months of Elena's life if we used anything else. That may not convince you either. But tomorrow is the second anniversary of my little girl's death and I will have movies to watch and pictures to look at. So hard to believe.
Two years.
Categories
Mac
Comments (14)
Read More Entries by Daniel H. Steinberg.
I also loves my mac - nice article.
Thank you for the informations!
I really am saddened that you went through the loss of a child. I am heartened to know that you were able to catch lots of seemingly insignificant moments in the final two months of her life that turn up to be true treasures. I bought a mac three years ago. I have in total bought about 4 macs (two macbook pro's and two macbooks). In the end, they end up getting sold because I am more efficient and work better on a Windows box. Macs are nice, but in many ways I feel limited by them. I keep WANTING to love a mac.... I do like the hardware... when they work properly. However, I end up going back to Windows. Maybe I'm the exception and I don't mind being the exception, but I never have the problems everyone else complains about - reboots, virus, etc. My boxes have always been rock solid.
Oh my. My heart weeps. Thank you for sharing. I wish you well.
I am lucky. My dad bought the very first mac (an Apple Classic) and even though it had to catch up with the typing we could all recognize the interface as being strangely human. I distinctly remember us meeting this machine for the first time. A little face and it invited you to play and try it out.
This human element has its roots in an awareness that we are here to contribute to each other, not to get caught up on the technology for its own sake. People that "love" pcs are either hardcore gamers or they just love to tinker and eat very little.
Mac people aren't really hung up on the machine. They produce stuff and connect with people more readily.
There is an classic old Mac ad that goes: "Its not the power of the computer but the power it gives you"
I concur. And by the way, I am very sorry that you have had to endure the loss of a child. This is a very hard thing. Take care.
Sure Java runs slow on the Mac. It does on Windows as well. But let me assure you as a full time developer building both desktop and web apps the Mac is the only thing I would build anything with these days.
And that is after working on Windows and *Nix for 10 years before coming to my senses.
not so brilliant it brought tears to my eyes.
no thanks.
Mr. Steinberg. Thank you for sharing. I hope that it helped you to somehow cope through this terrible anniversary. I echo your opinion that Macs are somehow both powerful and simple, allowing important moments to be captured by every member of your family. Especially when you don't know how important they are.
It is incomplete to mention Gosling's switch without mentioning that fact that Apple's progress on the Java 6 VM has been abysmal. It would seem likely that the "Father of Java" might be upset that he can't play with the latest Java. This obvious clash of interests really undermines his use an example of Apple-defection (or "switchbackers"?).
Still, there are more like him. Myself being a case in point. I switched to Mac while doing enterprise development, most of which is done in Java. Most of the applications in the enterprise are several orders of magnitude more complicated than some Web 2.0 mini-app like Twitter. While Ruby and Python are hugely popular with enterprise developers, in practice they are never used on any of the revenue-generating apps. And as the enterprise makes heavy use of client-side application programming, you're really down to Java or .NET.
So Apple has Java to thank for me joining the Apple camp. And when I switched, my decision influenced a few friends, my girlfriend and my family. I'd say I've taken 10 people with me. This leveraging effect of tech-savvy people is often under-estimated, particularly by Apple. According to Sun, there are 5 million Java programmers out there. If each one of them influences 5 people around them they represent 25 million users. That's twice the number of Mac users worldwide.
Apple's recent behaviour with Java 6 (mostly the lack of communication) has totally changed my sentiment. I used to like Apple the company, but I'm inclined to think they've recently surpassed Microsoft as the new manifestation of evil in software. But as much as I hate Apple the company, I love my Mac and OS X. And I'd sooner work in Parallels than give up my Mac and return the retro days of Windows. But others, such as Gosling, are not that forgiving. Java is not dead in the same way as the enterprise is not dead. And the VM will be around forever.
To summarise: I agree with you that people who bash the Mac platform on the basis of cost don't know what they're talking about. But I understand why Gosling left and if I didn't love my Mac as much I'd be joining him with a grateful conscience.
man, this post brought tears into my eyes. being a father myself i can't even begin to imagine what would it feel like to lose a child. i just can't. my heart goes out to you and your family. RIP, Elena.
as for Macs? i learned to ignore people who claim that macs are not good enough.
they have never used them, of if they did, not even close to their potential. have to admit, around OS7 days, i switched to linux and swore that i will NEVER EVER touch another Mac. Oh boy, was i wrong. Its been almost 3 years since i switched from Linux back to a Mac and seems to me this is the last time i switched to another OS and/or anothother hardware architecture.
I wish you and your family long years and great health.
Good luck and THANK YOU for opening up your heart!
Daniel,
It was very generous of you to share this story.
Thank you for being so honest.
Peace to you, your family, and Elena,
A
Java isn't slow. It's elephantine UI libraries are (and ugly to boot). From the end-user perspective there is no difference. Apple is deprecating Java for a reason - Java is a dead-end for desktop development, scripting languages like Python or Ruby best it handily, with much higher development productivity. Half the Internet traffic is BitTorrent, and the original BitTorrent app on OS X was written in Python. Obviously, a platform tha Java is deprecated on will not be of much use for the father of Java.
There are others like Mark Pilgrom who are switching from the Mac to Ubuntu due to questions of principle about openness and DRM.
That said, OS X can run pretty much anything that will run on Linux, so it'has the best of both proprietary (Photoshop) and open-source worlds.
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