Since when did the Mac platform become the platform of conformity?
The unboxing experience is often enough of a plus to put someone in a positive frame of mind for the setup procedure, which itself is often smooth enough to get things off on the right foot. But there will be people like Bodine who insist on straying from the beaten path, clicking on the wrong things, applying their preconceived notions of how a computer should work, and establishing what other people would consider unreasonable criteria for how Apple should receive a passing or failing grade.
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It’s times like this that I feel an unaccountable sort of sympathy for countries like North Korea, that have to assign “handlers” to the tourists who come to see them, to steer them around and show them all the good stuff, and prevent them from clicking on the wrong building or torture camp.
The sole thing that attracts me to the Mac as a potential future purchase is the image of the Mac as a means to open the doors to your creativity and let your productivity run wild without being arbitrarily constrained by the limitations of the software and whims of the programmers and marketdroids and whatnot. That image, carefully cultivated, seems to be a dinosaur now. I mean, god forbid a user clicks on the wrong thing. Instead the user is expected to follow the paradigm, stop questioning why things are the way they are. Instead, they should just be satisfied by… the unboxing experience?
I just can’t accept this.
The Mac experience is like Zen. Your time spent with the Mac is a transcendant experience, a form of spiritual meditation, as you attempt to rise above your petty life and achieve satori, the universal wisdom of Steve Jobs and his way of looking at all things computer. Certainly there can only be one way of doing things, the Mac way, the Jobs way. Doing things your own way is straying from the path of wisdom.
Didn’t you know that?
Mac places a very high premium on being fashionable.
Fashion=conformity.
Which is why I know I’m better than everyone else, for only I have the courage to wear a lime gree liesure suit with combat boots and a pink cowboy hat.
…ok…not really….but when I dream….