“Lori Jantulovich stands in the middle of Best Buy’s computer section, flagging down a sales clerk. She’s trying to buy a laptop for her nephew. ‘I have no clue,’ she says,” Michelle Kessler reports for USA Today.
MacDailyNews Take: And that, if you didn’t already know, is the reason why junky PCs running Microsoft Windows outsell Apple Macs. Cluelessness. You’d think a major paper’s Tech section would come to the rescue, but you’d be wrong.
Kessler continues, “The first thing PC buyers must decide is whether they want an Apple or a Microsoft Windows-based computer. Apple is still in the minority — it had about 7% of the U.S. PC market in the first quarter, says Gartner — but the brand is popular with graphic artists, students and others who enjoy its unique software and design. Selecting an Apple PC is relatively easy, because only Apple makes them. There are only three main laptop models to choose from, for example. Buying a Windows machine is trickier because there are more options.”
MacDailyNews Take: And, that’s it for the Apple PC Mac mentions. Apple Mac users are in the minority (sounds bad, huh?) and, if you’re not a graphic artist, a student, or one of those “others,” (Benjamin Linus, perhaps?) well, just forget that Mac stuff, okay? The rest of the rather long article featured on the front page of today’s USA Today Tech section is all about Windows PCs, ostensibly because Apple makes their Mac lines so easy to understand. So, clearly, if you needlessly confuse the hell out of people, you get vastly more coverage from the geniuses at USA Today. The article ends not by recommending the easier-to-understand, easier-to-use computer to the clueless, but rather one of four piles of crap from Dell, HP, Lenovo, or Gateway, filled with Microsoft’s craptastic Windows Vista along with even more gigabytes of crapware, and topped off with enough crappy stickers to make a NASCAR driver blush. In other words, by recommending a “choice” of four crap sandwiches, Kessler does a total disservice to her readers and comes off just as, if not more, clueless than Ms. Jantulovich.
USA Today’s “How to buy the right laptop PC for your needs” by Michelle Kessler, which is obviously dedicated to perpetuating cluelessness — Think Before You Click™ — is here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone reading that USA Today article would be far better served with an Apple Macintosh. Period. Instead, because the writer is either yet another incompetent tech illiterate writing for USA Today and/or the bird cage liner’s advertising department dictated to her which personal computer makers to feature and which to ignore, many of Kessler’s clueless readers will end up no less clueless with another round of frustration, fugly hardware, an upside-down and backwards, derivative, inferior OS, and even more years of lost productivity. Bravo, USA Today. Does anyone want to bet that Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Acer (Gateway) didn’t recently re-up with USA Today for another year of advertising?
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Believe it or not, MDN, not everyone is looking for a mac.
Hell, I’d even say that a mac isn’t the right computer for everyone.
Do you foam at the mouth when you write your retorts?
Tell me, Art . . . why, specifically, isn’t a Mac the right computer for everyone? It is already the best PC on the market (bar none, running your blessed Vista/XP/98 faster and more reliably than another other machine. AND it comes with some of the very best user-productivity software on the market in the form of iLife, already installed . . . running on OS X, without question the most advanced, reliable, secure operating system available today.
So, once again, oh wise one, why isn’t a Mac the right computer for everyone? (And please don’t tell me it’s the $$ issue, OK. You always get what you pay for. Period. So . . . .?)
To art_vandelay:
Kudos on missing the point entirely.
art_vandelay,
You are write… but for you to expect MDN taking your side or Lori Jantulovich’s it is just as foolish.
Thank you, come again.
If they are foaming at the mouth, someone needs to take care of them Old Yeller style.
MacDaddy . . . Vandelay is not “write” (or “right” either). And we’d all appreciate it if he would never “come” again, methinks.
@Randian
98? Someone went to the trouble of installing 98 on a Mac?
I wonder if you could run Win Me… oh, the horror!
Maybe USA Today should recommend Dells since they’re so trustworthy. Oh, wait…
Anyone who thinks that USA Today is a real newspaper probably deserves a PC.
My bad on the first and true on the second…
Cheers!
“You are write”
That’s just wrung.
@art_
The news article did not say whether the consumer is or is not looking for a Mac. The supposed consumer is clueless. The first question the writer or a sales associate should help the clueless person is to find out what does she want to do with her new computer. If you’re equally clueless about a class of cars, do you simply decide first what brand – Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, etc. – to buy before you compare available models?
To HMCIV: Your link had an interstitial ad for Dell. Oh, the irony.
art_vandelay…
“Believe it or not, MDN, not everyone is looking for a mac.
Hell, I’d even say that a mac isn’t the right computer for everyone.”
Yeah, I agree with that. I sat beside one of those people in my Maya class last year. He didn’t want a Mac but was quite happy with doing things the hard way. He even told me that. I have found that the people who really love a PC are those who like doing things the hard way.
So you’re right, a computer that is easy to use and just works isn’t for everyone. By the way, those people need help.
“By the way, those people need help.”
But only if they’re willing to tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon on dental floss. Blindfolded.
Screw it if people aren’t going to do research between a Mac and a P.C, and end up getting a P.C screw them More Mac for Me. Do some research people Question what you buy geez.
Randlan…iLife is not big deal today. Picasa and flikr does the same for free.
Also, the lion share of the retail laptop sales are the 15.4 screen size models that are sold under $1000, which aapl does not have such a model.
These PC laptops use similar components as the Macbook models.
“Believe it or not, MDN, not everyone is looking for a mac.”
Obviously, because apparently not everyone is a graphic artist or enjoys unique software or design.
Great article and I forwarded it to all of my friends. Too much mention is made of namby pamby toy MACs if you ask me. Who cares what graphic artists like? The IT guys where I work rightfully threw out the graphics department’s MAC IIfx’s years ago. The graphic designers soon quit but now we have Midge and Barb who are tickled to death to be using Dells running Microsoft Publisher. They used to paste up the local church bulletin by hand—now they get to use the latest technology and best software around—thanks to Microsoft and Dell.
Anyway, buying a PC isn’t really that hard. Just don’t get a MAC. They don’t play games.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Lori Jantulovich stands in the middle of Best Buy’s computer section, flagging down a sales clerk.
Computer shopping at Best Buy is her first big mistake.
Seriously thinking she’ll find a free sales clerk, much less a helpful one, is her second.
Buying a Windows machine is trickier because there are more options
Starting with several blurred “editions” of the same OS….
I don’t fault USA Today for not chiming for Macs harder; anyone who consciously shops Best Buy is already beyond hope.
What USA Today DID get wrong was not mentioning the Apple Stores. Why subject yourself to the big-box hell?
slow news day. literally and figuratively…
Midge and Barb
Well obviously we can criticize this article easily.
I think the best thing is to send her a few carefully written sentences, as politely as possible.
And lets not bag on Best Buy just yet… they are going to help bring Apple and Mac’s to more folks in more places. Believe it or not, there are a lot of Best Buy stores out there in places where there are no Apple stores.
@sinclap
so you can make movies and web sites with Picasa now?
@ Ampar,
That’s them! You should see the company cookbook they did in Publisher. Barb’s Ambrosia Salad is out of this world.
Your potential. Our passion.™