I don’t care care about your race, your religion, your nationality, your sexuality, your age, your gender, your abilities or your height. But I do care about your operating system. Contrast is a Mac only company.
Category A and Category B
When choosing an operating system, one’s options are bare: Windows, Linux or Mac. But I think that these preferences fall neatly into two categories; A and B.
Category A represents the Windows and the Linux users. Category A people are left-brained; they like features and specifications and they like to look at the parts of a system and use these to weight their choice logic (”the MacBook Air has no ethernet port, my machine has two”).
Category B represents the Mac users. Category B people are right-brained; they like subjective, emotional, holistic qualities like elegance, simplicity and aesthetics and they look at the whole —the big picture—to make their choices (”I haven’t used an Ethernet post since 1984, one less hole in my device makes me happy”).
Love the man, not the Mac
Contrast is a right-brained company and as such, needs right-brained people. I don’t really give a damn what operating system a person uses, but if I’m looking for people with right-brained qualities, the choice of a Mac is very telling.
29 Comments
How about a Mac running Windows XP ?
Posted by Gordon at 9:18 am on 14 February, 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyHu9-IUB4k
Posted by Lar at 9:19 am on 14 February, 2008.
If I was in the market for a new website I would be looking for a company that professed that their people used their whole brain, not just half of it. This MAC v PC argument is sooooo old!!! Get over it.
Posted by Heidi Jermyn at 9:33 am on 14 February, 2008.
Amen to that!
Posted by aido at 9:38 am on 14 February, 2008.
I agree, the less holes in your device the better…
Posted by Stewart Curry at 9:43 am on 14 February, 2008.
Great how there is a simspons quote for all ocasions “And you, sir, are worse than Hitler” they meant it to be about apple
http://dwipal.blogspot.com/2006/03/is-apple-more-evil-than-microsoft.html
Posted by Patrick at 10:08 am on 14 February, 2008.
don’t sit on the fence there.
I don’t think it makes much of difference. I appreciate the beauty of the mac but its a pain to move from windows as I’m so used to it and it doesn’t get in my way at the moment. Also when i was choosing my first computer, mac didn’t let me play my favorite games as a 16 year old.
Posted by Derek Organ at 10:19 am on 14 February, 2008.
Eoghan doesn’t sit on fences, for fear of getting an extra hole in his device.
Posted by Stewart Curry at 10:33 am on 14 February, 2008.
No better link bait the a mac v pc discussion
I am happy with my pc. To be honest I spend so much time in particular applications its hard to tell what OS is being used.
Posted by Alan O'Rourke at 11:01 am on 14 February, 2008.
It’s a bit of a sweeping generalistation to pigeonhole Windows users as being left-brained or unaesthetic. Some of the best Web designers I know (in fact, I would say most of the best that I know) still use Windows. Maybe I’m not a typical case but I can only speak from experience.
Having said that, I can see more and more people moving across to Mac as time goes on, myself included. While I’ve had very few serious problems with Windows over the years, Vista simply doesn’t appeal to me. I find myself now looking for a faster, simpler OS with better productivity tools. If OSX can offer that, then I may well upgrade in the near future. If not, I’ll have to find something else.
Posted by Ken Stanley at 11:39 am on 14 February, 2008.
What a load of nonsense
Posted by Michael Flanagan at 11:54 am on 14 February, 2008.
Sensesionalism is great fun
Posted by Derek Organ at 11:56 am on 14 February, 2008.
Sensationalism even opps.
Posted by Derek Organ at 11:56 am on 14 February, 2008.
Hmm.. there is of course price. I just got a laptop, after my initial plan to get a Dell Linux box fell through due to Dell customer support being pants, I seriously thought whether a Mac would be good. I wanted a machine for coding, developing websites and other experiments so a windows box was right out, but Macs have a decent Os.
It’s just paying an extra £200 for the shiny box did put me off. If i’d had the budget i might have gone for it but no.
I guess I’m, by your definition, left brained, despite being left handed, hmmm.
Posted by Simon Proctor at 12:05 pm on 14 February, 2008.
Eoghan, I’d say there are a good few of Col A who will put corn on the table. Col B people usually have litte or no ‘loot’
Posted by Brian at 12:06 pm on 14 February, 2008.
If you’re going to use pop psychology and overloaded definitions of “simple” to draw arbitrary battle lines you should really try to expound your argument slightly better.
You have not made the distinction between Mac hardware and the OS, am I to understand that I can “like subjective, emotional, holistic qualities like elegance, simplicity and aesthetics” by running Linux or Vista on a MacBook Air?
I know it’s hyperbole, but if you “haven’t used an Ethernet post since 1984″, up until around 2004 or so you’d have lived a fairly network free life.
By correlating the Macintosh with the qualities you see as “right-brained” that supposedly have a monopoly on “the big picture” you’re really just demonstrating the narrowness of your definition of “the big picture”. Cf.: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/06/02/when-the-bough-breaks
By effectively reducing the qualities of the modern Macintosh to a “brand” and being partisan about it, you further the “smug-Mac-cunt” stereotype that I am loathe to accept as being a prevalent attitude among many Mac users.
Forgive me for making assumptions, but I’m guessing you’re a relatively recent Mac adopter. There’s no convert like a new convert.
BTW: at last count my MacBook Pro has 12 holes.
