Show Us You Mean It

The Economist has a series of articles describing how the world needs simpler, more human-centric technology. I imagine this doesn't come as a surprise to most people reading this. Here's my message to the author: put your money where your mouth is.

Want simplicity? Want well-designed, easy-to-use software? Use a computer built by Apple running Mac OS X.

My Dad came to me last year and asked what he could do to deal with all the insane complexity of using a computer. I told him he might not like the answer, but he should buy a Powerbook. Surprisingly, he agreed with me. He had reached a critical level of frustration with Windows and decided that he was willing to try something different on my recommendation.

The model of Microsoft (or even a Linux vender) supplying an OS and 14,000 vendors creating their own intepretation of the underlying hardware doesn't set you up for simplicity. More fundamentally, Microsoft's very philosophy doesn't set you up for it. From what I've seen, it's just not in the culture there. The company's focus seems to consistently be on business strategy and relationships more than products.

The culture of the Linux community is in stark contrast to that, but often seems to be more interested in politics and the academics of software than the end user. Unfortunately, as Linux becomes more commercialized, certain vendors seem to be adopting more of the principles of Microsoft product development. Some members of the Linux community go as far as to say that ease-of-use is actually bad.

By constrast, Apple is a design company through and through. And not design just in the UI sense. Design as in thinking through the entire experience. Contrary to what the average person perceives, creating software that is simple from a user's perspective is actually quite difficult. To a user, "simple" means "handle the details for me." Handling all the details requires a lot of effort on the part of the programmer.

Apple invests the time to design something as a whole. The result is something that is almost always easier to use and often more flexible as well. You are not going to get this level of design from a $500 box from Dell running XP. The economics just aren't there.

So if you're serious about wanting something better, stop giving money to the people that are providing you with things you don't like. When the next version of Windows comes out, Microsoft is going to promise you that this time, they've really got it right and it's easy to use. So while the individuals working at the company are no doubt working hard to achieve that, I just don't think the ecosystem is there to deliver on that promise.

On the other hand, Tiger looks very promising. Is it as simple to use as a phone? Absolutely not. Is it well-designed for the broad range of applications it's design to address? Absolutely.

If you go out and buy the next version of Windows and a Dell PC, I don't want to hear any complaints about overcomplexity. :)

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