All of a suddden, Mojave is an Epic Fail

Joe Wilcox switches from praising the Mojave Experiment one day, to slamming it as an exercise in poor marketing and a cruel experiment designed to embarrass the participants, the next. He apologises for drinking the Microsoft Kool-Aid and launches into a frenzied attack on the whole Mojave concept.

He also lumps in a few choice phrases in praise of Apple along the way for good measure.

This is nothing new, as a couple of other articles have popped up that say more or less the same thing. Perhaps Joe saw how much traffic they were generating, and decided that a quick change of mind was in order.

It's things like these that really make you wish you hadn't gotten into the IT industry at all, don't they?

LOL, he complains about a "control group", and some commentors are even "shocked" at the lack of a "control group".  I wonder, are they equally "shocked" at the lack of control groups when it comes to Apple's ads?  Are they also "shocked" about the lack of, well, truth in Apple's ads these days?  My guess is: "No". 

These people are so brainwashed by Apple that they can't even see a double standard when it hits them right in the face.

I don't think Joe Wilcox meant that the campaign is a complete failure, but that there were some things that he though should have been done differently.  The key is that he said he began to hate Vista more and more as time went on, so therefore everyone must hate it more as they use it for extended periods of time.

In my own experience, I started to like Vista more as time went on, as I found all of the subtle changes.  The increased driver support was also a BIG plus.

It is also kind of hard to take him seriously though when he compares Vista to a slut several times throughout the article.  Professionalism at its finest.

Rd_Falcon said:

I don't think Joe Wilcox meant that the campaign is a complete failure, but that there were some things that he though should have been done differently.  The key is that he said he began to hate Vista more and more as time went on, so therefore everyone must hate it more as they use it for extended periods of time.

In my own experience, I started to like Vista more as time went on, as I found all of the subtle changes.  The increased driver support was also a BIG plus.

It is also kind of hard to take him seriously though when he compares Vista to a slut several times throughout the article.  Professionalism at its finest.

Rd_Falcon said:

.  The key is that he said he began to hate Vista more and more as time went on, so therefore everyone must hate it more as they use it for extended periods of time.

mVPstar said:

Rd_Falcon said:

*snip*

But the point of the campaign wasn't to kill off negativity of Vista after long periods of time, it was to kill the negative perception that is preventing people from trying the OS in the first place. Tagetting the people who haven't actually used it [enough] to have an informed opinion.

Debunking the myths of overtime annoyance in Vista is for another campaign... (I hope)

stevo_ said:

mVPstar said:

*snip*

Must...be...first...to...blog...sensationalist...fud...gaaaahhh too late!

The main issue with Vista really is the public perception of it.

You talk to people who are paying more to purchase Windows XP and you ask them why. Often times they will respond with remarks like "Vista sucks," "Vista is bad," "Vista has poor Driver/Software compatibility" and such.

But what it all really boils down to is often what they've heard from other people. Very few people who've actually used Vista have downgraded. I myself had a series of Audio Issues on Vista but in the end that was more likely down to Creative's ineptitude rather than Microsoft's.

Vista certainly isn't a huge step up from Windows XP. It also has some UI issues (e.g. Control Panel). But it is still a step up. It kind of boggles that mind that given the choice of either XP or Vista at the same price that people would opt for XP let alone pay MORE for XP.

Microsoft may have well give up at this stage and work on shipping the next version of Windows. This PR battle has been entirely lost. When most of the normal crettins have got it into their head that Vista is bad then it really is an uphill struggle to get them to change the perception.

It is kind of the opposite effect of the hugely successful "Windows XP is a much better gaming OS than Windows 2000" that people still happen to believe to this day (even if factually untrue).

mVPstar said:

Rd_Falcon said:

*snip*

But the point of the campaign wasn't to kill off negativity of Vista after long periods of time, it was to kill the negative perception that is preventing people from trying the OS in the first place. Tagetting the people who haven't actually used it [enough] to have an informed opinion.

Debunking the myths of overtime annoyance in Vista is for another campaign... (I hope)

CannotResolveSymbol said:

mVPstar said:

*snip*

Am I the only person who hasn't yet tried Vista not because of negative perceptions, but because it's so flipping expensive?

I don't buy into all the FUD regarding Vista, but I just can't rationalize spending $185 (current price for an upgrade license @ Newegg) to upgrade to Vista Ultimate (on XP Pro now and Ultimate's the only way to get feature parity) and find out that either (1) it's unacceptably slow on my older hardware or (2) an application that I need won't run.

Sure, I'll get Vista on the next machine I buy (which is 1-2 years out), but I can't rationalize the upgrade for my existing machine.  Maybe if there were some way I could do a non-destructive trial of some sort...  I'd even be willing to pave over my Linux partition if I had a way to legally do a 30-day trial installation or something.

