Marc Palmer

I had to help a relative out with getting Skype installed on a new Windows Vista PC the other day.

It was my first experience of Vista in the flesh (I previously used Windows XP before moving to Mac), and while everything worked it definitely didn’t "just work" which is the Apple way.

It was very interesting to revisit the "Windows way" like this as an alien who now does things the "Mac way".

My task – install a USB webcam for use with Skype, and connect some new speakers, and make some test video calls with Skype.

Observations follow:

1. It takes 10 minutes+ to install drivers/whatever crap it is that comes on the CD with the webcam
2. Every time anything "happens" you get asked if you (a) really want to do it and (b) if you’re really happy for whatever it is to do whatever it is it is doing
3. The screen flickers all the time when popping up these ridiculous "Do you want to allow X or Y" messages that are supposed to make you feel more secure. The flickers might be a lame graphics card or bad driver, but to me it just looks like a very bad "lowlight the background" effect.
4. The webcam (Quickcam) always has this popup tool window that you really care nothing about and yet it appears (and hence has to be closed) whenever you use the camera via Skype
5. Even Skype for windows is tainted with "Windowsitis" and has a ridiculous three possible ways of viewing the video of a call (in call tab, in window, full screen)
6. So many tool buttons and tabs in everything. STOP IT ALREADY, PLEASE!
7. Even just resizing an IE7 window causes all the toolbars to flicker as they resize and redraw – truly pathetic and just makes you feel like you are in a second hand car rather than a new sports car (which relatively speaking this new PC is!). You get used to this crap resizing rendering on Windows – its only when you go back from mac you remember and realise what you put up with
8. Complete lack of comprehension of what Apple did with Dashboard widgets. You don’t want these on your desktop where they get covered up all the time by other windows – that’s why they appear OVER everything on Mac
9. When I plug some speakers in, I don’t need to be TOLD "Some speakers have just been plugged in"! Completely braindead, and the icon for the speaker looks like crap, all pixellated etc. Contrast with iTunes and the AirTunes/Airport Express device. This too can detect the presence of a jack plug in the socket… but you hear nothing of this UNLESS you try to play music out of the device, in which case it will say "There are no speakers connected to the AirTunes device"! Genius, or common sense? It definitely isn’t either in Microsoft’s campus.
10. In a brand new computer, with a nice 19" widescreen display, why (why oh why on Earth) does windows default to 1024×768 resolution?! Thus presenting a strangely stretched and blurry display. I had to find the monitor product code and google for the true resolution as there was no indication of supported resolutions in display settings / device manager, and then I finally put in 1440 x 900 and hurrah crystal clear display. To have great hardware and not use the natural resolution of it simply beggars belief. There is no way my father in law would have found out how to do this. All Apple hardware runs at the LCD’s natural resolution by default. You might blame it on hardware/drivers rather than Windows, perhaps that is the case, but that in itself is part of the problem. Apple is a complete solution: harmony ensues.

The latter point demonstrates most clearly the sometimes ephemeral difference between Macs and Windows PCs – it’s the epitome of the "Just works" concept. It doesn’t make sense for it to be any other way, and yet Windows achieves it because the propellerheads at Redmond can’t understand people, only machines. If they had a single truly clued up Human Interface Design expert looking at their stuff, they would not produce this rubbish. Perhaps there are many HID people there, but nobody listens?

UPDATE: I forgot to mention. 11. Why, in 2008, does Windows need to reboot after installing the driver for a USB webcam? Insanity.

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