The Mac a computer for you but not your company?

That might sound like a strange question from someone who spent over twenty years selling Apple's computers mostly to large enterprise customers.

Part of what I would like to call the Mac experience has headed in the right direction( Unix, mostly open standards, Intel processors), there's another side that I think poses some real problems.

I once had the head of IT in a large federal agency tell me that if he changed the agency desktop that his thousands upon thousands of workers used, many would quit in frustration.

Yet I had another CIO say that there is an advantage in giving people the choice of the best tools to do their job.

Between those two positions is the crux of the problem.

I do not really have any question that Apple's tools are the best ones for me to get my job done.  From working on the web, to doing spreadsheets, flyers, and photos, I think the Mac puts me a the top of my game.  Yet I am not certain that will always be the case.

I recently purchased both iLife 08 and iWork 08.  It was the installation of these two software suites that got seriously wondering if Apple has gotten away from some of the core concepts that made me very successful as an enterprise sales person even though I was working for a died in the wool consumer company.

What made Apple great was consistency of user interface and the ability to innovate within that framework.

There are some really interesting and possibly even some productivity enhancing features in Apple's new software.  However, there are some changes that appear to me as change for the sake of change.

While I like the idea of events in iPhoto, there are some things that take more steps than they used to take.  Navigation in certain modes is harder.  There are couple of new tools which I find very useful.  Still it is a mixed bag.  Knowing the pixel dimensions of an image is useful in posting to some websites. In the previous version that was one of the things you saw in the export window, now you only see one dimension.

My intent isn't to start a feature by feature debate on iPhoto or any of the other products.

My concern is more the general direction.  For example when I go to the edit mode, I get the feeling Apple moved some things around just to fill up space.

When I opened the numbers spreadsheet, one of the first things I tried to do was a "fill right" on a formula.  It is something I have done with every spreadsheet I have ever used.  I finally figured out that I could do it by just dragging a selection. It there is a command I never found it.  The Numbers way of doing it is actually really neat, the problem is that no one that I know does that unless it is in the latest Windows version of Excel.

I suspect it would take years of seminars at a federal agency to get that new way across.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Apple does stuff in software just because they can and because they think it is cool.  It may or may not help the majority of the users get their jobs done more quickly.

The flap over the latest iMovie might be relevant in that I have seen it suggested the changes were done more to attract additional people to video editing than to meet the needs of current users.

Some here is the argument.  In trying to be different and attract new people to doing different things on a computer, Apple goes off in directions which or may not be the right ones for current users.

Apple creates more change for the sake of change than your average company can stand.

A company selling to an enterprise should spend a significant amount of time trying to understand what those users are doing and how to help them do it better. I know Apple in theory doesn't sell to the enterprise, but they have people with "enterprise sales" in their title so they have to own up to it a little.

I don't think any company does a good job of doing that right now but I think Microsoft tries.  Apple does not even try.

I want to believe that the Open Source movement gets to that point by trying to solve problems that have floated up from users, but I wouldn't bet a lot of money on that either.

In the end though, I think Apple is getting to the glitz part of their existence and losing their focus on user productivity.  I haven't been convinced that Apple can chew gum (bring out the iPhone) and walk at the same time (continue to bring out truly revolutionary computers).

You can argue that the iPhone is a truly revolutionary computer until you are blue in the face, and I still won't be convinced because it won't do what I need to do with a computer.

Maybe truly revolutionary is not going to happen on the desktop again,  but I have to think Apple was the only hope.  Maybe that hope is gone with Apple's focus on wowing the masses.

When you think about it, as some people leaving comments have said, Apple is all about one computer for one person.

Apple is not about lots of people doing the same thing from random or multiple computers. 

Apple has that single user focus by design.  Though I have not followed up on it with any of my Apple contacts, I know that a few years ago, Apple was ready to introduce a portable home directory for the individual user.   The word was that Steve canned it because he thought it would be confusing.

I actually saw it demonstrated at login.  You could plug a firewire drive into a machine, and it would offer you the opportunity to use your portable home directory.  The theory was that you could also get to a home directory from a server.  That may well be possible with OS X server, but even if it is I wonder how many companies use it or even know about it.

In an Apple world your personal computer is just that, even to the point of putting it in your pocket if your needs are minimal enough to be met by an iPhone.  Your computer is about sharing what you want to share not having access to what someone else wants you to have.

It is a focus that I think makes Apple the computer for you but perhaps not for your company

Of course that changes if your company is driven by a bunch of creative types that respond better to nonconformity than to conformity.

______________________

As an update on iWeb, HTML, and various things from my previous post which is related to this post.  I installed NeoOffice as suggested by someone.  NeoOffice won't load a Page document, but it will do almost anything else.

The five dollars donation I made for NeoOffice is probably the best money I have spent on my Mac in a long time.

Here are some screen shots that indicate the flexibility that you have with NeoOffice compared with some very limited options with Pages and iWeb which don't seem to work well together at all.

Pages Export Menu

NeoOffice Writer Options

NeoOffice Spreadsheet

NeoOffice Presentation

Simple Web Page done with NeoOffice

Comments

[Jan]

They bought two of my suggestions. One i suggested for iTunes, but it went into the iPhone, and the other was implemented in iPhoto. Not bad. My cable company tries to sell me more of their already expensive services, although the one I have doesn't work 24/7. When I complain to them, they only say they are sorry, no offerings of compensation or anything...

[Cynic]

"I once had the head of IT in a large federal agency tell me that if he changed the agency desktop that his thousands upon thousands of workers used, many would quit in frustration."

In that case we need to rush out Macs to everyone in the government.

[Mr Roberto]

I may have misunderstood you, but the "fill right" function by dragging a selection of rows/columns across is already in Mac Office X's Excel.

If you numbered the cells in a column "1, 2, 3", for example, highlighting those and then dragging a handle on row 3 downwards will cause the program to insert the subsequent numbers (4, 5, 6, x) to all the rows you have dragged the handle to. Same thing happens with columns.

I found this out one day observing an admin assistant doing it on her spreadsheet while I was waiting for her to get me some docs. So it seems to be common knowledge among those type of workers.

[ocracokewaves]

Son of gun, you are right. I just tried it.

I actually learned the command key combination for "fill right" in Excel from my area associate. I can remember it changed from one version of Excel to the next.

In searching for the Apple equivalent I even looked in the manual without any luck, but I didn't spend a lot of time there.

I was double checking before I wrote this comment in the keyboard equivalents section of the online help, and I found that if you search there for "fill right" you learn that Apple terminology is "Autofilling Table Cells."

You also learn that there are tons of keyboard equivalents for formating things, just none for what I consider one of the basic commands in a spreadsheet.

It is rev 1, maybe they will ask some spreadsheet users what they need.