With the new Macs coming out they’re being subjected to the usual complaining as with every Apple product, but it’s usually about menial things like where the power button is. The iPad mini just came out and that had a whole host of complaints about it despite it and the iMac having the same changes: colors and a chip.

Concessions

Granted, the implications of that chip change did enable other things like 16GB of RAM standard on the iMac, but the iPad mini both doubled in RAM and storage and was not met with any of the same kind of accolades. The iMac also got Nano-Texture, which is nice, but really not that much of a game-changing feature. It’s a nice to have.

Why

Well, if you ask someone who tends to complain about new products (typically us writers), then you’re going to hear that the Mac doesn’t need as many changes as iPad does. Those people are usually Mac users. Ask any PC user what features Macs could use and I’m sure they’ll rattle off just as many qualms with Macs that a Mac user does with iPad.

The “glaring issues” with a platform you don’t use can, at times, be the reasons another person uses that platform. It’s really important to hear criticisms from both people who don’t use the device as well as those who do use the device. It will get you a sense of things that are keeping people from the platform and also show you why the features and improvements that were added are useful. A Mac user might not understand why an iPad user prefers iPad, and a Windows user isn’t going to understand why a Mac user prefers Macs, it’s a preference.

We’re Mac Users

A lot of the people who write about Apple on the internet are Mac users. They grew up on Macs, they use them daily, it’s how their brain works. I personally didn’t own a Mac until I got to college, before that I had a Windows laptop and, before I had my own laptop, I used an Ubuntu desktop. These days I use Mac, iPad, Windows, and Linux almost daily (I haven’t used Linux much recently, macOS covers a lot of what I need, it’s really just for working with CUDA).

Because these people spend so much time using Macs, they don’t necessarily have the same kind of understanding of the OS that an iPad user would. Sure, there are things that iPad users are annoyed by with iPadOS, but they’re not necessarily the same things that Mac users are annoyed with. People who regularly use Macs are going to try and use an iPad like a Mac and they’re going to get frustrated when it doesn’t work like a Mac. It’s not a Mac. You can try and use a Windows machine like a Mac and it’s not going to be fun. Each system has their own conventions, it’s best to try and mold to them, take advantage of what works best on each system.

Closing Thoughts

It gets to the point where the complaints of people who don’t use those platforms are just falling on deaf ears. There are things about iPad that aren’t going to change no matter how many Mac users complain about it. There are things about Mac that aren’t going to change no matter how many Windows users complain about it. Use the tools that work for you, each platform has its differences and, if you can’t make use of one, then you don’t need to use it. Thoughts? Sound off on Mastodon.