sales. just not by very much at all. ;^)
But as far as it goes Apple still presents a fairly steep price premium from
your average Walmart PC (an eMachine or such). I don't think that people
looking for quality, top of the line PCs would generally hit Walmart first.
As for usability Macs are still very good (as always), but have had several
slips recently (the atrocious interface for Quicktime for example). XP is
solid and very simple to use with its completely contextualized approach to
task management (put in a CD with pictures, it asks if want to view them,
work with them, buy prints online, for example). Automated patch
downloading and notification is another big step forward for mom support.
These are added to the many small improvements made over the years: the
"Start" button, the IE "Go" button (one of the more elegant and immediately
beneficial UI enhancements of the past 5 years), the ability for the system
to automatically recommend higher resolutions on new installs, the (rather
annoying to advanced users) reliance on the "My" folders for automated
filing, etc
Add to that the insanely useful feature of Remote Assistance (which has
turned several "tech support" calls with my parents into cake walks) and XP
makes for an eminently supportable platform for the moms of the world.
There are definite rough edges still, of course (on both platforms) but with
XP I think the ancient wisdom that a Mac is _always_ easier to use just
isn't true at all anymore.
Jim Davis
> > And if they displayed Mac, you'd see an even greater drop in
> > Win'dohs sales.
>
> You have to be kidding me!!!!
Why? If I could, I'd get my Mom on a Mac. OS X is pretty nice. It's
generally stable, it's easy to use, and it doesn't have quite as many
quirks for normal users.
Which is not to say I prefer Macs to PCs. I just think that, for many
home users, they'd be as good or better.
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