Customer Perceptions

I finally gave in and bought an iMac. It arrived today. Let me tell you, it meets every expectation I had and then some. I’m writing this post on it, just an hour after setting up the machine–I’ve already transferred all my music and photos and have installed a few applications as well. Describing it as a ‘machine’ seems a somewhat crude; it’s clearly an ‘infromation appliance’ or at least closer to a piece of elegant home electronic equipment–minus the dizzing sea of buttons.

Let’s review two aspects of the iMac experience that I believe make it a ‘killer app’

1. Unveiling (a.k.a. the setup) – The iMac arrives in a box fit for its design: white, sleek and elegant. When you open the box the first thing you see is a white box with the label “Designed by Apple in California”. The box contains a small book, and your mouse, and remote (yes, it comes with a remote control like a TV, only much cooler). The ’setup’ instructions are quite simple: a) plug in, b) turn on. That’s it. The iMac has one powercord for everything. Yes, you PC users the Apple commercials are true the camera, microphone and speakers are all built in — no need for many peripherals. Once on, the machines take you through a setup procedure a five year old could handle. It displayed pictures of how to open the mouse and insert the batteries; same for the keyboard (I got the wireless ones). Once those two devices are working your pretty much done. The setup detects your wireless network and asks you for a username and password for the machine. It even turns on the built in camera and offers to take your photo as your user identity! Pretty cool!

Once the operating system starts that’s it your done. All of your basic applications (web, music, video, email and photos) are built in and they simply work. There is no installing drivers, etc. And that brings me to the best part of the setup experience. I connected my USB printer to the iMac and expected to see an installation dialog box or some type of message that my printer was now ready. Instead I saw nothing. Ah, now I’ve got them. The printer is not compatable with the Mac… oh but wait. I opened my web browser and selected ‘print’. What do you know… the printer was already there as the default. Amazing! No nasty setup and the printer works flawlessly.

It just works — that should be Jobs’ new slogan for these things.

2. Simplicity (a.k.a .ease of use): The last time I used the Macintosh operating system it was on an Apple II when I was a child. The applications were so simple to use then, and basically nothing has changed with regard to ease of use. It took about five minutes for me to get used to using the open apple key versus control and a few other differences from Windows but that’s about it.

The finder itself just makes sense. There are separate folders for applications, documents, music, photos, etc. In fact, I found myself wanting more ‘options’ as I setup elements of the operating system, just realizing they were not there. There absense initially concerned me, but after about one second thinking about it, I realized they are not necessary, so they are just simply not there. I am sure for the PowerUser all of the bells and whistles can be unleashed, but for the basics: email, web browsing and photos, there is not much needed.

Conclusion – Maybe I am late to the game here, but I think Apple has hit a sweet spot. As more applications migrate to the web, and so many other appliances are frought with challenges for the basic–and even intermediate user–the Mac has carved out a niche that I believe will become mainstream over the next five years.

Signing off — from the new iMac lover!

Scott Lieberman :: Feb.10.2007 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Trackback this post | Feed on Comments to this post