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Style Over Substance?
Wednesday, January 12th, 2005 01:26 amI've never been a Macintosh fan, for the simple reason that I've never been able to afford one, unless you count the gabardine I wore when I was in primary school, an article of clothing that seemed to be designed to make little boys unattractive to dirty old men by making them look like dirty, small old men. Nevertheless, there are many impressive things about this company's products, foremost of which is that they look a lot better than their namesake. Macs are extremely stylish, and I'm sure their recently-unveiled Mac Mini, despite a name that makes it seem like a small hamburger, will be very nice.
On the other hand, many wonder if Macintosh represents the triumph of style over substance. I can't comment on this, since my budget doesn't even run to an iPod (well I suppose it would if I considered mobile music to be an indispensable part of my life, but I pretty much gave up on that in the days of Walkmans - walking around in Turkey, you really need all your senses to be on-task). However, I can definitely say that Steve Jobs' language is an analogue of everything people secretly fear about anything coming out of Macintosh. Remember "the world's fastest computer" spiel (meaning "fastest if you measure it in the right way, doing the right things")? Now we have the following gem explaining why iPods don't have a digital display so that you can do things like find the music you want to listen to: "iPod users discovered a new way to listen to their music...shuffle. With shuffle you don't have to find your music; it's shuffled up for you." Shuffling does the same thing with your playlist that it does to a deck of cards. So I'm looking for "Blues in C#" and press the shuffle button. I get a random song, and this helps me find "Blues in C#" ... how?
I await comments from outraged Mac Lovers*, who will probably tell me that any device made by Macintosh must be omniscient, so if I get "All Along the Watchtower" instead of "Blues in C#", it means that what I really wanted to listen to was "All Along the Watchtower".
* Note that that is two words, and that the first one has an "a" in the middle. A "McLover" is probably a very large hamburger that two people can eat at the same time, thus enjoying the romantic experience of dribbling ketchup and mayonnaise over each other's faces.
On the other hand, many wonder if Macintosh represents the triumph of style over substance. I can't comment on this, since my budget doesn't even run to an iPod (well I suppose it would if I considered mobile music to be an indispensable part of my life, but I pretty much gave up on that in the days of Walkmans - walking around in Turkey, you really need all your senses to be on-task). However, I can definitely say that Steve Jobs' language is an analogue of everything people secretly fear about anything coming out of Macintosh. Remember "the world's fastest computer" spiel (meaning "fastest if you measure it in the right way, doing the right things")? Now we have the following gem explaining why iPods don't have a digital display so that you can do things like find the music you want to listen to: "iPod users discovered a new way to listen to their music...shuffle. With shuffle you don't have to find your music; it's shuffled up for you." Shuffling does the same thing with your playlist that it does to a deck of cards. So I'm looking for "Blues in C#" and press the shuffle button. I get a random song, and this helps me find "Blues in C#" ... how?
I await comments from outraged Mac Lovers*, who will probably tell me that any device made by Macintosh must be omniscient, so if I get "All Along the Watchtower" instead of "Blues in C#", it means that what I really wanted to listen to was "All Along the Watchtower".
* Note that that is two words, and that the first one has an "a" in the middle. A "McLover" is probably a very large hamburger that two people can eat at the same time, thus enjoying the romantic experience of dribbling ketchup and mayonnaise over each other's faces.
