There are Microsoft people and Apple people.
Microsoft people want every option, and can’t imagine why others would find the surfeit of choices intimidating or annoying.
In the parlance of psychology, they are “optimizers“.
Apple people want a simple, elegant experience, and care little about individual features. They adapt to the limitations presented to them, perhaps without even thinking about them.
In the parlance of psychology, they are “satisficers“.
The approach you take depends on your read on your audience. Just recognize that you can’t make both of them happy.
Microsoft serves corporate IT, which historically consists of highly-technical control freaks who don’t give a damn about the end users.
Microsoft dominates this market, despite the fact that Apple’s products and marketing are generally considered superior.
Apple made its money by convincing individual consumers to part with their money, in part by not making them feel like their missing out if they choose “Standard” rather than “Custom” when installing a new piece of software.
Apple dominates this market, despite the fact that Microsoft has spent untold billions on things like the Zune, and despite Microsoft’s historical dominance in OS shipments and the Office suite.
The point is, you have to choose. If you don’t, you end up with things like Microsoft’s consumer products or Apple’s datacenter products–strange chimeras which flail in the marketplace.
Where does your audience fall on this continuum?
(Cross-posted @ Adventures in Capitalism)
Just to add, often the Apple items have as many or more features than the Windows Features. This is definitely true in the developer realm.
Most of the Windows “features” never get used except for a small percentage of power users. Also, often with all the tweaking available, Windows still tends to underperform OS-X in a number of ways.
Ironic isn’t it, seeking options Windows reduces one’s options. This is probably one of the biggest reasons Apple has dominated when it comes to laptops & machines used for web development (graphics, site, and even back end). Simply put, the real options are available with lower resistance than on Windows.
However, if you’re an office drone, it’s often cheaper to just use a Windows machine. There’s also the possibility you’re an IT guy, in which case you have to control all of your users behavior and lock them down, Windows makes that pretty easy w/ Office and such.
The Internet however has swapped that around too. Things are a changing.
Strangely, I am both. For my computer I am a Microsoft girl all the way. I like to make everything exactly the way I want it and I find the interface much easier to understand. When it comes to my smartphone, however, I am totally an apple person. I originally went with an android phone thinking that I would much prefer it over the Apple iPhone, but I definitely think mobile technology works much better with a sleeker style and less options seem like more usability.