The "Game"
For years I've been asking myself "why are people still purchasing windows machines?" myself knowing how superior they perform as personal computers it's baffling.
I think I've come closer to the answer… windows users like playing games, very complex, puzzling to the extent of frustrating… games… like a crossword puzzle.
Let me explain.
My mother has envied my Macbook for years and I had talked up the Mac enough that she finally broke down and had me buy one for her. I picked up a Macbook for her and figured I'd be a good son and set it up for her. I go to do so and quickly realize, unlike my days in the windows world, there was little "setting up" to do. So I ran software update that way I could at least feel like I did something.
Then when showing my Mom how to use the Mac I realized… there wasn't much "showing to do". Once she was on the web browser it didn't matter what was "around" the browser… as long as the browser worked without flaw by all means my mom was already a master of the mac. So I twiddled my thumbs.
The Mac is like a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, ready for you to do with it whatever you choose… and for some that can be intimidating, paralyzingly so.
Windows is like a sheet of paper with a tic tac toe grid and one x already drawn, always ready to be played… this is comforting because even if you do not have a task to perform with the paper and pencil you can burn time by playing the game.
So if Mac is "the absence" and Windows is "the game" what is it that is absent from Mac, what is this game that is Windows?
The game could be called "The defragging anti-viral registry cleaning pop-up blocking trojan horse riding Hero and his conquest of Windows".
While many Windows users claim they are frustrated with the annoyances that plague the Windows world (like viruses and all to often system maintenance tasks) I'm not so sure this is true. In fact I'm beginning to realize that they love it!
I'm not saying this satirically or sarcastically, but literally.
Windows users never have to stare at a blank piece of paper. The Windows operating system, with it's myriad of "upkeep" tasks ensure one is never left to his/her own imagination but instead be enticed to play "The Game".
I'm guessing most Mac users have Google as their homepage and that's comfortable for them… it's sparse and ready to be commended to do whatever one so choose.
But most windows users probably have a portal as their homepage, like Yahoo or AOL. Portal sites do not require a catalytic action on the part of the user, the user instead is provoked to act in a predictable fashion: read this article, watch this video, read this email. Always a tic tac toe game with one "x" already marked… enticing you to strategically mark an "o".
In conclusion
There may always be a place for a personal computing design that implies a user act on it instead of just acting with it. Windows user today are going to begin to make a new statement with their choice to continue to use Windows (wether they like it or not). The statement?… "I like the old days when a guy would take care of his computer, clean it of viruses, defragment it's hard drive… it just made you feel good when you knew your's would run better because you took better care of it".
If you have things to do with your computer… get a Mac. If you have time to indulge yourself with games there will always be a cheap Windows machine waiting for you.
post script: technology inevitably dematerializes, loses it's weight and gravity… eventually it becomes ambient: everywhere and nowhere. Google Chrome OS is the eventuality of this movement… an operating system that is essentially a web browser running on lightweight silicon and nothing more. With less becoming less we return to nothing, and we return to a childlike state of curiosity of "what could be". Make no mistake I like seeing people switch to the Mac but my awareness campaign will be over before began as the new choice will be of "which browser" not "which computer".