I’m liking Dave Winer less and less these days. I still really enjoy his offbeat manner and his aging hippy approach, and still subscribe to his podcast via iTunes, but I unsubscribed from his blog about a month ago when he started talking about nothing but his new OPML Editor. I downloaded an the first public release for Windows and I knew within seconds that I did not care. The interface was not only ugly, but very Windows 3.1-like and it was clear that his talents lie in areas other than user interaction design (like probably programming). I had been reading his blog for his views on web issues and on politics, and also because I found some great content through his links, but as the posts started to be mere inane updates on his own software and how it was better than anything else out there, I just had had enough.

Today I was forward back to him via one of the other blogs I read, and it seems he was talking about something dear to my heart, the Mac. Dave bought a Mac to work on the Mac version of his Editor, which he had been saying he would not do, but whatever. He really did not like it and hates Safari. He then proceeded to bash Apple and praise Microsoft:

I just spent a few minutes playing with the Mac. Our OPML Editor needs a bunch of work, I can see that right away. I really dislike Safari, I so don’t care for their choice of sites to feature and the feeds they chose are all the predictable ones. Where’s the Home icon. I would love to be surprised and see some blogs in their default choices, geez, I mean they did get all this free IP from us, but they’re so into big companies. I really really dislike Apple. Sorry if you love them—I don’t. Steve Jobs has a lot of nerve telling Dean that they’re copying them, when they’re doing such a poor job of copying us. Maybe I’ll come around, but I kind of doubt it. Do they have a version of IE for this thing? I’d much rather use that than Apple’s browser.


Copying whom, Dave? You guys created RSS and the blog system, but if it were not for the browser manufacturers integrating it directly into the browser, RSS would have stayed on the sidelines. If you had some browser software (not a newsreader—I know about Radio), please show it to us. What Steve was clearly talking about that day (as ungracious as his comment obviously was) was that the new IE 7 beta 1 (which I am running on my PC) is basically a Safarification of Internet Explorer 6. Minimalist interface? Check. RSS icon that lights up when you hit a page with a feed? Check. Combined Back and Forward Buttons? Check. Combined Reload and Stop Buttons? Check. A simple style sheet based view of RSS/ATOM/RDF xml? Check. Built-in search bar(which other browsers had first)? Check. Printing that shrinks the page instead of screwing it up? Check. I could go on.

Frankly, since most of what they copied are things about Safari that many of us Mac users dislike I’m not quite sure why they did it. As long as IE stays as imcompatible with the modern half of the web, and as long as Firefox keeps getting faster (which it needs to do to continue competing), it’s not going to be much of a contest.

But I’m digressing. Back to Dave. He continued today:

This is the kind of advice I’ve been getting from Mac users. Good stuff. You know, based on the rah-rah’s from developers who are probably too scared of Apple to say what they really think, I thought everyone else thought Apple was the perfect company and the perfect computer. That’s the downside of people being too scared to speak up, we get shitty information. How can we change this system, so that people aren’t so scared? Or can we get Apple to thicken up their skin a bit, and learn to not punish people who have the nerve to criticize them. Blogs were supposed to fix all this. Frankly I think it hurts Apple to just have rah-rah public discourse and commentary. In my experience the leading companies with super-thin skin: Apple, Google, and by far the worst—O’Reilly. It’s so funny people think they’re so cool and not-evil. These are the biggest control freaks in the computer industry, again, in my experience. We were joking about Google at dinner the other night, with their policy of not talking to CNET because they had the nerve to print some public information about their CEO. We really need to do something about this. It’s a gross ugly disease. Compared to these companies, Microsoft is positively laid-back. You can quote me on that. (And Google used to be the best. One person made all the diff.)

Now who’s being fooled, Dave? Yes, Apple and it’s leader are major control freaks, and yes, Microsoft has tried to recreate its image post-DOJ into a company that is open and communicative. But Dave, we are talking about Microsoft here?! This is the company that is trying to put its OS into everything (next stop: cars and set-top boxes) and uses any means necessary to achieve it. This is the company that even now is trying to co-opt J. Allard’s brilliant Xbox 360 into a Media Center/Windows trojan horse for the living room. This is a company that allows all the little people to speak, yes, but not one that is very open at all about the big things they are doing, or about the big business tactics they are using.

Apple’s followers have always loved Apple, but as far back as I can remember (around the release of the first Power Mac) it has always been tough love. Yes, the big magazines gave Apple great marks no matter what they did, but it was the internet (not blogging) that really allowed us customers to congregate around bulletin boards and forums and share our joys and frustrations about being a mac user.

Is Apple always perfect? Far from it, but you need look no further than the recent posted letter from Giles Turnbull to his brother about getting a mac:

My point is: sometimes Macs break, and I think it’s important to make that clear before you go and buy one. I’m not the kind of raving Mac fan who will try to brush over, or avoid this. Macs can break. They can be expensive to repair. But I still think you’re better off with one. Why? Because it’s the software that’s the main attraction of the Mac. The operating system really is impressive when compared to Windows – which is not to say it’s perfect. Just better than Windows, in my opinion. It’s easy to understand and use…

Safari happens to be my browser of choice. The Mac happens to be my computer of choice. For the foreseeable future, Scripting News will not be my blog surfing destination of choice.