Macintosh brethren.

Sit, please, and hear me not as an OSX user, but as your Apple-loving brother.

The war is over, and the battle for the heart and soul of the Macintosh has been won by the NeXT team. OSX is here to stay, and nothing will turn it around. You cannot settle for anything (crap or not) when there is no choice.

I reached this conclusion many years ago, when my beloved BeOS was passed over by Gil Amelio and company in favor of NeXT. It is a hard realization. But today I am content, for OSX serves me well.

For you, the Macintosh faithful that stayed when I bailed to BeOS and who now are unsatisfied with OSX, this is your time. But not to fight, not to voice your frustration, not to battle for the heart and soul of the Macintosh but to preserve the heart and soul of the Macintosh.

Everyone's attention is on OSX. Every day, more content channels for Classic information are closed. MacOSRumors will probably never have a pre-OSX item again. The news channels are drying up. Apple has moved on, and in their wake I fear they are going to leave you yelling at the top of your lungs in a desert.

Plant now. Vector this love, this passion, into something that can stand as a beacon for those who love Apple's past. There are precious few Apple II sites of note these days, the classic Macintosh with its longer life deserves better.

I'm watching BeOS sites dry up daily. When BeBits dies, the show is over. Fortunately, VersionTracker will always serve software needs. But there are numerous thousands of more MacOS users than there are BeOS users. Build their site. Bring them home.

If there is one thing that everyone on this forum shares it is passion. Perhaps some of you just have a passion for provoking arguments and dischord. I'd like to think not. I like to think that all of you are just as passionate about MacOS as I was about BeOS. As I am about OSX.

Channel this passion. Directing it at Apple, or those who have migrated and are happy or those new to the OS will rarely change anything. Meanwhile, those sites keep drying up.

Thalo.net could be many things. Will it be a place to fight a fight that in so many ways is already lost, or to preserve and protect that which you hold dear? I have to think that from all the work everyone here puts into their thoughts that something truly great could be built to maintain a testament to a piece of computing history.

Will you answer this call?

I don't think anyone here is necessarily battling for, or bemoaning, the loss of the Classic OS. What they are passionate about is the ideas that were the foundation of the classic OS: consistent design, ease of use, logical, yet profoundly human, construction, and, above all, elevation of use for everyone, not just the elite.

For me, I find OSX serves me much better than the previous classic version of the Mac OS. Its capabilities more suit the modern nature of what I do and extend my possibilities by an order of magnitude. However, there is a part of OSX that deviates from the original core set of ideas about how an OS should be designed for use by everyday people. Has OSX taken the previous ideas of the CLI and GUI and raised the bar for their implementation? Not yet. I think OSX has added much needed features, but, as yet, has not taken either paradigm beyond what has come before.

This website is a call for excellence. Those who do not get that will misinterpret its tack. Will you answer that call?

I'm watching BeOS sites dry up daily. When BeBits dies, the show is over. Fortunately, VersionTracker will always serve software needs

Kurt, this isn't about OS 9, the code, drying up and withering away. It's not about hanging onto the charm of cooperative multitasking as opposed to better technologies. Thalo's line is that he couldn't care less if the kernel was made of creamed corn as long as it gets the job done. I might differ with him a bit on this, but the point is we're not of the mind that "you can take OS 9 from us when you pry it from my cold, dead hands." We don't want to start some club, like the Be advocates, and get together once a year in Miami to share our latest home-made programs. What this about is deeper than that. Much deeper.

It's about preserving, protecting and defending something that the Macintosh once stood for, that it once excelled in; and that something was the user interface and the whole paradigm of the computer and how it related to the user. Is the user considered a mark and a chump to be titillated with useless eye candy, con-man marketeering and false slogans, or is the computer to be made so that it asks a simple question: "How can I help you help yourself do something extraordinary?"

Much, if not all, of this ethos was wrapped up in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines, guidelines that are now mocked and trashed in the guise of the "Aqua Human Interface Guidelines." Apple used to be a company that was more of a straight shooter. Oh, they had their hype, their image, their slogans and hero-worship. But they could get away with that because they had a solid product behind them. The product prospered almost despite some of this silliness. Now we have Apple the company that I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them. The reign of Jobs II has been a reign of BS, promises, diversions, more BS, and still more BS.

