Editorial

Posted on 20 Nov 2002 at 12:13

 

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A couple of evenings ago, I had the great pleasure of doing a complete reinstallation of my system, backing up everything and restoring it. I've done this process many times in the dim and distant past, under Mac OS 9, but this was the first time I'd done it since installing Mac OS X.

I needed to perform a complete reinstall because I was having a problem with my Mac. The problem wasn't that bad - certainly nowhere near as bad as I used to face with OS 9. But iTunes had stopped working, and no matter how many times I reinstalled the application, it wouldn't work. I could, of course, have scoured the online forums and probably found a solution, but I didn't have time. I'd just downloaded a couple of books from Audible.com and desperately wanted to listen to them.

So it was necessary to completely wipe the disks and reinstall everything. It was actually much easier than I'd expected, as I simply backed up the contents of my home directory and copied it back later.

However, the first thing I had to do was set up the Finder exactly how I like it. Graphite colour scheme, olive green desktop background, Dock at the bottom and sound off. Then there were application preferences: iChat, for example, has to open its list of contacts on the right. All this probably added an extra hour to what was initially a relatively quick process.

But it was the task of ironing out the details that took this machine from being a Mac to being MY Mac. The details mattered, and that led me to think about why the Mac matters, and what makes people Mac users.
Some people use Macs because of the applications. For video production work, for example, the revelation that you can use an £8000 Mac with Final Cut Pro to do 95% of what previously required a £60,000 Avid system is astounding. But if the application ran on Intel hardware, video producers would probably gravitate towards that platform.

For many users, though,the applications aren't as important as other aspects. Photoshop runs merrily enough on Windows, as does almost every other application not owned by Apple. Instead, people use the Mac for the same reason that I spend so long fiddling to get my Mac looking just right - they care about the details. When I look at the screen under OS X, it's attention to details that draws me in. When you use a Mac, you can see that a large number of people have lavished attention on aspects that most other companies would leave to one side.

The Mac is all about caring about the details, thinking that the small things matter. And, as I care about the details too, that's why I'll always use a Mac.