I'm Glad My Pops Bought an iMac
My pop's a pretty sharp dude, but computers aren't his forte. Right generation, perhaps, but computers didn't interest him as much as guitars and electronics. (He's one of those guys who can repair a tube-based amp without schematics, but only figured out that you could minimize an application window without losing all the data last year.)
I finally cajoled him into getting an iMac, primarily because I was tired of trying to troubleshoot his problems over the phone. I figured a Mac would be less prone to strange cruft and crashes in the first place and easier to use overall once he got over the initial operating system shock. And so far so good, although I think he's just as impressed by the iMac's looks as he is its performance.
But two things have made his transition even easier and while they may be common knowledge to some, I thought they bore mention. First, Leopard's Screen Sharing has become super handy for me. When he can't figure out how to do something—manage one of his multiple AIM personalities in iChat, for instance, as I slowly wean him off AOL.com—I can just click his name in iChat, take over his screen, and show him what to do, all the while chatting with him via VOIP. It's so much easier than trying to have him read off what the text and options are in whatever window may be on the screen at the time. And while screen sharing isn't new at all with applications like VNC (and Microsoft's robust Remote Desktop that's built into most versions of Windows), not having to explain to him how to set up those applications in the first place has been very nice.
The thing that surprised me more, though, was Apple's One to One training program. For $100 a year, he can waltz into his local Apple store (with an appointment) and get personalized training from an Apple dork. (Up to once a week, I believe, although I think it depends on the schedule of the Apple techs.) That's insanely inexpensive (presuming they're good teachers). For the first time that I can remember, he's looking at his computer as something he might be able to learn instead of something he wrestles with.
This may all sound like a big fuzzy Mac commercial, but who cares? I'm excited that he'll be able to do all the things that we internerds take for granted, like managing photos, making music, and all the other iLife stuff that for years he thought was out of his reach.
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MY 80 year old grandfather after becoming extremely frustrated with windows. He's now managed to edit a documentry that he shot while on cattle boats in world war II. complete with audio comentary that he recorded himself. If my 80 year old grand father can learn mac os, anyone can.
Oh man... if I could get my parents on Macs... life would be so much easier. My dad hasn't quite gotten over years of FUD.
"This may all sound like a big fuzzy Mac commercials, but who cares?"
It's that last comment that caught my eye. I bought a MacBook pro a while back for the hardware. I was looking for something thin with dedicated graphics, and Apple was the only one really doing that.
The most aggravating part of the experience? Any time I say something nice about the laptop or Apple's service people roll their eyes and assume I'm some kind of fanboy. If I said the same things about a new Toshiba or Dell they would run out and buy one.
Oh, and one nice Apple thing that your father (and you) might appreciate that I hadn't expected till I used it. All those apple stores and apple approved dealers are typically apple approved service centres. I had a problem with one of the fans on my laptop found a little apple shop a few blocks away. Dropped it off, they swapped out the fan and I picked it up the next day, all under warranty. After the troubles I've seen with laptop repairs in the past, this really blew my mind.
I want to buy an iMac and give the macbook i'm now writing on to my 80yo father... let's see how quick i can get the money.
I switched my dad over to MacBook Pro this Christmas as well (my gift to him was data transfer from his Windows machine, rudimentary setup of applications, and an SD card reader to fit into the ExpressCard slot).
He's been nothing but pleased, and finds the system quite natural to use. He especially loves how silent the machine is. He is also blown away by the integration of applications in the system.
I think that the coolest thing is that he understand the paradigm of "operating system" and hasn't had any trouble switching. Whereas most people probably only understand the steps of doing something in Windows, my dad understands the idea behind what he wants to do. The method to get things done in Mac OS is a slightly different paradigm than in Windows, but since my dad understands the idea behind this, he has had no trouble not only adapting to, but utilising the Mac.
He seriously glows when he's talking about his MBP. He never did that when talking about his old Windows machine. Even better, we're now discussing the finer points of what the MacBook Air does and doesn't do well.
Set my father (76 years old) up with an eMac four years ago for the same reasons... he never used it until we set up high speed dsl three months ago. Now I wander by the house at midnight and bang on his window to tell him to turn off the computer and go to bed. The other morning he called and asked why he never heard of Oingo Boingo before. Just give them a mac, a high speed connection point them at wikipedia and youtube and off they go!
