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bassplayinMacFiend
Banging the Bottom End
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2004-11-09, 12:06

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jules26
O.K. I'm doing some research for a marketing project on Apple users and their love of and devotion to everything Apple. So spare a few minutes- tell me what it is about Apple that's so special- enlighten me!!
No one can be told what Apple is, you have to experience it for yourself.

For me, it's all the little things that show how much the hardware & software engineers care about their products.

Take Expose for example. (If you don't know what Expose is, check out http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/ ). If I just press F9, the action occurs. When I press F9 again, the desktop goes back to the way it was. BUT, if I press & HOLD F9, everything moves out of the way like before, but as soon as I stop pressing the F9 button the desktop goes back to the way it was originally. Same for the F10 & F11 functions.

Another example is Apple's wired network ports. I can connect my Apple to another computer with a regular network cable. My Apple will detect that no hub is present and will also function as hub so I don't have to buy a special 'crossover' cable to directly connect 2 machines. I have a switch/router at home so I don't have to worry about this kind of thing at home but it certainly made life easier in school. Before those USB static RAM things came out anyway. Still, this is another case of Apple engineers trying to make their computers braindead simple to operate.

I like being able to change parameters (network address, workgourp/domain) WITHOUT HAVING TO REBOOT. I have yet to reboot for anything other than OS updates.

Things are simpler on a Mac. For example, at the school I just graduated from, the whole campus is covered by a wireless network. The instructions for a Windows user is 7 printed pages long (with screenshots). For OS X, their is only 1 printed page, because the OS does the work for me. All I have to do is turn on my wireless card and log in.

Some of the differences were immediately obvious the lack of rebooting for every little thing for example. Other revelations took longer to coalesce into being. About 3 or 4 months of owning my first Apple I "got" it.

Put succinctly, Apple computers get out of your way and let you do your work with as little hassle as possible.