I was reading Zeldman’s post and cogitating that this is my main problem with Apple. Their products look phenomenal on the outside. I lust for the ipod and the titanium laptop. OS X is breathtaking. But to me (and dare I say a ton of others) they’re just not functional.

Design IS more than just outside appearance, much as a person’s worth is more than just their clothes style. If a person cannot find how to eject the CD ROM on the new G4s, what’s the point of having the sleek, flat-faced, no button on the front drive? If it’s not intuitive how to connect to a shared drive, if you just cannot find it within a few seconds, then the operating system is not well designed. And it’s not just an issue of “getting used to” an interface. The best test is to put someone on a machine they’ve never used before, with an OS they’ve never used and see how well they do. As dumbed-down as windows boxes are, they are at least more intuitive to the lowest common denominator of users.

I consider myself a fairly resourceful chap, adapts quickly and picks up things easily. However, I often catch myself on Macs being puzzled. Things aren’t where they logically should be. And don’t get me started on the mice. The fact that Apple refuses to give up their trademark “entire-mouse-as-button” input device for the more productive and logical 2+ button mouse will be forever lost on me.

I can’t stand either Microsoft or Apple. They’re both at extremes on the form vs. function issue. If only there would be a merger to make computers that looked just as sexy and equally as usable.

Hey let’s just go back to the letterpress, ok?