"in what other walk of life do grown adults depend on other people to help them buy something?"

A house? With real estate agents, house inspectors, and lawyers?

Anyone who reads Consumer Reports or netsearches for product reviews?

Anything at Amazon via its extensive review system?

"Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism."

Utter nonsense. Based on his picture, I've been a professional in this industry longer than he's been alive. I can tell you that user interfaces are not what we would like because

1) Many professionals lack people skills. This leads to either it not occurring to them to design for ease of use, or thinking that because they find it easy to use, so will other people.

2) Ease of use is hard. It can easily double or even triple the total effort on a project. Naturally it's an easy thing to cut. Not to mention that it takes a much higher degree of skill. I can tell you from personal experience that my efforts in this regard were rarely and poorly rewarded. It is only my love of craftsmanship that keeps me trying. If I were smart I'd give up on it.

3) The rapidity of change, which ties in somewhat with (2). What wins in the market is getting out the gate first, as long as the product is minimally usable. Consumers themselves would rather get something a year early that mostly works than something slick later. It seems similar, to me, to "cattle car" air travel. Airplanes could be much much nicer but the large majority won't pay for it so it remains terrible.

Seems like a business decision to me. If it's not user-friendly how many people will buy it and, you know, use it?

There is a case to be made, though, to make it 'less simple'. Some, like Neal Stephenson, feel that the gap between Normals and experts is getting too wide. But the whole 'technologists like it that way' is nonsense. Intellectuals like it that way.

AOG,
Well, Consumer Reports or Amazon reviews are different--they are just ways to help yourself make decisions. It is really surprising how many people just depend on someone else to buy and set-up their computers. It may just be cultural; we think of computers as being hard-to-compehend, to a greater extant than is realistic.

Your reasons why user-interfaces are poor are dead-on. But they also testify to the greatness of Mr Jobs--he's been pursuing this since at least 1980, and has never given up...

"Seems like a business decision to me. If it's not user-friendly how many people will buy it and, you know, use it?"

Many. The market shows that people will use junk instead of good user interfaces on a product *if* the junk is out 6 months or a year earlier. I think that's starting to change but certainly for the last 20 years the theme is "first to market wins" which means ship it now, fix the interface later if you have to. That's what consumers have really wanted, regardless of what they say.

One might approach it a different way as well. If the nice user interface system costs twice the painful one, what are the capital costs? Might not a consumer decide to put up with the annoyance of the latter to have more cash in pocket, if it doesn't annoy him too often? That's the analogy to air travel.

Something that's always bothered me is that no one advertises their product as costing more but saving you money (or grief) in the long run.

There are many cases where I'd pay more if someone gave me a good reason. Say, that the product is made with better parts and will last longer. But no one does.

Maybe this is because marketers and their ad agencies know what they are doing. My suspicion is that it is because they are lazy, and making a case is hard work.

My observation over several decades is that Macs are--for the average person, not the technically sophisticated--cheaper than Windows PC's. If, that is, you put any value on your time. What is an afternoon of your life worth? If you have a choice between spending it with your children in the park or struggling with a computer virus. (Something I have never encountered in my life.) Is that afternoon worth $300? What would you pay for it?

That's the Apple ad I might write--but I've never seen it.

I've rarely used Mac products but I must say I don't get how much easier to use they are than today's Windows products. You still have to figure out what plugs go where, how to start the thing, how to find your programs and folders; they're just a bit different with each system. Sure, Apples stuff is prettier -- though I find the cartoony graphics that are standard with Mac computers irritating, not inviting. (And Windows imitates them -- yuck.) I'm a grown-up, not a big kid who wants everything to look like a piece of candy. As for viruses, I haven't had one of those on my computer for at least ten years; I just take normal precautions like not opening bizarre email attachments. Also I've mostly been using my laptop these days, which doesn't even run Windows -- it has Ubuntu installed.

I will say though that the iPad looks pretty neat. It's basically a fancy netbook crossed with a tablet. I like that you can connect it with a keyboard (which will cost $12,000 to make up for the relatively low price of the iPad -- j/k), and that it will come with a word-processing program, because believe it or not I actually write on a computer. On the other hand, I don't think this will appeal to people who have never used a computer before -- by this time it's pretty obvious that at least in the Western world if you don't use computers now you just don't want to. I think it will appeal mostly to gadget heads like me (well, like I wish I could be if I had money) and people who are exasperated with all the things they have to do on their computers to just do the simple email/web surfing and so on they want to do.

Whoops -- I should have said about that word processing program (Pages) that you can *install* it on the iPad. Apparently it isn't automatically included. Or is it? I find the information on the Apple site somewhat confusing.

It IS confusing, and I suspect deliberately. I can imagine Steve demanding that all sorts of technical stuff be removed from the web site so as not to spoil the impression of a tool so simple you don't need to read the instructions. I've seen this type of thing before.

I'd say that ease of use is no longer a big issue between Mac and Windows, except the the Mac culture seems to produce software that is more geared to ease-of-use.

But as to cost, I've spent several decades watching my non-technical acquaintances having horrible PC crises that burn up hours or days, or require intervention by costly experts, or sometimes end up in tossing computers into the trash can. My wife's partner forgot to do a virus update and ended up FedExing her laptop to data-recovery specialiists to recover a month's billing info. I think that one problem ate up the savings of a lifetime of buying PC's. (And if the data had been lost it might have cost a lot more.) Of course she was careless, but many people are.

It's now been a couple of years since our various family Macs have had any problems that can't be solved with a re-start. And I re-start my MacBook about once a month. What's my time-saving worth?

I feel compelled to note that probably the primary reason WinTel systems are physically easy to use these days is the presence of USB connectors, which is basically a copy of the Apple FireWire / IEEE 1394 connectivity. I still remember the days when every peripheral had a different connector ...

Another thing to note in this is how much gamers drive the market. I remember when graphics hardware was built for industrial purposes and copied for gamers. Now basically all research in that area is done to provide goodies for gamers. Even Apple is dependent on Windows based gamers in this regard. Because of how Apple is structured this simply can't be done on Apple platforms. How much is that worth?

Worth a lot I'd say. Sometimes it seems like reality is becoming just a subset within gaming.

I think I may be one of the few computer users on Earth that doesn't game, except for the most basic computer games, like Solitaire. I just don't have the patience for them; I'd rather be doing something else with my time.

With my Windows computers, lately the only problems I've had have been hardware related (my other laptop has Windows XP but it needs a new fan and possibly a new hard drive). Programwise most problems are indeed solved by just rebooting.

Personally, I think it's a mistake to sell things like the iPad on its "ease of use." Because there will always be the sort of customer who has enough trouble figuring out how to set their alarm clock (these were the people who in the days of VCRs with LED clocks always had theirs blinking 12:00 AM) who will buy the thing and then get frustrated because there are still two or three steps to getting it to work. Personally I'm more attracted by the sleek design.

Sleek, yes. I doubt I will get one, but the people who have touched them seem to be VERY impressed...