Oooh, another computer analogy...

[kickaha]

Discussion with someone at work led to this. His claim is that Apple is more proprietary than MS, because you have a choice in hardware. I claim that MS is more proprietary than Apple, or at least differently so, because with Apple I have a choice in apps. He didn't follow, and stated that there are many times more apps for Windows. True. However... when I use a Windows app, more to the point, when I use a MS app, I'm pretty well locked into that app from that point on. The use of proprietary *data* formats is the true lock-in on Windows. What hardware I choose is a matter of convenience and money, at that particular point in time. Whether or not I have control over the data that forms what I *create*, on the other hand, is an ongoing issue. Apple's ubiquitous use of PDF, XML, HTML5, SVG, RTF, VCF, and so on, means that I can move data from one app to another fairly seamlessly in most cases. (Hell, try getting Office to play nice with an inserted PDF image. Or really, anything created outside of Office.) I'm still not sure he gets it, but that's alright.

He kept using the term 'closed garden' for Apple. And he's right - it *is* a closed garden. There are walls around the whole thing that keep you locked into that space (hardware). But man, what a garden - I have almost complete freedom inside that area, and things work really nicely together. Windows, on the other hand, is a bit more like a trailer park with all the trailer homes welded together. Moving within the space is a bitch, you can't see where you are half the time, and yeah, while you *theoretically* could up and move the whole shebang to a new location, most people never will because it's just too much damned trouble. Some folks have kick-ass welding torches and big haulers, so for them it's no big deal, but the average person will simple never do it. And both are stuck living in a byzantine mass of little tiny compartments.

No, I have no point, other than the analogy of Windows to a Escher-like maze of trailer homes all welded together amused me.

Comments

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

"Proprietary" strikes me as a fairly binary thing, so "more" or "less" proprietary doesn't really parse for me.

Apple==proprietary hardware, with the resultant higher prices and stabler platform.

MS never had a choice about proprietary hardware--they do not and never have built PCs, and the platform was open before they even got involved. Not being able to control the platform leads to lower hardware prices and a less stable platform for exactly the same reasons (competitive pricing effects, and size of compatibility matrix) as give Apple the opposite experience.

(Note that I am not discounting other factors in the relative quality of MS and Apple products, I'm just pointing out the effects of hardware proprietariness(?) on same.)

Both platforms, through their proprietary choices, have a barrier-to-exit effect on their users. But since both sets of users are on the whole comfortable where they are, for whatever reason, most of them can only see the barriers erected by the opposing platform. Kind of the opposite of the grass-is-always-greener effect. :)

For the record (as if I had to say so), I'm a Windows guy. Though this is largely because I'm *good* at Windows, and I've never used the competitors sufficiently to get past the feeling that I'm *not* good at them, and my defect is that I avoid feeling like I'm not good at things, even if I could get better at them quickly if I just stuck with it for a little while.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

His claim was that they were equally proprietary, therefore equally good/bad. I was pointing out to him that they lay claim to different things in their proprietary budget. MS locks in the data, Apple locks in the hardware. If flexibility of hardware is important to you (and flexibility of interacting with your data is not), then Windows is a great choice. If flexibility with your data is paramount, but you don't care so much about what box it's on, then MacOS X is a great choice.

I see it rather like this: (Warning: gross generalizations ahead...)

Windows users that are happy where they are tend to have a small number of tasks that they do repetitively. Data lock-in doesn't matter for them so much, because they aren't going to be changing tasks. While they may be in a maze of welded trailers, they have set up shop in just a couple of them, and have the routes between them mapped out. The rest of the big ball of trailers is Terra Incognita, full of dragons, but that's okay. They have no interest in exploring. (Besides, 'everyone knows' that when you go exploring, you get burned, right?) When they go from trailer to trailer, they leave their data behind, in the trailer where it is to be used... it's useless anywhere else. These are people who manipulate data, but don't necessarily create it. The computer is an appliance.