I don't give a rat's if NeXT is underneath all this. But I do care if the NeXT ethos of down-talking and form over function is underneath all this and I see nothing BUT their influence in OS X. "Here, have your icons on the Desktop if you MUST litter it." Sheesh. What condescending crap from the Leader himself.

We want the heart and sole of the Macintosh returned. As far as the parentage of the bits and bits, I guess it doesn't matter all that much. NeXT, Be, OS 9, Copland, whatever. Make it work. Make it elegant. Make it simple. Make it powerful. Make it streamlined. And they'd better make it soon because time is running out. I can vouch for the fact that XP is a better replacement for OS 9 than OS X is. That has to change.

Oh, I suppose we could all rally 'round the ol' Mac, no matter what, as if it was our favorite baseball team. We could be like Cubs fans and love the team no matter what. But that is ignoring the marketplace. That is Apple's #1 mistake these past two years. They think their own shit doesn’t stink. They think they can just present any image, any BS claim, and people will eat it up. Part of the problem – probably the BIGGEST problem – is that too many Mac users do. And what has it gotten us? What has this so-called loyalty to the platform gotten us? Notta. Zip. Zilch. Mac sales are tanking as is the OS X adoption rate. Yes, now is the time to rally, but not around "our Macintosh, right or wrong". Now is the time to rally around those principles that made the original Macintosh such a success. Apple has forgotten those things. Thalo.net will remind them.

quote:

---

Now is the time to rally around those principles that made the original Macintosh such a success.

---

I don't mean to be harsh, but you "graphics pros" never delivered greater than single digit market share to Apple. That's not success. And maybe that's why Apple is "abandonong their core users." Maybe their "core users" just couldn't keep the bills paid.

[This message was edited by mneptok on Sat May 31 2003 at 11:27 AM.]

What the hell was that lecture about?

From what I can tell, if there was any sense to it at all, the writer appears to believe that folks who are not satisfied with OS X must be pining away for--what? OS 9? Something.

To my mind, since the announcement in 1997 that the Mac OS was going to be replaced it was a doomed OS just barely maintained enough to keep it limping along. After five years the result was not pretty. What a shambled, disjointed collection odds and ends. What kind of a dim-wit would believe that people are pining away for a junk collection that belongs in the past? Yet, here it is. The writer is trying to console us with some old tales of his disappointment with the doomed BeOS.


I believe I can guess at the thinking that goes on behind this sort of reasoning. Something like this:


1. I am pleased and satisfied with OS X

2. I have good judgement

3. If I am pleased and satisfied it must mean OS X is a superior product

4. OS X is a superior product

5. The product is fine therefore there must be some flaw in those customers who are not satisfied

6. Conclusion: The customer is flawed. They must be pining away for the old OS 9!


Or--Conclusion: The customer is flawed. They are stuck in the past

Or--Conclusion: They are afraid of change

Or--Conclusion: (my favorite) They are mentally ill and deranged

Ha, ha, ha! Remember when some of the braniacs at the old OS X at MFI, using this same line of reasoning, seriously advanced their mental illness, deranged theory to explain to themselves how it was that anyone could disagree with their choice! They weren't just flaming. This stupid theory actually made sense to them and seemed to explain something to them. It was the stupid result of a stupid line of reasoning. This "they must be pining away for OS 9" theory isn't far behind it.

It's the old "the software product is fine; it's the customer that needs redesign" argument. An oldie, but a goodie!

Hows about this:

1. There exists reasonable, longtime, devoted, Macintosh customers who are not satisfied with this commercial software product for their own good and valid reasons

2. There must be a flaw or flaws in the design of this commercial product that causes dissatisfaction in some devoted Macintosh customers

3. I don't see it. I wonder what it is?


Naw, forget that! Stick with the customer must be flawed and probably deranged theory and see if you can console the poor, misguided, fools. It makes things nice and easy and isn't quite so taxing.

Or--Conclusion: (my favorite) They are mentally ill and deranged

HH, even the mentally ill and deranged need a better OS. On second thought, maybe ESPECIALLY the mentally ill and deranged need a better OS. Works either way.

