Jan. 1984: How critics reviewed the Mac

I’d have agreed with Dvorak at the time, regarding the mouse. It seemed like a stupid and unnecessary device, when all applications at the time had easily used pull-down menus with every command necessary for word processing, spreadsheets, scientific programs and even games. The keyboard was much more useful then, and it actually worked very well without a GUI or mouse. Gradually, all applications added mouse functionality, and then all computers were GUI, so there wasn’t much choice left. Pull-down menus still exist, with “shortcuts” – keyboard strokes, but so many things cannot easily be accessed by the keyboard anymore that the mouse becomes unavoidable. It wasn’t really necessary, and we could have gotten along without it. Artists and many others find tablets useful, and, without the mouse, I think we would have seen laser pointers become the user interface device of choice over time.

Alicia,

Viewing a video on the Internet works your computer harder than an entire screenplay.

I remember the Mac launch in the UK. I have a clear memory of seeing the mouse for the first time and thinkin ‘WTF is that? It’ll never take off…’ – er…oops!

Alicia: That was hilarious! You must be a comedy writer. I believe MS Word works the same on both PCs and Macs.

Alica,
Say what? It’s better to use Windows than Mac OS X for writing? That’s a new one. If we we’re talking about games I’d agree with you, but writing…

I know one (script) writer and she’s very happy about her switch to the Mac.

Alicia- no need to specify you are a writer the “like a spoiled child” simile gives it away.
As a writer, I have imagine that at the very least you must have enjoyed the infernal machine’s proportional fonts and the desktop graphical user interface not seen much in personal computers before. Windows of course improved on that desktop design by upgrading the trash can into a recycling bin and by moving it from the right side of the screen to the more intuitive left side of the screen. Creatively, the Mac team has been trying to catch up ever since. Given another 25 years they just might win you over. Time will tell.

Ugh, I had to use that awful thing in my job (advertising copywriter). Slow and stubborn, inflexible, and capricious. It responded to commands like a spoiled child. I always felt that somebody who thought counter-intuitively to my style and needs was working against me in that infernal machine. Everything I wanted to do, it had some other, clunky way it forced me to work. That opinion has persisted to this day. I have to use a Mac when I work at agencies on-site, but at home, I can use what works for me as a writer, and that is my little HP Pavilion Sllimline with Windows XP. A whole $600 bucks and it’s run like a top for the last three years, and I drive my computers hard. I have written six feature screenplays on it without a hiccup. A Mac might be fine for designers, but for a writer, it’s a weight tied to my brain. And that is my experience across 25 years and more with the Mac and Apple products. To each his own.

Although I agree that Dvorak got it totally, totally wrong and must – with hindsight – be totally embarrassed about his comments now, none of you seem to be allowing for the ‘time’ factor.

He made the comment at a time when he could have ended up being right.

Mind you, it is another good example why it’s a bad idea to make absolute predictions.

You know what I say? DAMN THE CRITICS!

I have no idea how a pompous a*s like Dvorak ever made it this long in the computer world as a mouth piece. Who listens to this guy.

the mac,
still alive doing science.

Wow… Who wants to use a mouse indeed. Although an extreme example, he is hardly alone in predicting (hoping for?) doom for Apple. We could dig up critics saying the iPod would never get mass appeal, that the Zune would give the iPod a real run for its money, that the iPhone would fail miserably, that iPod sales in the 2008 holiday season would be very soft because “everyone already has one” … Apple has not hit a homerun every time, but there are a lot more hits than misses and that seems to really annoy a lot of people out there.
Signing off from my mouseless iPhone … Whoa! That guy was right! Just way ahead of his time.

maybe he uses a cat instead

“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.”

I wonder if they already using that experimental pointing device with personal computers these days… :-D

If only Apple had open sourced its operating system they would own the “pc” world

The Mac changed the course of computing. It’s major contribution (ironically): enabling over 3 billion Windows computers to have a graphic interface for the people of the world over the last 25 years.

“Actually, Dvorak had it kind of right. ”

Yeah – especially the comment about the mouse. A regular Nostradamus…

Actually, Dvorak had it kind of right. Just when Apple was trying to sell a personal computing experience is just when people were realizing that the PC made a great replacement for their typewriters, calculators and filing cabinets, tasks most efficiently accomplished using a text-based display. By the time GUI became standard, market share had already been lost.

I would love to visit Dvorak’s workplace and see whether he uses a mouse. (Of course he does.)

The Dvorak rant is a hoot!

dvorak has always been an idiot. nice to see that in print.