EJC has a point: until computers become an "appliance" many people will not use them. Your typical Mac/PC does way too many things right out of the box, making computers too complicated and prone to problems such as crashing.
Gawd Knows things are better than when I started seriously computing in '97. For instance, installing and updating software is a lot easier and less likely to cause conflicts than just a few years ago.
But my initial encounter with Macs went very bad, very fast. The Performa 6300 I purchased in 1995 had tons of problems, partly due to documented hardware bugs and partly due to my inexperience. Of course, I didn't know about the hardware glitches until long after I had convinced the dealer to accept a return about three months after I bought the Performa, albeit with a 5% "restocking" fee which totaled $140...
I didn't buy another Mac for two years. I spent that time reading Mac mags and books. When I was ready to buy I hired a consultant who did a fair job of setting up the Mac for my business but who resisted telling me anything about how to properly run the computer and trouble-shoot problems on my own.
$1200 later I said Adios! to the fellow and resolved that I would never require his services again. So far, so good...Knock On Wood!
But I have spent untold hours with my Macs, way more time than the average person probably has at their disposal for dinking around with Beige Boxes. And I have read a fair number of computer books, something that seems alien to the majority of people I know.
The joke around our house is "How Do 'Normal' People Deal With It When Things Go Wrong, Really Wrong With Their Computer?"
In our house the More Normal Person is my Dear Wife, who only uses the iMac occasionally for e-mail, word processing and to find something on the Internet. We have had the iMac on our kitchen table for going on two years and she still hasn't attained a basic working knowledge of the machine.
She can turn it on and usually get to where she wants to go, but if a dialog box suddenly apppears or if there is a minor problem, I suddenly become Mr. FixIt. In other words, she treats the iMac as if it were an appliance, which it most certainly is not.
I think that this is the situation for many people, and what do folks do when there isn't a Mr. FixIt around? Young people can rely on each other for help, and I suppose that parents can get help from one of their kids. I have absolutely no idea how this works in reality, since we don't have kids (one reason that I have so much time to fool around with Macs...)
Most older folks I know are intimidated by the new technology, and I don't blame them. It might remind some of them of the early cars, where you had to be a bit of a mechanic or you would never get anywhere. Now cars can go years without a need for a repair, while computers are the equivalent of a Model T. If you have to rely on tech support or a computer "consultant" for help, it will become very time-consuming/expensive/frustrating, and who needs that?
I helped an older friend (early 70s) get his first Mac, which was his first computer experience of any kind. But in my experience he is unique, because he wasn't afraid to try something new, he actually spends time reading the Mac books I have suggested and he will fiddle with his Mac on his own, even if I have to encourage him now and then.
If he does get in trouble I am just over the back fence, and like I tell him, it really is difficult to totally screw-up things. If worse comes to worse you can erase the mother and start-over. Take THAT, you Bad Harddrive!!!
What he usually tells me over the fence is that everything is hunky-dory and the iMac hasn't crashed for months. And he uses it more than most people I know.
Which brings me back to OS X. A major reason that I haven't spent much time with X is because I would rather be doing other things these days than learning a new operating system. Like others have noted, OS 9 and even 8.6 work just dandy, I am not inclined to spend even more $$$ to upgrade perfectly good hardware/software and OS X is still (how shall I put this...?) less than fully-ripe, kind of like that tropical fruit available in mainland markets.
It looks pretty good, but the flavor isn't quite right.
[ 03-05-2003, 12:58 PM: Message edited by: Mayo ]