Mneptok: Jeez, that was quick. What happened to all of us being "Apple-loving brothers" in your opening lecture? Now it's "you "graphics pros" never delivered." I guess these "Apple-loving brothers" don't count anymore and never did and it's just hard cheese.

That was a fast turnaround. I think I'm getting whiplash.

Brad, ooga, ooga, ooga booga. Woof, woof, woof. Yipeeeeeeeeeeeee-------------aye, aye, aye. Slobber, slobber, drool.

Get it off me! For God's sake someone get it off me!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg!!!!!!!!!!!

Sincerely yours,
HighHopes

I don't mean to be harsh, but you "graphics pros" never delivered greater than single digit market share to Apple. That's not success.

Since Jobs II, Apple's marketshare has plummeted from 6% to 2% while Apple has changed the focus from the "Pro" market to the consumer and geek ones. Geeks generally flock to Linux if they just can't stomach Microsoft and consumers are not going to pay more for slower hardware that runs less software and offers fewer choices all around. Apple is, and always will be, a niche player. Windows is too good, too predominate and PC hardware is too fast and inexpensive. The whole PC industry has economies of scale that Apple will never have and the battle between the open model of PC hardware vs. Apple's proprietary one has been decided. Apple lost. Apple had a chance to be where MS is now but they blew it. This wasn't their customers' fault.

As an aside, one might say that the worst success Apple ever had was the iMac. It didn't expand Apple's market (if it did it was just a brief bump) but Apple did sell a lot of them. They read into this that style was everything (instead of reading into it that their normal high prices were killing them AND that style is important). They read into it that the loyal core of Mac users would swallow anything. All Apple needed to do was throw them some eye candy and they would eat it up. We were chumps in their eyes. The iMac proved it. Their cynicism and arrogance began to grow by leaps and bounds because of this and helped lead them to where they are now. It lead them to hubris and beyond.

Imagine if BMW or Mercedes woke up one day and said "We're only a bit player with just 2% of the market! We must be doing something terribly wrong. Let's design slow, expensive cars for the middle-to-bottom earners so we can tear the heart out of Nissan, Ford and Hyundai!" While they may certainly have been capable of using their expertise to produce an inexpensive car that was still of amazingly high quality, they instead get lazy and cynical. They buy the chassis from Hyundai, the engines from Evinrude, weigh it down with a body by Fischer-Price with fins that would be the envy of any 50's collector, and then market it as "The quality and style of BMW with the economy of a Honda." But it is neither. They lose their focus on what they do best and wind up not only losing their current cash-cow customers who buy a new model every couple years but because they have no clue about what it takes to break into the low-cost, high-quality car market they start to lose money and lose marketshare. And then they deny it. To them creating something is only about fooling people, about creating the right image or perception. Their cynicism starts to show through. They bury their luxury models with a little mock funeral: "Our old customers may still be driving luxury automobiles but those cars are now dead to you." They're so enamored with the idea that they can do anything, that people are just marks, that style is everything and substance means nothing, that a little promotion, a little advertising here and there, a few good spin doctors, a few press releases, and a few on-stage demonstrations will do the trick. This is what you get from people who are completely top-down "let them eat cake" thinkers.

If Apple wants to broaden their appeal then they need to take the BEST of what they do and put it in a less expensive package while maintaining and embracing their current customers. Viewing their current customers as an impediment is about as self-destructive as you can get.

Kurt:

quote:

---

Will it be a place to fight a fight that in so many ways is already lost, or to preserve and protect that which you hold dear?...

...I have to think that from all the work everyone here puts into their thoughts that something truly great could be built to maintain a testament to a piece of computing history.

---

Hey folks, I just heard about this rad new program on usenet. It's called reedit or resdit or something, and they say you can change your menus with it to, like to whatever you want! If any body has a copy or some thing, send me a floppy, ok?

I'm not sure how Kurt's quote relates to ResEdit (2.1.3 is the version I have), but it exists at least for OS 9 and earlier.

quote:

---

Originally spasmed by HighHopes:
Brad, ooga, ooga, ooga booga. Woof, woof, woof. Yipeeeeeeeeeeeee-------------aye, aye, aye. Slobber, slobber, drool.

