Apple and power users: A lopsided love affair - TNW
Apple
Apple
hates power users. I’ve heard the refrain many times over the last few
weeks, but it’s reached a crescendo with the release of
OS X Lion.
Apple’s newest OS has a host of user-facing features that are aimed at
making it the easiest and most feature-rich OS that Apple has ever
made.
Those features, along with the fact that several key new
additions to Lion borrow heavily from the iOS mobile platform, have
convinced many that Apple is actively discouraging power users from
using its platform. Launchpad, Mission Control and the changes to the
finder are seen as more nails in the coffin of the Mac as a platform
for more advanced users. Some say that soon we’ll be using a version of
OS X that makes the Mac just a bigger version of the iPad.
There
is some truth in the reactions to the changes that Apple has made, and
is continuing to make, to its flagship OS. But there’s also a decided
lack of perspective. To figure out what the future holds in store for
OS X power users, we have to examine a couple of factors. The first is
to determine what exactly a power user is.
What is a power user?
There
are a lot of definitions that would work here and power users will
likely find different ways to define themselves based on what they do
with computers and why they do it. But the basic needs of the power
user can be boiled down to two things: Access and control.
Now, a
power user’s wants and needs are not diametrically opposed to the needs
of a regular user. There is significant overlap here and any given
user might want or need a certain amount of control over their machine
to do what they need to do. The difference comes with the way that
Apple decides how much control and how much access a user needs. In the
end, a power user believes that they deserve full access and full
control over their computer system, giving them the ability to mold the
hardware and software however they see fit to accomplish whatever goal
they have in mind. In contrast, a non-power user might want a specific
bit of control to accomplish a purpose, but otherwise doesn’t care.
To
give you an example, let’s say that a particular Apple computer is not
compatible with a brand of electronic drawing tablet and pen that an
artist uses to make digital paintings. In the eyes of the artist, this
is a barrier to them producing artwork on this machine. So they have
two options, either purchase a new tablet or gain access to driver
support on the machine to reinstate the compatibility that they had on
their previous computer.
The outcome of this situation depends
largely on that artist’s desire to delve into the deeper workings of
the computer’s functionality. If they decide that it’s worth it,
financially or time-wise, to fix that issue then they very well may
learn why the problem is occurring and gain the expertise necessary to
fix it. On the other hand, they may decide that it’s not worth it and
just pay someone else to fix it or buy a new tablet.
A power user
would never ask themselves the ‘is it worth it’ question. Instead,
they would automatically assume that it was their right to use the
machine how they wished and delve into making the tablet’s software
work on the machine if possible.
There is a variation on this
theme that’s worth mentioning too. Often a power user can be defined as
a heavy user of the system for a specific purpose. If, for instance,
you’re a professional using a Mac to do video editing, you’re going to
want to tweak many software settings to make it the ideal environment
for you to do your work in. This is really an extension of control
though, and many of the same principles apply here that apply to any
power user.
In the end, we all have a bit of a power user in us
when the situation presents itself, but the desire for control and the
ability to access the system to get that control is the defining
characteristic of a power user.
Apple and the power user
Just
over three decades ago, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were
excited to show off what they had created in a bedroom of Woz’s house
in Palo Alto. It was a homemade computer kit called the Apple I and
they wanted who would appreciate it to see it. So they brought it to
the local homebrew computer club and presented it to the members in the
weekly meeting. Those people were what we now call power users.
This
is a bit of a conceit, because at the time there was really no such
thing as a ‘regular’ user of Apple’s computers. Very few members of the
general public had much of an idea what computers actually did. And
even if they did, these were things that were used by corporations, not
in the home.
The members of the club wanted to build their own
computers to use at home. They wanted access to the capabilities of a
computer and control over their construction and programming. That was a
difficult proposition at the time because there were very few
computers that were affordable and available enough to make this kind
of thing a commodity. The Apple I, and later II, changed all of that by
offering these users a complete kit (minus a monitor, a case and a few
other things that we take for granted today) that they could build and
use without having to source many of the components themselves.
