By Lukas Hauser
In the heels of news that Macs have only gained 1/2 a percentage point in marketshare in recent years, MacCommunist has conducted an equally scientific survey. Apple has a commanding marketshare lead over its nearest rival, Dell Computer, among people I know.My girlfriend has an iBook. (Okay, I forced her to. She's a previous Dell user, the capitalist. But there's only one party allowed in this country, baby!) Her friend in corporate law school is planning on getting an iBook next semester. (See? The system works!)
My ex-girlfriend has a Mac, too -- probably the same Power Computing piece of junk I helped her choose so many years ago. Perhaps had we stayed true to MacCommunist ideals - COMPETITION WITH APPLE IS ALWAYS WRONG - the relationship would have worked out. No matter.
My current girlfriend's roommate, Sarah, has an original iMac but she's thinking of switching to PCs since her iMac is busted. (An acceptable loss: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.) My girlfriend's ex-roommate, Wendy, is considerably happier with her iMac. My girlfriend's other roommate, Karen, is an "information architect" at a major New York internet agency, and uses Macs on the job. The fourth roommate, Jessica, doesn't have a computer but apparently had owned Macs throughout her college career.
A friend, Jason, has a tangerine iMac 266 in his Manhattan Upper West Side apartment. He'd previously had an original iMac at his job -- financial writer for a Hearst magazine -- and had recently upgraded his work computer to an iMac DV Special Edition. (The entire magazine's staff uses iMacs -- as, I imagine, most Hearst magazines do.) But he's recently quit his job to write freelance, and will be using his orange home iMac full-time.
His roommate, a veteran freelance writer and editor, has had a plethora of Macs since 1985, and just recently upgraded to a $999 entry-level iMac. His other roommate, Dan, a computer-science graduate from an Ivy League college, is computer-less, but will be buying a Mac PowerBook for his summer job in Los Alamos. Dan just helped his mother, a painter, get an iMac, too.
The woman who hooked me up with a writing/editing myself for a New York-based design-centric magazine gig is a proud owner of an iMac at home, as is her fashion-writer roommate; the influential web magazine she also writes for is exclusively Mac-based, too. The aforementioned design magazine uses Macs, of course, as I imagine all its writers and designers do at home.
Mired's editor has a PowerBook G3 at home. Mired's contributing editors -- a humanities graduate student and a sports-magazine fact-checker -- own a
PowerBook G3 and a Dell notebook, respectively. However, the Dell-notebook-using fact-checker uses a graphite iMac DV at his fact-checking job, and is apparently considering making the switch at home, too.
A good college friend of mine, an artist, is a big fan of her G4, which she uses to make her art. Her father, a respected photographer, recently switched from a 5-year-old Windows PC to a G4 with Apple Cinema Display. His wife, a lawyer, loves her PowerBook G3, recommended by a computer-consultant family friend who owns dozens of Macs. A lot of the family's artist friends are Mac users themselves.
One business acquaintance of mine is a fashion photogapher, who has 5-10 Power Mac G4s in his Chelsea studio; another is multimedia performance artist who also has 5-10 Macs in her Tribeca studio; another runs a small SoHo art gallery with 3-5 Power Mac G3s; another works for an outdoor advertising agency which has 3-4 G3s in its design space.
Five web-design colleagues at a global media conglomerate for which I work all use either G3s or G4s, and all have older Macs at home. (One, a
Yaddo-affiliated painter, helped her significant other get an iMac recently.) Our division has probably a hundred Macs in use, exclusively. Also in my building are a major newsweekly magazine's offices (all Mac-based).
One financial writer I know there, peripherally, is married to a graphic designer, who recently bought a Power Macintosh G3. An HTML programmer I know in another division uses a PC at work, but bought a purple iMac for his home use in Queens. Another, who runs a punk-rock web-zine, is in the same situation, but will be replacing his work PC with a G4 in the coming weeks.
My own roommate doesn't have a computer at home, but has his sights set on a graphite iBook. The entertainment magazine he writes for is also exclusive Mac-based. An inventory of some of his friends: a fellow writer and iBook owner; a musician and G3 owner; another musician and G4 owner; a freelance fashion writer and iMac owner. My roommate's cousins also use Macs, as does his father, a doctor.
My mother has an iMac. My father, retired, has a tangerine iMac DV. My half-sister and her husband have a Mac. Some good friends of the family in California have several Macs. Some friends of the family in Western New York recently bought a PowerBook G3.
My uncle has a PC. How it hurts!
My old high-school buddy living in San Francisco has a G3 at home and G4 at work. (His mother has an older Mac at home.) A college buddy, also in San Francisco, has a Mac at home and is otherwise unemployed. Another high school friend is in the Peace Corps, but his family back in Western New York has a variety of older Macs.
Some good friends of mine, jazz musicians, bought an original iMac a few years ago. As they've become more successful in recent months, signed by a major label, they've bought themselves an iBook and iMac DV Special Edition.
"These numbers are staggering," I said in response to the report. "Apple seems to be doing better than expected in this particular but far-reaching market segment."
The lesson? Capitalist pigs: prepare to be dragged out onto the street and shot.
Thanks to our man Gary Flint for his solidarity!