> Apple's most valuable intangible asset isn't its patents or copyrights – it's an army of people who believe that using products from a $2.89 trillion multinational makes them members of an oppressed religious minority whose identity is coterminal with the interests of Apple's shareholders.
Maybe this was true in the era of “mac hipsters” somewhere between late 00s and early ‘10s, but I have zero idea what the article author is on about if they are talking about the current state of things.
Heavy majority of people around me use macs, and I have never noticed that vibe. Even online, it isn’t really a thing anymore for almost anyone. For most, macs are just their workhorse machines. People don’t rave about macos or anything like that, people just use it. Some number of them also have gaming PCs too, so it isn’t really even a topic of discussion. Ffs, even my mother these days uses a mac (m1 air), and she is not even really tech literate.
I remember there were those passionate “PC vs Mac” flamewars back then, but these days it feels like most just found what works for them, and anything else or what everyone else is using is not something they care about at all.
The only times i even hear people having some strong personal opinions about macs these days, they tend to come from people who don’t actually use them.
The Mac hipsters[0] are still very much around, they're just diluted. They will, however, come out of the woodwork on literally any article that makes Apple look bad.
As you noted, most people buy Apple because it works and does what they need it to do. They aren't aware of the anticompetitive bullshit Apple pulls, but they'll absolutely criticize the shit out of it if it's brought to their attention.
[0] I'm resisting the urge to call them Mac Objectivists. They program in Objectivist-C, naturally.
> I'm resisting the urge to call them Mac Objectivists. They program in Objectivist-C, naturally.
I don't know what you've seen, but as an Objective-C programmer myself, and one who knows quite a few others, we tend to be disgruntled against Apple now rather than fanbois.
I've found some still have a weird tendency to defend bad UX on apple products, even if it's obviously bothering them. I've heard similar sentiments as in the article too, especially about the app store, but it's not something people go around announcing to everyone anymore, like they used to.
If you buy a product that's more expensive, you'd be a fool if it's not superior to other products, so it's hard not to get personally invested in the idea that they are.
Every time an OS upgrade disrupts some UI paradigm or process I've got deeply ingrained into my mental model of what I do with my computers, I marvel at how my mother has kept doing her own thing without giving a fuck about _any_ computer interaction paradigm† from our Macintosh SE to her current M2 Air.
She's by far the least tech-oriented close relative I have. And she has the longest Mac-only usage and ownership streak of anyone I know in meatspace, too.
† Except for dark patterns, because even the ones that don't give a fuck about computers can be quick to notice when things change for bamboozlement reasons instead of mere vanity or tool complexity increase.
I think that's just down to the fact that she's always having to relearn the interface anyhow. I have tech illiterate family members who always manage to do whatever they intended with the device, just in the most insane ways because to them there are no conventions and habits, only whatever they figured out.
I agree with you, but at the same time I find myself having to relearn interfaces all the frigging time anyway.
I get it, I can't expect to get into "the zone" without investment into detailed and up-to-date knowledge of my current environment, and any relearning is at best merely incremental and at worst a brand new trend that is (or will become) widespread enough to be unavoidable.
But I can't stop envying the superficially "naive" stoicism of those waning generations who only wanted some kind of glorified typewriter and anything else they've got along the way is still gravy on the top.
There's less of that in the Mac space I would agree, but in the mobile space there's a large percentage of iOS users that turn their nose up at Android users.
Maybe this was true in the era of “mac hipsters” somewhere between late 00s and early ‘10s, but I have zero idea what the article author is on about if they are talking about the current state of things.
Heavy majority of people around me use macs, and I have never noticed that vibe. Even online, it isn’t really a thing anymore for almost anyone. For most, macs are just their workhorse machines. People don’t rave about macos or anything like that, people just use it. Some number of them also have gaming PCs too, so it isn’t really even a topic of discussion. Ffs, even my mother these days uses a mac (m1 air), and she is not even really tech literate.
I remember there were those passionate “PC vs Mac” flamewars back then, but these days it feels like most just found what works for them, and anything else or what everyone else is using is not something they care about at all.
The only times i even hear people having some strong personal opinions about macs these days, they tend to come from people who don’t actually use them.