Posted by Anonny. C. at 1:11 pm on 14 February, 2008.
Nice comment-baiting Eoghan.
If you nail most users down, all they really want is something that works. I think the battle lines were drawn when Windows 3.11 lowered its users expectations as to what a computer could do and Mac OS5 raised them …
As one astute commenter points out, once you are immersed in an app, the OS largely becomes an irrelevance. I would add that if you are flitting from app to app, the OS becomes paramount.
I run XP, Vista, OSX Tiger and OSX Leopard on my four machines. I am, and have to be, comfortable with all of the quirks of all of the OSes. I now have a strong leaning toward Mac - I’m not sure which side my head leans toward - but the daily Mac experience is pretty much invisible where the daily Windows experience is lots of pauses and alerts and highly noticeable and irritating for that, particularly with Vista which is dire.
Posted by Rowan Manahan at 1:52 pm on 14 February, 2008.
Here is to right-brained-ism!
@ Patrick - I had the same concerns when moving to Mac but they were elated very quickly once I got my Mac(s), the changeover was simple and for any Apps I could use on the PC I found a suitable alternative for my Mac’s
While I still have a PC I have both an iBook and a Mac Mini. I believe Mac owners to be both right and left brained in that while for aesthetics and design the Mac wins time and time again it also wins functionally
I suppose my biggest criticism of Macs has got to be the cost which is significant especially if you like to get the best available at the time of your purchase
Posted by Adam at 2:52 pm on 14 February, 2008.
I use OS X primarily , but also use Ubuntu and XP machines almost daily. I’ll install Vista when I get a chance too. That last bit probably makes me “no-brained”.
I think the amount of different environments, UIs and programs I use on a regular basis helps me understand Interface Design better. So I try out everything, for the same reason I sign up to every new web application and social network. I try to soak it all in, as much as I can.
Deep, you must keep, the pool in which you steep.
Posted by Des Traynor at 3:40 pm on 14 February, 2008.
Ooooh! What next? Emacs vs. Vi? GPL vs. BSD? Monolithic vs. Microkernel? Pepsi vs. Coke? The comment/linkbating goes on!
Posted by Jam at 3:45 pm on 14 February, 2008.
Yes yes, Mac is cool. PC is lame, got it. - As I have said to many mac “cult” fanatics: Get over it!
Posted by Keith at 4:04 pm on 14 February, 2008.
I agree with Heidi and Des above…
Des—your approach represents the whole brained approach. When I argue for using a Mac I like to use the Rui Carmo argument ( hidden somewhere in here ) — that basically, I’ve weighed up all the options, and right now, OS X / Macbook Pro is the most complete balance of power / features and sheer happiness every time I open the lid.
Posted by Paul Campbell at 4:37 pm on 14 February, 2008.
Eoghan, this also maps quite well to wine.
The “Old world versus new world” debate.
Old world has all the tradition and baggage of doing stuff the way it was always done regardless of customer needs whereas the new world is unrestrained by the past and is more customer-focused and more accessible as a result.
Posted by Lar at 4:53 pm on 14 February, 2008.
That was a riveting read. It has changed my life forever.
Posted by cormac at 1:05 am on 15 February, 2008.
I like Paul’s summary. I agree with Heidi and Des, but on different points.
Re “steeping” “deep” in the “pool” of the UI; I like this approach and admit that by dismissing Windows, I’m leaving a gap in my experiences (whether that’s of good interface techniques or of bad).
Re using one’s “whole brain”; I agree completely. My focus on the right brain here is because most companies and individuals in the industry seem to lack it.
Posted by Eoghan McCabe at 11:21 am on 15 February, 2008.
I am a MSFT guy,…. some people say no brain, some say evil, and lot of other things actually. Gore is screaming about the heat, I guess MSFT is to blame as well…. Anyway, what-side-brain-man does MSFT-ism make me? Any-brain-side/side is a compliment!
Ivan
Posted by Ivan at 9:07 pm on 19 February, 2008.
I’ve started my move over to the mac world. I’d the choice of getting a new laptop with vista or going for a mac. After all the negative comments of vista I just couldn’t go for one. I’ve been setting up my development environment on the mac and been trying out what it’s like to design and develop using it (using coda for development and photoshop/fireworks for design if anyone wants to know). All going good so far but I can’t see myself ever getting rid of the pc altogether, even if it is only for gaming and testing!
Posted by David Behan at 11:09 pm on 25 February, 2008.
I have to say that type of talk utterly annoys me; I don’t care what OS somebody uses; all I care about is the results - great code, great applications - I don’t care if you use a Commodore 64 to get them, whatever works for you.
I think Keith’s comment is most apt - “Get over it”. :p
Best of luck with contrast.
Posted by Peter Coppinger at 11:25 am on 19 August, 2008.
umm, yeah I’m a mac evangelist. Err, no there aren’t 2 categories. There’s 5 or 6, probably 7, actually more. Here’s the list:
Linux GUI
Linux stripped to the core
Solaris
Windows Vista
Windows Barebones
Mobile nightmare (symbian, winCE)
OSX
The W3C HTML browser
Flash/AIR
BeOS/Haiku
Java Enterprise
And you can fit them into a jigsaw puzzle, and they often overlap. Sorry, there’s no boolean here.
Posted by da bishop at 1:16 pm on 12 September, 2008.
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