Get it off me! For God's sake someone get it off me!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhg!!!!!!!!!!!

---

You're definitely a Linux guy.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Brad Nelson:
I'm not sure how Kurt's quote relates to ResEdit (2.1.3 is the version I have), but it exists at least for OS 9 and earlier.

---

I think I was trying to demonstrate - perhaps with excess sarcasm (I'll do that sometimes) - what Kurt was suggesting this site become.

Zoooom. Right over my head. In the future, Harv, could you, in some type of small box in the lower right hand corner, put a talking-head translator for the sarcasm impaired?

quote:

---

Zoooom. Right over my head. In the future, Harv, could you, in some type of small box in the lower right hand corner, put a talking-head translator for the sarcasm impaired?

---

Oh, wow, GREAT idea, Brad!



This reply optimized for the sarcasm impaired.

Wow, this flow of sarcastic creativity (that was sarcasm, wasn't it?) is bringing a tear of joy to my eye. Great stuff, 9-point-5.

You're definitely a Linux guy.


I'm not fooled! The pills they give me here at the home are really miniature radio transmitters that beam voices into my head from the forces that reside on the comet Hal-Biddley-Bop.

They think I don't know, but I do I tell ya, I do, hee, hee hee, haw, haw hee, hee. I'm on to them! I read all about it in the repressed Biblical book---the book THEY don't want you to know about---the Book of Fred. You can know the truth for yourself. It's all true!!! It's on the Internet. Absolute truth!! On the Internet I tell ya.!!! If you don't believe me look for yourself. It's at <www.iamacrackpot.org>. Fred's the one with the parrot on his shoulder.

Quick! I have to go. I'm all alone here and--------

Be quiet! Just shutup for once, I'm trying to write a post---Ahhhhhhhhhhg, Oh lord, someone help me, please help me.

Got to hold steady. Help is coming. A new treatment! I have a technical question about it though. Does anyone know what an electrode is??


Just shutup!! Stop!! Stop!


Yes, Biddley-Bop. I will save their souls by killing them all with the sacred frozen salami.

Yes, Biddley-Bop. More instructions. Yes I will. I must open the hallowed Terminal Program to receive them. Yes...... Steve, huh? Mine's HighHopes.

quote:

---

Originally posted by mneptok:
The war is over, and the battle for the heart and soul of the Macintosh has been won by the NeXT team. OSX is here to stay, and nothing will turn it around. You cannot settle for anything (crap or not) when there is no choice.

---

Oh man, I've been putting off responding to this one by brother Kurt, because there's just so much wrong with it. So many of the typical X-Man assumptions. Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely THRILLED to have Kurt here. This is the kind of thing I live for, it's just that there's so much to set straight.

Let's start with the main thrust of the subtext: which to paraphrase would have to go something like: "give it up, the war is over. OS X is here to stay" Built into that is a grand misconception that anyone who dares be critical of OS X, has gotta be about turning back the clock, wanting to force Apple to return to OS 9, and scrap OS X.

Brother mithradites responded perfectly to this here:

quote:

---

I don't think anyone here is necessarily battling for, or bemoaning, the loss of the Classic OS. What they are passionate about is the ideas that were the foundation of the classic OS: consistent design, ease of use, logical, yet profoundly human, construction, and, above all, elevation of use for everyone, not just the elite.

---

I couldn't have said it any better. For my part, I have NEVER been about halting OS X. I've been about MAKING SURE that it surpasses OS 9 in every possible way. This fight is not about putting a STOP to OS X. It's about putting a stop to crap.

This debate, at its core, has always been about quality. There wouldn't even BE a debate, if OS X lived up to any reasonable expectations as an operating system. If it was fast, capable, intuitive, and worked... there wouldn't be a thalo. If it could get through ONE WORK DAY doing what I need it to do, I'd shut my cake hole. But the fact is, it doesn't work and is poorly designed and conceived. It's slow and bloated and breaks at the drop of a hat.

