Review of 'MacHeads' Documentary

An anonymous reader writes "Just prior to its premiere at MacWorld later this week, CNet has a review of MacHeads, the new documentary film covering the obsessive world of Apple fanboyism. MacHeads features commentary from original Apple employees, the self-confessed Apple-obsessed and girls who claim they'll never sleep with Windows users. Summed up by CNet: 'MacHeads is a superb film that will give Apple haters a few cheap laughs, and Apple fans a few cheap thrills. But it'll entertain both equally, while educating everybody else.'"

Re:"Trekkies" with a different context

[TheRaven64]

The Unix Hater's Handbook, by the way, is well worth anyone reading. Some of the comments are still valid today, and some now apply to a lot more systems than UNIX. Some, such as the X11 section, are largely obsolete (for example, many of the complaints about X11 were due to different, incompatible, X servers - now pretty much everyone uses X.org, even on Windows). A lot of the criticisms are still dead on, however, and are made even more sad by the fact that they are due to Free Software developers who never had access to systems that did things a better way (Lisp Machines, Multics, Burroughs Large Systems and so on), and so don't know any better.

Fanboys

[nasor]

I have a lot of Apple fanboy friends, and they finally convinced me to spend the extra money for a macbook pro when it came time to buy a new laptop. So far I've been seriously underwhelmed. Contrary to the claims of virtually every Apple user I know, my new laptop with OS X doesn't appear to be any more stable than my old Windows XP laptop. It still periodically locks up for no apparent reason, which I can only solve by making it force-quit applications. It still sometimes slows down for no apparent reason (presumably because something is hogging resources). Also, a few weeks ago one of the updates killed my laptop's display somehow and I had to plug it into an external monitor to fix it - which was a huge pain in the ass, because for some inexplicable reason the macbook pro doesn't have a standard VGA port for connecting to external monitors, AND Apple didn't bother to include the necessary adapters with the laptop. Maybe the update was a ploy to see how many people they could force to buy $16 adapters?

Overall I'm still enjoying my laptop, but I'm astounded that so many people basically lied to me with claims of how perfectly stable and wonderful macs are. I find it very difficult to believe that I'm the only one who has to force-quit applications or deal with inexplicable slowdowns. Surely all these fanboys are having the same sorts of problems. So why can't they just admit it? Why do they have to insist that everything is perfect?

Re:Fanboys

[Anonymous Coward]

Er... if you're able to force-quit applications, then the operating system hasn't locked up. The operating system is working fine, and the program in question has locked up. Even Apple can't save you from poorly written applications. (although your complaint is perfectly valid if the apps you're seeing lock up were written by Apple)

Re:Wrong-O, Big Time

[MBGMorden]

Violet Blue (or Noname Jane now as she was ordered to stop using the Violet Blue handle) is an oddball though. She has stated on numerous occasions that she won't have sex with her husband.

Still, cute gal. She's got the porn attitude while maintaining the girl next door look.

Re:Fanboys

[je ne sais quoi]

I don't know why I'm doing this, because you can almost never figure out what is going on from these kinds of stories but I feel I need to at least try and help you. :) So, did you install any of the "Application Enhancer" or other kernel hacks? If you did, there's your problem, they break with ever upgrade and have been known to cause the system to become unstable. Next, try reseting the PRAM [apple.com] and the PMU [apple.com]. If that doesn't help, try keeping your activity monitor open and see what applications are hogging the resources and see if there's one in particular or something else. Also, you probably should have 1 GB of memory, memory is so cheap that it's worth avoiding any possible memory issues (just don't buy your memory from Apple, they rip you off).

Overall I'm still enjoying my laptop, but I'm astounded that so many people basically lied to me with claims of how perfectly stable and wonderful macs are.

Often, they are. The key word there is often. Sometimes they're not. No computer is perfect, and I suppose that your mac friends were overselling their computers and gave you unrealistic expectations. Yes, Apple computers cost more, and whether that cost is worth it depends on your individual priotities, but they have problems sometimes just like every other computer. I find they have few enough problems to keep me coming back. To give you an indication, I've owned or used macs for about 11 years now and I've never once had a software update cause a problem on any of my computers. Not once. The record for my current desktop uptime is 112 days, and then I only had to reboot to install a security update. I've had three mac laptops, my Lombard powerbook was a handme down and we retired it after 5 years. My Ti powerbook lasted 4 years before a logic board failure caused me to replace it. My current Al macbook pro is running strong after three years and certainly runs better than newer "Vista-ready" laptops that ended up not really having the resources to run Vista well, but I have to say that XP SP2 is probably about as stable as OS X at this point.

Re:Fanboys

[ClioCJS]

Same with windows. THe OS almost never locks up, it's the programs. I typically reboot because a program wont work correctly, not because the OS crashes. In 1 yr of XP, I've only had about 5 non-voluntary reboots (not counting power failures where my UPS ran out of batteries).

Re:Wrong-O, Big Time

[anagama]

The violet blue in Macheads is the writer, not the porn star. If you're thinking of Noname Jane, think again [tinynibbles.com].

Re:Good God, they're still around?

[yttrstein]

Would your response have been different if I'd said "And that's why I use netBSD"?

I bet it would, since really no one admits to using netBSD (though why I don't know). I chose to say OS X because 1. it's true and 2. It was funny in the context of the rest of the post and 3. it was a statement of utter irrelevancy.

You're absolutely right, it doesn't matter at all what OS *I* use. It matters what YOU use, and that's none of my business, really. Me saying "And that's why I use OS X" was certainly inviting argument, and its true that that's part of why I said it. But it's also true that I invited argument with something that I believe is irrelevant from top to bottom. I don't care if you use OS X or not.

I only care if I do, and now you have my personal reasoning for it, should you find it interesting or useful. I like knowing why other people choose what they do, whether its on operating system or a good cantaloupe. Then when it comes time for me to choose again, I might have a little more insight insofar as how my needs dovetail with my choices.