I wish I could make my mother get a Mac - she has this very, very special knack to drive me really crazy when talking computers. After discussing (over the phone, of course) for an hour the difficulty of installing a screen saver we got into a mayor argument and stopped talking for six months or so.
Today however she asked about a Mac - maybe there is some hope...
On the flipside, my 57-year-old mom — who works on Macs at her job — hates OS X. Too many bells and whistles, too many spinning beach balls, hates the dock, hates dashboard. Everything she uses has to be in front of her and can't move; eye-candy is a fatal, frustrating distraction.
She refused to use a computer at home at all until I dropped Ubuntu on one of those piss-cheap Dells and modified the desktop to have three big buttons: e-mail, internet and Word (even if it was Writer; she couldn't tell the difference). No mouse at all, everything has a simple keyboard shortcut That Just Works.
She uses that every day and still cusses about her Mac, moreso now after they upgraded to Leopard last week ("What did they do to my dock? Why is this springing up? I don't like this.")
Not bashing on Macs or OS X — I use them at my job, too — but I think OS X might be starting to get out of reach of people with zero tech savvy.
The iMac and OS X work for Joel's dad because he can at least use a computer. It won't work nearly as well for someone who can't, and there's still quite a few of them, especially down here in the deep South.
I hear the Republican party has giant warehouses in the Nevada desert, where thousands of trained monkeys use Imacs to edit entries on Wikipedia.
Did you use Remote Assistance via WLM back in the days when he was using Windows? I feel like that would pretty much do the same regardless of OSes.
So in a way, it's really about the convenience him using the same OS as you do (so that you can use Screen Sharing), rather than which OS is easier or crashprone to use.
RyanH--you write,
"Any time I say something nice about the laptop or Apple's service people roll their eyes and assume I'm some kind of fanboy."
But then you go on for a whole other paragraph about how great a job Apple did replacing your fan. You're literally an Apple fan-boy! Not that there's anything wrong with that.
My experience exactly.
I switched not too long ago, and after seeing my sweet MBP in action most family members have switched or are switching.
SO much easier to troubleshoot, and I haven't had to help much at all. 15 minute training when they get the machine (command-q/command-w, mounting and ejecting, installing apps and a few other things) and again a week later. It's easy to teach (although I think that program downloading/installation is needlessly convoluted, and the red X in the top right corner should close the program, not sometimes close the window/sometimes close the program, a few inconsistencies...)
Just the reduction in help time is wonderful and I find the interface so much nicer to work with. Having Terminal is also a plus.
I have been a Win/PC technician and am pretty decent, yet in a very short while I found that OS X is in most ways better.
Ubuntu is good, but problems can take some tech skills to resolve. A well set up Ubuntu system is very decent, even for quite non-technical people.
My OS rating (for quality/flexibilty and ease of use) would go:
Mac OS X
Ubuntu (after correct setup)
WinXP (after correct setup + adware protection + virus protection)
Most other systems
A rock
...
...
Vista
And I forgot, lest I sound like a total fanboy, I am still using Tiger and am well aware of quite a few issues. Particularly some network issues and some issues with the finder. These are the ones you notice.
I will use the best tool for the job at hand, and as I'm into amateur audio production the Mac beats anything else with a stick. XP is ok, and Linux is getting there. Vista may get there. Maybe. I don't like Vista much.... It was the reason I bought a Mac!
@ #9 (DEWYNKEN)
Awesome , thanks for cheering me up!
So I was a month OVER WARRANTY, and they replaced my power supply (had the first run of iMacs that had the prob waybackwhen). Got it back in less than a week. Apple is king of computery-repair-happy.
I'm a librarian and OSX has been a real boon to helping older patrons use basic services (e-mail, browsing, webchat) without too much ramp up. Older patrons are driven more by a simple request ("I want to share pictures" or "I want to chat with my kids in Denver") rather than learning a whole operating system. OSX lets them access what they need simply and get on with things.
I do like Ubuntu even more so for accessibility, but library boards/admins get hinky about "weird" operating systems.
The nerd-flaming either way is just silly. Whatever works best for you works best. I'd rather see a bunches of operating systems out there (that can interact in a friendly way!) giving users of all ages more options.