Brother Kurt makes the mistake of taking criticism personally. Of extrapolating it to an archimedian point that isn't there: namely "well, if they hate OS X as it is now, that means they are denying it categorically." Like fundamentalist muslims denying the existence of Israel.

That just ain't so. And let me say that this is DEFINITELY a battle. And it most certainly isn't lost. The heart and soul of the Mac is in jeopardy. Not because there IS an OS X. Not because there is a chance it isn't the future, it is. But because it's BAD. Worse, it's MEDIOCRE.

And from whence comes its mediocrity? Sacrifice of the one thing it always had in the legacy: quality of interface. Smart, streamlined access to functionality through a graphical user interface. That's the war. It's not OS X vs. OS 9. It's crap vs. quality. I want to see QUALITY come to OS X. OS 9 is merely a benchmark of a quality GUI. Something we hold up to the new software and make comparison/contrasts with.

I'm always amused at brother Kurt's apparent fear about what this site will become. Some of that old impulse to frame and control shows itself here. Trying to paint THALO.net as a lost cause is a symptom of a huge festering dysfunction in the Mac community: crap-settling. It's so easy to dismiss us as voices in the wilderness decrying the loss of our beloved legacy. A legacy that will never come back. Well nuts to that. In fact, many of the IDEAS in the legacy that made OS 9 great, are still included to a degree in its successor. Trouble is, they're buried under yards of crap. There's other issues and intents polluting them.

Kurt would rather see us as kind of a fan-club of Ancient Mac History. A sort of OS9 preservation society. That would be much easier for him to swallow. It's much tougher for him to see us as an important faction of the user base, who may be the last major hedge against the dumbing down of the Mac and the overall degradation of quality.

It's tougher to see us as as a bunch of guys who aren't afraid to call a spade a spade, which is closer to the truth of what THALO.net is about. Not being afraid to pipe up and say, "hey wait, this software is crap..." and discuss what's wrong with it, and ways to make it better.

I don't use OS 9 because I fear the future. I use it because OS X is not up to the task. And it desperately needs to be. And I believe it can be. ALL that needs to happen is a return to an emphasis on quality. Instead of designing the Operating System AROUND casual use and passive entertainment and lack of sophistication for marketing ends; it makes more sense to design it around the way people actually work. Then ALL the casual use stuff can coexist with any other level of use. This was something Apple USED TO DO superbly. Now they've caved. Sold out. So now it's a battle to get that intelligence and sophistication and ease-of-use intuitiveness (not to mention speed and responsiveness and performance yadda yadda) back into the soul of the machine. So every user can benefit.

Brother Kurt uses the small percentage of graphics pro users to argue for the lack of quality that's creeping into the Mac. That's typical victim blaming. It's not the responsibility of the user base to keep Apple in business. It's Apple's business to deliver quality products.

Pro Users never gravitated to the Mac because it was difficult to use or arcane. They did so for the opposite reason. That it was the best tool for the job. Easy to use. Rapid learning curve. Intuitive access to functionality. And that's precisely the juice that can make it a premier digital hub system too. Just because an elite group of creative types flocked to the platform in droves, and "got it" first, doesn't mean that the Mac was necessarily built FOR them. It was simply a better interface. Always has been. If it wasn't, Microsoft wouldn't have ripped it off. Creative types don't want to BOTHER with interfaces. That makes us valuable in building them. We don't want to twiddle, we want to see what computers can DO. And when you load on the crap that prevents us from doing what we need to do, we're the first to bitch. We bitch because we know better. We have a clearer idea of when something is IN THE FRIGGIN' WAY OR NOT. New users are less discriminating about roadblocks thrown up in front of their workflows. They just accept them. Geek aristocrats live and breath roadblocks, they are stock and trade to them... so they're no help either.

In abandoning its core users, Apple is abandoning ALL its users. Even its potential new users. Why do I say that? Because it's clear that they are dumbing down the platform. Downlooking and downtalking. By aiming for the lowest common denominator and the geek aristocracy, to try and go after their precious market share, it's really THEY who are turning the clock back. I find it hysterically funny when people call this software new and innovative. When it's really a retread of 1970's (or before) technologies.

