Here’s “an example of the worst thing about Apple. There is simply nothing less attractive than a person who is both flawed and smug, and apparently one of the few plausible justifications for treating corporations as legal persons is the fact that this holds true for companies as well. And Apple is a smug company,” Anil Dash blogs for Dashes.
The new version 10.5 of Mac OS X rather famously features the following display when you’re browsing machines that appear to be running Microsoft Windows:
Dash writes, “Now, I’m all for a little sense of humor in the world of technology. But the image here deliberately uses an aged-looking monitor and a crashed computer as the illustration of your other computers. The disdain here isn’t for the unfortunate unwashed who have to suffer through Windows because they’re so clueless — it’s a snide shot at the other computers you own, or of your family’s other machines around the house, or of the computers of the peers you work with.”
Dash writes, “Suffice to say, the presence of this image means that there’s permission to be this passive-aggressive and, well, lame at all levels of Apple’s organization.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Lighten up, Francis. The image is seen only by Mac users. It’s nothing more than a harmless little in-joke and the chances are good that the image accurately represents the state of the Windows box (or at least its monitor) that you’re browsing. 
Her boyfriend must have broken off the relationship just before the Halloween Dance. Very unfortunate.
…you mean they don’t look like that?
Stop thinking of your choice of computer as a surrogate for your self-worth and this whole issues disappears.
The same thing also works well for your favorite sports team and/or college.
The MicroShaft crowd is getting a little thin-skinned lately, aren’t they? I mean, what with being Goliath to our little David, you’d think that any “affront” such as this would be brushed off with barely a muscle twitch.
Apparently, ‘taint so. Hmmm. Suppose they’re all watching little David put the stone (Leopard) in his sling?
Damn funny if you ask me… Makes me smile anyway. I noticed this when I was browsing my home network and saw my last Windows box (which will be gone early next year).
If they put a picture of Windows working, I would not recognize it. You should put in a picture that portrays it as it usually is, and Apple did that.
The unfortunate byproduct of this is that another feature that this story overshadows is that when one is looking at other computers in the ‘shared’ section of your left pane, if you have a G4 or a laptop, the icon will be an accurate depiction of how that computer looks! So you can tell at a glance which of your remote computers you are looking at, even before reading the name.
MDN magic word: life, as in get a life instead of criticising minor irritations!
I have to agree with them tho.
Why not just put a monitor with windows logo on it. This is too childish of Apple to do.
MDN Word: “lack”. Lacks Professionalism.
Well. . . I suppose it’s an in joke. But it’s still kind of tacky.
There’s something to be said for being quietly superior. No need to stoop to this level. A beige box or some other non-copyrighted Windows image would do just as well.
MW: “happened” As in, whatever happened to Apple’s sense of subtlety?
So what creative picture is seen from a Windows machine depicting a Mac is on the network?? Assuming you can even find out how to locate another machine, it probably shows something REAL creative and intuitive like, “u98kij97kjd is not recognized by Windows – Error 45566”.
Give me a break. THIS is something to complain about?
Boo hoo! Woe is me… I shall never recover from Apple injecting some humour into its flagship OS.
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Just plain funny.
Still like it!
Another sign that Windows users are humorless….
All the Windows versions, that you might see in the LAN, do have one thing in common and that thing well known and remembered: BSOD.
So what’s the Mac icon? Happy Mac?
Note that it has a glossy screen.
No apologies.
Fsck this. I was finally close to buying a Mac but not after this childish display of tackiness.
I’m disappointed in Apple and I’m disappointed in all of you who accept such crude behavior.
This is hysterical. And frankly, most people using a Mac will probably be amused. Think about it: half of the people buying Macs now are new to the Mac, so this is probably what they’re leaving behind.
As MDN put it, lighten up.
Would you prefer it simply ask you wtf are you thinking and close the window? I would.
While I tend to agree with the author overall – one has to admit that is pretty funny.
Peace.
@ R2
If you get this uppity over an icon, we don’t want you. We already have too many people whining about every little thing at Apple lately. Get over yourself.
P.S. Gotta love the joke.
And by the way, Microsoft used Apples Systems Preferences icons on their web site, so that buys the right to poke ’em as much as possible.
How else do you do it? Text? A PC tower? The Windows logo (which is copyrighted)? This is the best, easiest, and most recognizable way to say, “this is a PC” is this logo. I’m glad they thought of it as I wouldn’t have.
The real question is, do Macs running Windows via Boot Camp still show up as the BSOD icon?