This
offering was made to these power users but it didn’t stop there. The
Apple computer was effectively the beginnings of the personal computer
revolution. It took something that was available only to the power user
and brought it to ‘regular people’. By the end of the 1980s, Apple was
selling tens of thousands of computers to users who would be
classified well outside of the power user spectrum.
In effect,
Apple’s genesis was with the power user, but its ongoing success has
not been due to appealing to that market, but instead by making the
computer more available to the public at large. The vast majority of
people who use Apple computers are doing so because they give them an
easy and well-designed way to use the functions of a computer, not
because the hardware or software gives them more options.
Access and control
Apple
knows which side of its bread is buttered. From the very first, Steve
Jobs knew that the market for the personal computer reached far outside
of hobbyist clubs and enthusiasts. Both he and Wozniak, and many of
the early employees of Apple, envisioned a future where every home had a
computer. And they have been fortunate enough to see that dream come
true in their lifetimes.
If a computer was to be in every home,
however, it couldn’t be designed with just the power user in mind. It
had to be relatable to the average person and usable by just about
everyone, even those with a very meager or very shallow understanding
of computers. To this end, the Macintosh was designed with a software
interface that felt familiar to the user. There were folders, files and
a desktop. Using features was as easy as pointing at them and
‘touching’ them with the mouse.
This, of course, led to the
concept of limiting access to the underlying system. When you have this
beautiful graphic interface laying on top of the system, offering a
relatable way to control the system, it becomes less necessary for
people to get access to the underpinnings of the computer.
In
this manner, Apple really began moving away from serving the power
user with some of the very first computers in its lineup, even before
the Mac. Beginning with the Apple II, the company began a general shift
towards wanting people to see these computers as a complete product,
not a collection of parts. The streamlined case and integrated keyboard
made it seem like an appliance. This only became more evident when
Apple began offering the Apple IIe with a monitor early in its 11-year
lifespan.
This was truly a complete machine. You wouldn’t have to
solder or build anything here. Just plug it in, buy some software and
away you go.
This ease of use has continued to drive Apple’s
innovation when it comes to the Mac and its other products up to this
day. At first, it may have seemed like a betrayal to the power user,
but in the end, it’s really a sign of Apple growing up.
Wants vs. needs
By
the time the iMac was rolled out, the days of generic Apple hardware
were over. This had removed the physical tinkering aspect from the
Apple lexicon almost completely. Apple power users had experienced a
shift from hardware geeks to software geeks. This paradigm largely
holds true today as power users of the Mac seem largely focused on
making the use of the system more efficient through software tweaking,
while the hardcore hardware customizers tend to gravitate to PC’s, where
generic, interchangeable parts offer more flexibility.
Apple’s
design ethos of their computers and portable devices, which
de-emphasizes specs in favor of emotional quotients and broad statements
about magic and beauty, extends to its software as well. If you’re
using a Mac and you’re not interested in tweaking things manually, there
is an almost 100% chance that you will never, ever have to do so.
For
most of Apple’s customers, this is a godsend. A computer that offers
them productivity and a sense of purpose, wrapped up in a beautiful
package, is exactly what they need. It’s one of the primary reasons
that a lot of creative pros use Apple machines. It allows them to focus
on creation, not manipulation of the system.
The continued
inclusion of Apple Script and Terminal access in the default accounts
of Macs today shows that there is still at least a vestigial awareness
of the power user at Apple. Even though those users are a smaller
percentage than they once were, they’re still there. And in many cases,
the features that those users take advantage of and how they use them
informs the design of the OS.
However, many of the changes within
OS X Lion have made some question whether Apple cares to cater to power
users on an even basic level.
Lion and the power user
Although
the reception to OS X Lion has been generally positive across the
board, there have still been those among the heaviest users of the Mac
that feel slighted with the changes and lack of attention to ‘power’
features.
Foremost among these is scripting support. The lack of
improvements in the support for AppleScript language has been a
rallying cry for those that feel that Apple hates power users. You can
still create scripts that automate tasks and operations within OS X,
but additional support in applications or the OS hasn’t been added in
Lion.
Instead, the Automator application, which uses an interface
that gives scripting a visual component, has gotten a lot of love. The
new stuff in Automator is really great and allows people to create
automatic actions throughout OS X very easily. If you’re a power user
that hasn’t checked out some of the new stuff, I’d suggest you take a
look at
this excellent site. If you’re a user that hasn’t dabbled in Automator much, you should definitely give it a look.