It's a splashy bloated eye-candy ridden interface riding on top of a beta FREEWARE core. A sham. A way to scab old diverse OpenSource stuff under a weakly conceived visual umbrella and try to repackage it for the masses. With very little actual innovation going on. Some, to be sure, but not enough. And where there IS innovation, it's all about casual use.

What I mourn, above all, is a smart GUI. It kills me to see things get stupided up. And that's what's happening. Keep in mind that that's very different from creating software that's EASY TO USE for newbies and digikids. I've always envisioned the Mac as something that ANYBODY could use. That was appropriate for a WIDE RANGE of personal computing activities. That's how you get market share.

I say unequivocally that that's not what's going on here. Mac functionality has degraded to the point where only a very narrow range of activities are allowed. And those are basically digital hub/casual use stuff... and high end geek stuff. The Mac is way less a creative tool than it used to be. OK, so it's becoming a neat music store... but it's less a computer. It's narrowing its field of focus, even more than it did when WE were the niche market. At least then, it worked well for EVERYBODY. The interface was egalitarian. There was nothing in it that said "Pro Users Only." That's what I miss. I miss the days when Apple ELEVATED the user base, worked tirelessly to help us realize our creative potential.

Now it's like we're being taken for a ride. OS X is being foisted off on us, unfinished and barely nominally working, just to keep Apple afloat. A few bells and whistles are the things that are carrying the whole platform... not the fact that the computer can be a good tool, a liberating force.

OS X, to me, is basically one big stinking ripoff. A massive missed opportunity. A lazy, half-assed, transparent grift. A test of how retarded we are. Apple Marketing's attempt to see what kind of chimps we are, how crappy and weak they can make the OS, and still sell units. There's a fundamental dishonesty to it all. A basic, gut level admission that Microsoft rules the world, and so let's dumb down our platform and lower the bar.

Sorry, but I think Apple is capable of better. I think they've just lost their way. And the way to get their chops back is to put us back on a pedestal. Make the customer always right again. Stop yanking us and trying to scam us with eye candy. Go back to lean, mean, effortless to use. Cut. the. friggin'. crap.

<< Sit, please, and hear me not as an OSX user, but as your Apple-loving brother. >>

Guess what. I'm not an Apple lover anymore. I used to be, but not anymore. Apple doesn't exist anymore. It was the victim of a hostile takeover by the boys from NeXT, who came in, substituted an alien OS, and took advantage of the blind loyalty of too many people, betraying their trust. They kept the Apple and Mac names to try to throw us off, but it's all a sham. You can paint the word "cow" on the side of a goat, but it won't moo.

Doesn't it seem that focusing on OS X like we did 2 and 3 years ago is increasingly irrelevant? It IS here to stay--or at least until Apple stops making computers because MacWorld is being held at a back table in a local Denny's. OTOH, at least there's the occasional pocket of resistance--like here--to alert people not to buy into it. Y'see, unlike thalo, I DO reject OS X. I'm not into being constructive and "making it better." It's hopeless. It will NEVER be better "enough," because the ideology behind it makes that impossible. And as "Apple's" market share continues to shrink, there's going to come a time when developers just lose interest and stop wasting their time writing for such an infinitesimal sliver of the computer world.

Remember when Jobs talked Scully into leaving Pepsi and joining Apple so he could "make a difference" instead of "selling sugar water all your life?" NOW who's selling the sugar water?

So hi, everyone!

Markle

quote:

---

Remember when Jobs talked Scully into leaving Pepsi and joining Apple so he could "make a difference" instead of "selling sugar water all your life?" NOW who's selling the sugar water?

---

Brother Markle, I'm honored to have you here, man. Thanks for joining. The band is pretty much totally back together, except for a couple of stragglers, and it feels just great.

I am totally with you about Apple betraying our trust, about it being a sham. But I also believe that once you pull aside the curtain on the Wizard of OS, and see the truth, see that the product behind it is soft and weak... that it becomes very difficult to MAINTAIN the scam.

The pro sector has bailed Apple out time and again, and we will again. Why? Because we're the slice of the user base with money, clout, intelligence, and who won't compromise quality. Sure it FEELS hopeless. But nothing is hopeless.

