Comment by modfodder
12 years ago
I don't believe those applications are half-baked as much as your needs are more advanced than the target of those applications. Those applications work extremely well for the typical mac user. Firefox would just confuse my sister, and she wouldn't even know what an NFS server is. Linux would just make her stop using a computer.
And how is iChat half baked because you use Gmail chat? I could say the same for Gchat when I use iChat. (Not saying that ichat can't be improved, but your line of logic doesn't follow.)
In re-reading my post, yeah, I guess it's a little "power user" centric. You're right in that most people wouldn't be comfortable with Linux, an NFS server, or even R.
I think the point I should have made was that I don't find a lot of the apps to be that useful because there are good web equivalents (mail, chat, docs, etc.) and I don't find the other apps that compelling. I would suspect, even being the "power user" that I am, that most other people are of the same opinion. That, or they're just using a tablet or their phone instead.
As for Firefox, I'm not sure how it would confuse your sister any more than Safari does, unless she finds it confusing for web sites to render correctly and not crash constantly.
My sister probably would have trouble finding and installing firefox, and then wouldn't get more out of it than she would Safari. I'm not sure what websites you have problems with, but I can't remember the last time I had Safari crash on me (anecdotal I know, plus I bounce back and forth between Safari and Chrome).
And I agree that there are better versions of Apple's free software, but it's free, and does exactly what it should, which is lubricate the novice user's experience. Once you pass novice, it's easy to go find software that fulfills your needs.
And I would disagree that most other people are of the same opinion. My guess is that you live in a bubble of mostly experienced computer users (as do most of us on HN). Go spend a day at an Apple store somewhere besides the Bay area and you'll see most of the people that make up the bulk of Apple's user base. They, like my sister, probably don't even know there are other options out there (some are using iPad and iPhones, sure, but plenty are still using iMacs and Macbooks).