Automator
is the future of AppleScript. There may always be support for people
to write custom actions, but in the end, Automator is the way that
Apple wants this system to work on OS X. This speaks to what power
users feel is some of their access to the system being taken away.
Instead of being given the ability to access every application with
AppleScript, users of OS X are now having the extent and types of
automation that are available to them dictated by Apple.
Another
major feature of Lion that has been causing some waves is Mission
Control, which combines some of the features of Expose and Spaces into
one gesture-launchable app. When you break down the features of Mission
Control, you’ll find that Expose has survived this blending with most
of its features relatively intact. Spaces, however, has been modified
heavily. This has removed much of the ability by users to determine the
virtual ‘location’ of their spaces as well as the ability to move
applications between spaces with the same speed.
Mission Control
is a relatively ugly, but incredibly functional feature that should
take the idea of virtual desktops out of the shadows, where it’s been
used by power users for years, and put it into the hands of new users
of Lion, especially those who are new to Mac.
This is the reason
that Apple is making these changes, not to spite the power user, but to
open up the Mac to new users at any cost. By acting as an editor and
displaying a willingness to be merciless in that editing, Apple is
showing maturity that has come along with its growing success in
capturing a large part of the personal computer market…again.
Maturity and foresight
By choosing not to do things that it
could do and instead looking at what it
should
do, Apple is trying to be wise, not just intelligent. Could Apple
enhance scripting greatly, giving users incredible access to the system
by providing extensive support? Yes. Could it offer the option to
return to the old way that Spaces used to work? Yes. Will it do those
things? No.
Recent years have shown, for better or for worse,
that Apple is willing to make hard decisions about the direction of its
products. The recent brouhaha over Final Cut Pro X and the changes it
made from the previous version, are a prime example of this.
Apple
divested itself of the design of its older software and came up with a
creative vision of what it thinks the future of video editing is. I
won’t go into my thoughts on its success or failure here, there are
plenty of
great articles about the topic already. Instead, I’ll answer the question why.
Apple doesn’t make these changes because it
hates the power user, it does it because it
loves
the regular user. Or, to be more accurate, it loves the income that
the new user brings to the company when Apple computers are purchased.
The
history of the company, especially in the modern era, has proven time
and again that Apple is interested in creating, at least as far as it
perceives them, the best products in the world. Whether those be
category defining like the iPad, or category refining, like the MacBook
Air. But the interests of the company don’t stop there. It is also
interested in making money, and to do this it needs to anticipate the
needs of new users in ways that may sometimes seem arbitrary or hostile
to current users.
In short, it’s displaying maturity and foresight.
What,
to the power user, may seem like hostility, is in fact closer to
apathy. Apple is telling these users that if they’re interested in
bending the system to their will, then they will have to find their own
way of doing that. Apple is too busy building a system that will appeal
to billions to cater to the comparatively small thousands that make up
the power user base.
If you want it done right
There is
honestly a lot more that could be said about the one-sided battle that
power users have been fighting with Apple over the years. There are
minor features of OS 9 that didn’t make the jump to OS X that are still
a major point of contention (
WindowShade anyone?).
But in the end, what it boils down to is that Apple doesn’t make
products for power users, it hasn’t in years. Instead, users of their
products find them so useful and pleasant to work with that they gain a
desire to make them even more efficient.
What Apple has been
saying for years is that it will continue to edit and refine its
products according to its own goals and if you’re a power user, you
need to find a way to get the access and control that you need within
those editorial bounds.
There are still tools available to the
power user, even inside Apple’s editorial walls. Automator is better
than ever in Lion. AppleScript, while not expanded upon, remains a
great way to create custom actions not supported by the OS, and there
are a host of preference files still available for tweaking via the
Terminal.
Apple doesn’t hate power users, but it also doesn’t love
them. As the company matures its making harder decisions about what
its customers need versus what they want. As Steve Jobs has famously
said, “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give
that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something
new.”
If you’re a power user, well, you’re probably already looking for a way around that.