The reason I say this, is because code is code. Nothing is MAGIC. These days, you can get a computer to do pretty much anything you want, it's just a matter of having the wherewithall to do it. The IDEAS behind the code are what's important. And THOSE are what's in trouble now. And so it's idea-men to the rescue. The X-Critics. As long as Apple is governed by marketing slime, where everything is being crafted around weak, facile, market-driven ideas... the platform is doomed. They may scam a few digikids, and sell a lot of iPods, but there's tons of guys like me that see right through it, who KNOW Apple is screwing the pooch. And who refuse to let them. Failure is not an option. (A quick aside: the iPod is doing well, and look at the simple "Less is More" interface. It's proof exactly of what I've been talking about for over 2 years. Apple could rule the friggin' world if they merely get their shit together.)

First off, when you run a design studio on Macs, it's not easy to just up and switch to PCs. It's not just a matter of the hardware, PC hardware is cheap. Nah-ah, it's ALL the software, and it was all expensive. It's not just one license, it's multiple copies. I think of what it would take to reverse switch, and I get a weird chill and shiver of dread, like ice cubes in my ballsack. I just can't do it, no way. I'd have to hit the lottery.

Meanwhile, if I'm going to crap-settle, I can crap-settle with OS 9 and at least hold out. That's what most people in my field are doing. If you see a design studio which has totally adopted, they're bangers. Sorry, but they are. Apple highlights one on its web site. Classic example of a dilettante.

Then you have guys like me, who wanted to get a jump start on the future. We learn to use OS X inside out, brush up on our unix... trying to get an edge. And I must admit, I USE OS X. Especially in the dirty little web/geek corners of my life. But when I have to DESIGN anything, puh-leez. No hesitation. Boot into the legacy. Adobe lost me when the tools of my trade stopped working right... if they can't handle keyboard constrains and the accuracy of the tools, sorry, they're done. Back to OS 9.

Since there is no benefit to adopting OS X, since there is no software that runs better or faster on the new operating system, no font that is rendered crisper, no MP3 I can't live without in iTunes... we're at an impasse.

What's expanding in the Mac user base are users that have no money. People who don't go right out and buy four, five high end CPUs, Cinema Displays, TiBooks... plus multiple licenses of software to run on them. The pro sector may be small, but it's rich. It spends big money, not 99¢ at a time. For me personally, if I had FAITH in OS X, I'd buy some new hardware tomorrow. My G4 is beat to shit. I'd upgrade my software.

Because, however, OS X sucks the big one, and it does, I've bought zero new hardware. And I loove Apple hardware. If Cinema Displays were the size of Queen-sized beds, I'd turn one on its side and make sweet whoopie with it. I've stopped upgrading software (burned too many times. I won't even upgrade BBEdit anymore because I think they are yanking me.) It became clearly apparent to me that OS X at this stage is nothing more than a money pit. A vampire system that drinks the rich sweet lifesblood from my wallet, and gives me total squat in return. That's part of the whole con. There's a big, nasty, philosophical dysfunction over at Apple, and if we change it, we change the world for good.

That's why this fight is worth it.

I, too, reject OS X. I reject the very ideas it's founded on. They're smarmy and evil, and take advantage of people, instead of uplifting them. The preserve outmoded aristocracies, instead of liberate the creativity of individuals. And so it's time for us to evolve a Magna Carta for computer use. New ideas. New blood. A new philosophy. To bring about change, inspired by the old Apple AHIGs, founded on respect for users, instead of disdain. Personally, I say Apple gets first dibs on these ideas. Simply because they were the first ones to THINK about ideas like this. But the FIRST company to take them to heart, will dominate the industry.

But the thing to remember is that hatching the ideas is something WE can do. If they're good enough, the development will proceed like wildfire. I have utter confidence in the power of good ideas. We merely START with "Less is More"... and then pretty much any geek with a shred of talent and a sense of programming economy can do the monkeywork to realize it.

I'd say it's important to realize that that's how things work. Ideas can change the landscape quickly. Look at the first Mac in 1984. Revolutionary. 2003 and OS X? NOT revolutionary. And so it's revolutionaries to the rescue. This is software that has completely lost its way, and we're just the guys to help it find its way again.