Roine and I are constant missionaries for Apple’s products. That’s the way it has been since we bought our first Mac in April 1989. Since 2004, I have tried to convince someone interested in buying a Mac. This man has thought of himself as a person who ”doesn’t understand computers”.
–That’s exactly why you should buy a Mac! I have repeatedly.
Sometimes he has sat beside me at the office and watched my computer.
–Everything looks so cool on your computer! I have replied:
–Well, all you have to do is get yourself a Mac, you see…
At other times, he has asked me to help him perform something on his PC, and I have stared with horror at his PC and said things like:
–I don’t understand PC! I get the shivers when everything looks so PC-like. Everything seems to get so complicated when it’s in a PC…
And then I have made brave attempts to help him. Most of the time, I have succeeded, but not without a lot of searching and trying, and sometimes I even had to get help myself.
–Please, why don’t you just buy a Mac? I’ve asked him.
At the beginning of this year, we managed to convince him to buy an iPad for a specific activity, but he didn’t really use it as much as we’d hoped. But this autumn, he asked me to give him an iPad lesson. It so happened that the screen on his PC laptop got broken about the same time, and a week later, he came to me and said the magic words:
–I have decided to buy a Mac and an iPhone. Can you help me?
At last! Hooray, hooray, hooray!
The Apple stuff got delivered last week. I have promised to give some Mac lessons, but we still haven’t found the time. This man used to sigh a lot over his PC, but now he’s a happy man despite his iPhone being broken, so they had to deliver a new one to him.
–Before, I used to get angry when something didn’t work in my computer, but now I think that this is a school that I have to go through, says the happy man.
He has asked me a couple of easy questions, and every time he’s happy. Above all, it seems like he thinks it’s fun to try and see if he can manage to find out how to do things all by himself.
He hasn’t had his Apple devices for a whole week yet, but I sense that his self-confidence when using computers is about to grow. I think this is another confirmation that Apple’s user interface is more intuitive and follows a pedagogy that boosts the user’s confidence rather than making them feel dumb. That’s why Apple’s devices become your friends.
