A Mac IS a PC

Yeah, that’s it, I love that title. Just enough to alert the cortex of everyone, Apple fanboys have their blood boiling hard now, and some may think “What the hell is he talking about?”.

Because yes, the essence of Apple differentiating the two worlds of Mac and PC since several years now, is to make two different clan that feels really different to each others and have to fight for their kingdom. It’s totally marketed and it works. “Think different” is one of the adage of Apple, and its idea of making a Mac so “different” from a PC is a direct result of that.

Keep in mind that when a company is advertising, most of the time, the ads are not directed directly to new clients, but to existing clients who already know their products, this way they will tell to other people how “awesome” the product they bought is, it’s a lot more powerful and have a huge impact on the others. People need to show to other people how nice their purchase is, to convince themselves that they made the right choice for buying it. And the more the owners get remarks or feel threatened by other people, or feel unique/different, and the more they will defend it no matter what.

“But a Mac is not a PC!”

Well let me explain that more in detail. First, what does really mean PC? A PC is a Personal Computer, in opposition to the computers who needed an entire room just for themselves, a PC is a computer you can have on your desk, affordable by an individual. So by definition, a Mac is a PC like any other PC, you can buy it, transport it and put it in your room like any other personal computer.

But that’s not all, today the two major architectures are x86, and ARM for mobile devices. But back in the days, there were a lot more architecture than today : Macintosh, Amiga, Commodore 64, Sinclair, Tandy… and the Compatible PC made by the big blue IBM. All those were Personal Computers, but not necessarily “compatible PC” which is a simple subgroup of Personal Computer like all the others I just quote.

The problem is that with the success of the IBM PC, the term PC was referring to a computer compatible with IBM’s PC products. This is why it was usual to say that a Commodore, an Amiga or a Macintosh were not PCs. And it was true. But PC and PC are not the same thing (still with me?), a Mac was not a PC –IBM– but it still was a PC –Personal computer– at the same time.

The IBM architecture Compatible PC is not used anymore but often get mixed up with the x86 –used in the IBM PC– today nearly all the PC use this x86 architecture, even… the Macs since 2005 with the transition to Intel’s processors. So the Macs are PCs… and have the same architecture than any other PCs! Absolutely no reason not to call them like that then. And just to show you a fun thing if you are still not convinced by all this, is that Steve Jobs and Apple were calling their machines a PC in the past. Jobs changed that after, just to separate the two “worlds” completely, to be different. In that advertisement from 1980, they even claim they invented the personal computer! Ahah… ah… Hum, sorry.

Apple, the inventor of the mouse, the GUI, Internet, and everything you can think of (obviously).

If you still aren’t convinced that a Mac is a PC, I can’t do anything more for you, because Apple even invented the PC apparently.

So please… stop saying “Compatible with PC and Mac”. It is like saying “Compatible with cars and the car’s brand X”. When you say so it means absolutely nothing, you are already including Mac and Linux with it, even if you don’t mean it, and in the meantime confusing everyone. Instead say “Compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac, Android, etc.”, easier and far more clearer for everyone! The software is what matters.

Anyway, today with the expansion of the markets of smartphones, tablets, tablets computers, phablets… which can be one and then another within a snap, the limits are non-existent and everything is mixing up. Even a television is beginning to become a “PC”, and with the democratization/growing popularity of the mobile systems and their low power consumption, costs, and ease of use, that device may really become the future of the PC for a lot of people.

In several years, we even probably only will have a “screen” and all the computing will be deported to our “own” “servers”.