Anil Dash posts a criticism about Mac OS X 10.5′s blue screen of death icon to represent PCs. He’s right, it is smug, but that isn’t the interesting part of the post.
He explains:
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.
I’m with you here; I could see how someone could feel this way. I don’t; at the icon size I usually use, it’s just a blue blur. But still, I can imagine someone might feel that way. But then Anil loses me:
(Thanks to Joerg for the image.)
Why? Because if Anil couldn’t get the image on his own, it’s because he’s either not running Leopard or not running SMB servers. Either way, these aren’t his feelings, because he hasn’t actually had the experience of seeing the icon representing the computers he described. This posting isn’t based on him seeing it and being so offended by it that he had to post. No, it’s based on him going out and looking for trouble.
So who does feel that deeply, personally insulted and offended by the icon?
To be clear, I was using the icon to represent an idea that I think is beneath Apple, that doesn’t acquit them well. For what it’s worth, I run both OS X and Vista on my machine, and use both all day, and think they’re both decent. I also know well enough not to upgrade to a .0 version of an operating system in its first few days.
Aw, crap. I spelt your name wrong. I’m very sorry. Fixed that. The rest… maybe it was a moment of insanity to post it, heh. Oh well. No insult meant.
No insult taken!