Monday, April 11, 2011

Apple fan or elegance fan?

David Pogue said it already over ten years ago: people asked him why he is such an Apple fan. He thought it over and said words to the effect of: "I'm not really. I'm a fan of elegance. The moment somebody else makes a product which is more elegant and fun than Apple's, I'm there." 

Couldn't have said it better. (Well, maybe I did, I couldn't find the original article so I wrote from memory.)

I'm not an Apple fanboy. I have three machines running windows, I have a Dell Streak, I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7-inch. They are all pretty good products. But they just don't have the same elegance and fun and beauty that Apple products have.

What makes this so incredible is that nobody comes even close to beating Apple in this. It's just so unlikely that our minds reject it and we begin to think that it must be "Apple Cool-Aid" or something which attracts people. It's just too big a thing to think that they consistently are running circles around everybody else in the user-experience arena, it doesn't compute.

I mean, have you held one of the new MacBook Airs? They are stunning. I've never seen anything come close to the beauty, the simplicity, the elegance, of these machines, and all done without sacrificing any power or usability (unlike pretty much all other small laptops). Amazing. 

Heck, I don't know why or how this is done, or how long it will last. But I don't see why I should punish myself and use inferior products just to prove that I'm no fanboy. Masochism is for suckers and tech writers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've used Apple products since 1979 and worked for them 11 years. Having spent 30 years being called a fan boy - your article articulates exactly why. I think companies have a soul, and elegance is at the core of Apple's.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Ah, thank you.