Real-World Mac Buying
I was at Fry's in Sunnyvale today when I ran across a girl buying an iMac for her mother. She started asking an employee some questions so I hung out within earshot just out of curiosity.Her primary questions were:
- Is the whole computer in there?
- Why is there all this white space at the bottom, I wish I could get more screen space instead.
- Does it come with Office?
- Can Macs open Windows files?
- Can I receive faxes?
- Can it burn CDs or DVDs?
- Where are all the applications? I'm used to the Start menu.
The rep actually had correct answers for most things, but he told her there was no built-in way to receive faxes, which is wrong. Panther has fax receiving built in. The woman started to get frustrated about the lack of fax capabilities until I spoke to her.
She was also suprised that Office didn't come with the machine and that she had to pay extra. She said that Dell offers bundles and she couldn't understand why Apple and Microsoft couldn't get together on that. It wasn't a deal breaker by any means, but was just surprised.
After I started talking to her, the rep basically gave up and walked away and I told her she'd be far better off going to the Apple Store at Valley Fair or Palo Alto. She told me she had become so frustrated with Windows machines that she was going to buy a Mac for her mother and she wanted one for herself too.
A side note: the more I think about it, the more it seems the list of available applications in Mac OS X is not at all easy enough to find. Certain things are in the Dock, but you really have to know to look for the Applications folder and the nested Utilities folder to find everything. Maybe the Applications folder should at least be in the Dock or Desktop by default, but a more comprehensive UI solution is clearly needed here.
Real-World Mac Buying
Posted Dec 22, 2004 — 6 comments below
Posted Dec 22, 2004 — 6 comments below
Erik J. Barzeski — Dec 22, 04 47
I hope the Apple Store directs the young lady to the Student and Teacher edition of Office. They usually do.
Scott Stevenson — Dec 22, 04 48
Seth Roby The Amazing Llama — Dec 22, 04 49
Morgan Aldridge — Dec 23, 04 50
On the topic of Office, I tend to remind people that if they're only going to use it for home use and don't need to collaborate with Windows users, AppleWorks is still a good starting point since it can import & export Word & Excel documents. The Student/Teacher Edition of Office, as Erik mentioned, is the best deal (and actually gives you three licenses), but many retailers also have OEM bundles of Microsoft Office for only slightly more than the Student/Teacher Edition.
For customers who are not familiar with Mac OS X and are coming from Windows I offer a quick overview of what the major UI differences are, such as: the Start Menu's functionality is split between the Apple Menu & the Dock, with the Task Bar's functionality also integrated into the Dock; there is a single menu bar for all applications, which changes focus, and the current running application is designated by its own menu; the contents of My Computer are listed right on the Desktop, so "Macintosh HD" is the equivalent of the "C:" drive (and the Applications folder is located immediately inside it); and System Preferences is the equivalent of Control Panels & Setting (or whatever it's now called in XP). There are many more things I walk people through, but people seem to grasp those explanations extremely quickly and are comfortable playing with the computers nearly immediately.
I haven't been to an Apple Store, yet, as it's been a while since I made it into Boston or New York, but I imagine they have a pretty good setup for inviting people to learn about Mac OS X.
Simon Andreas Menke — Feb 14, 05 92
cratuki — Mar 10, 05 110
This doesn't address the issue directly, but reminded me of something I have which is a bit unconventional... I have the dock minimised permanently and don't use it - I have a folder of links to the apps I use come up by default in new finder windows, and whenever I want to launch something I switch to the finder and open a new window with apple+N. Not using the dock means you can't recover minimised things, but I prefer hiding to minimise so this is OK for me.