AndyC said:

CannotResolveSymbol said:

*snip*

Probably not. Though Vista Business is a closer match for XP Pro than Ultimate. But if XP does what you need, why change?

In my opion Mojave is just what the doctor ordered. In fact I have so much to say about Microsoft misperceptions that I'm
going to write about it in my BLAG. Coming soon.


I heart my vista. It's good looking, it's intuitive, it's hella fast. I love when someone says Vista sucks around me.  My immediate question is "Why?" which is usually met by that face people make when they know they are caught talking about something they heard on the radio or from a neighboor.

SaraJoRedux said:

In my opion Mojave is just what the doctor ordered. In fact I have so much to say about Microsoft misperceptions that I'm
going to write about it in my BLAG. Coming soon.


I heart my vista. It's good looking, it's intuitive, it's hella fast. I love when someone says Vista sucks around me.  My immediate question is "Why?" which is usually met by that face people make when they know they are caught talking about something they heard on the radio or from a neighboor.

SaraJoRedux said:

In my opion Mojave is just what the doctor ordered. In fact I have so much to say about Microsoft misperceptions that I'm
going to write about it in my BLAG. Coming soon.


I heart my vista. It's good looking, it's intuitive, it's hella fast. I love when someone says Vista sucks around me.  My immediate question is "Why?" which is usually met by that face people make when they know they are caught talking about something they heard on the radio or from a neighboor.

I built a new machine, installed vista, and within a month but XP back on. When it comes to my home PC I want things to "just work".  However the majority of people who do run Vista always seem to reply with "It's not that bad".

Charles said:

Bas said:

*snip*

It's interesting how mass perception is composed. There really is no requirement for Reality to be part of perception computation and the advent of opinion (which for the most part is based on the same core ingredients of perception, derived from it, in fact). The VistaSucks campaign (started, or mastered, really, by Apple) has really proven to be quite successful in convincing people that Vista really does suck. Of course, most people (not all) who proclaim Vista to be a massive failure and a terrible OS have not, in fact, ever used Vista. The Mojave exercise was more of an experiment than an ill-conceived Marketing endeavor (and let's be honest, Windows Marketing, with all due respect, isn't the strongest marketing team inside the Deathstar...). People who already have an opinion of something they've never seen ("it sucks, yeah, what she said..." ++) are shocked when they experience it for the first time and enjoy it only to find that it's the very beast they are convinced sucks. I think Mojave was a great idea. Perhaps how the aftermath was handled by Microsoft and the media was somewhat questionable, but the experiment itself was actually a clever idea.

Vista is a great NT-type OS. It's extremely usable. It's stable. With each patch it improves (just like XP - remember, it took until SP2 to produce a truly reliable, secure XP. Remember that? Well, also remember that Vista shipped as secure (more so, really) and reliable as XPSP2, Vista SP1 took it up another notch, etc...).

Apple's OS offerings (including their mobile OS, iPhone 2.0) is not without flaws (in fact, if you look at the architecture of Windows and OSX, you'll note that they are both the same type of OS at the core (monolithic kernel, usermode/kernel boundary). The main difference between Windows and OSX is really in the general purpose-ness of the operating systems. Windows, by design, is a generalized, multi-purpose, hardware agnostic (we support 50,000 devices and even more configurations) operating system that is designed, first and foremost, as a platform. We want developers (have always wanted developers) to build great things on Windows, from drivers to usermode applications. In order to pull this off, Windows had to be designed to support any number of scenarios (many of which being unknown at the time of implementation). This means that Windows has to be very generic. Look, Windows puts the general in the term general purpose operating system....

Apple gets off easy. They support a incredibly small subset of hardware configurations (which they own....). OSX is not a platform as much as it is a complex computing utility (this is fine). Sure, Apple provides an SDK, but how many of you have built an app for the Mac?

The I'm a Mac/I'm Windows commercials have served Apple's Marketing Machine very well. I won't fault them for a great perception campaign that has certainly had an impact on public opinion regarding Vista. Bravo, Apple. Touche. That said, from an OS point of view, Vista is not a second class OS compared to OSX, no matter how Apple commercials on TV try to convince you. Vista is a great general purpose OS. It's not far superior to XPSP2, but it is better. It's a world-class OS. At any rate I could say it's this and it's that. I'm starting to sound like a marketing droid and I'm getting nauseous.

Why don't you really try Vista out before forming an opinion. Critical thinking is not just a skill. It's what makes us rational beings capable of making informed decisions based on fact and experience.

Keep on thinking,
C