Mac users that are happy where they are tend to have a shifting set of tasks that they do intermittently. Data lock-in kills their ability to shift as needed, or see what they could do with it. The garden is well mapped out, and you can see pretty much all of it from anywhere else, and make a beeline to the new interesting area. Your data goes with you, since it's useful just about anywhere, and you never know when you're going to run across some neat new niche in the garden. Mac users are comfortable exploring the garden, because it isn't a scary place. If a tool isn't working for you, you drop it, look around, and go to a new one, no welding necessary. These are people who create data, more than manipulate it. The computer is a loom.

That's as close as I can get to expressing how I feel about the two platforms. Once a Windows box is set up for particular tasks, using particular apps, on particular data formats, it can be quite solid and useful... but god forbid you want to change things around later, IME. Welding it all together is comforting for some people, anathema to others. Me, I play around too much with new things to feel like hauling out the cutting and welding torches is a good use of my time anymore.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

There's a bit of chicken-and-egg going on there; PCs got their start in businesses, where IBM was entrenched. When the time came for individuals to decide between Apples and PCs (long before Microsoft was a particularly relevant player in the market), the file formats were both proprietary--and incompatible. So people who used computers at work tended to choose machines that would let them share files between work and home, and people who were not so tied to work computers had more opportunity to select the superior platform. (Except that the superior platform was more expensive, which ended up being to the PC's benefit as well. That is how it goes sometimes.) So the application suites that grew up around the two groups--business users vs. creative types who could afford the Apple premium--naturally tended to reflect the needs and work habits of the users. PC users got Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect, and Apple users got Photoshop. (Yes, yes, I know that only a moron would have tried to use an Apple II to process their digital images, but you know what at which I'm getting.)

And then the disparate application suites drew their targeted users, and the divide got wider. And then Microsoft saw the huge numbers of dollars going to Lotus and Corel and said, "How can we get us some of that?" and out came Word and Excel and OLE.

My point being that your "big ball of trailers" (an image that works very well for me, BTW) was there *before* Microsoft came in and started to do anything about it. (OLE being a not-very-successful attempt at reducing the compartmentalization of data.)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Yup, but the compartmentalization of data problem is almost non-existent on the Mac, for most users.

Perhaps I'm not stating it well, but...

MS is locking itself in as it locks in the users. By going with internal data formats, and not providing simple to migrate data, it requires MS to fulfill all the needs of the users. In the past, this worked well for them, but it has ended up with a lack of innovation, and lock-out for other smaller houses to really take the ball and run with it. Everyone suffers. The applications that end up working well in this environment are those that are single-purposed, as those needed by many enterprises.

By pushing open data formats, Apple ends up ensuring that smaller devs can do some really innovative things, and letting others play in the sandbox helps them out as well. (Cynically, you can think of it as Apple creating a giant petri dish to cherry-pick from. ;) ) Users find that they don't have to sorry about getting locked into one app or another once they start using it - they can try new apps at will, until they find one that works for them. The workflow is much more fluid. So while you have less choice in the hardware, your workflow is wide open.

Historically, I think the above two groups were drawn to the platforms based on the interactivity (or lack thereof) of the interface, and you are correct with the past view, and which applications appeared on each platform. But today, the same apps are available on both, for the most part, so that isn't really a determining factor. Photoshop, Office, etc, etc, you can do business or art on either platform.

Moving forward, it's going to be the data that determines the demographics. Even average folks who have less interest in graphics or film are finding that the Mac model of ubiquitous and simple data transfer between apps is a benefit. Heck, 99% of the time you don't even have to do the export/import mambo, just drag and drop. I know a lot of business-oriented folks who are looking at the Mac because of this, and reconsidering a Windows environment.

It's this that I think is going to attract a lot of folks - it's not that the apps are creative-oriented, but that the entire *system* is oriented towards flexibility, collaboration between apps, and user-control. People like that.

(Oh, and BTW, Word and Excel were on the Mac first. ;) )