8 ms·

Any reason why screenwriters don't just use Windows laptops?

by prvc 7y ago

dhosek 7y ago
Macs are magic
chipperyman573 7y ago
Yeah, I always hear "Mac is great for writers/artists/video editors/etc" but I never have been able to find out exactly why.
- klodolph 7y ago
  I’ll take a stab at it. This is less true than it was, for sure. A big part of this was also pure marketing. Even so, there are reasons. I could go into details, but the audio APIs for Windows and Linux were complete hot garbage in the 1990s and 2000s. Not so big a deal for games or web browsing but a pain in the ass for audio production. In the same era, the software for working with video on the Mac was just miles better. QuickTime was really amazing. Everything was super editable. If you had iMovie and iDVD you could easily create an amateur movie and hand people DVDs. Famously, there’s an email from Bill Gates in 2003 where he just rips into the terrible experience he had with Windows Movie Maker. Desktop publishing is a similar story. Installing fonts and working with printers sucked on Windows in an era when it was super easy on the Mac. The desktop publishing apps on Mac had a much better UI when it came to integration. You could just drag and drop images however you wanted between applications and it just worked. This is no longer true but people still remember it.
- andor 7y ago
  The difference is mainly not technological, but about user experience. Mac OS doesn't bother users with alerts and notifications [0]. There is no busy start menu with distracting ads and Apple doesn't push ...gems... such as Candy Crush to everyone's computers without asking. It just quietly works and lets users focus on their jobs. Windows has come a long way but they're not there yet. For people who aren't interested in tinkering with technology, spending a bit more to get a nicer experience is a no-brainer. [0] except for the software update prompts
- drunken-serval 7y ago
  I use a Mac for writing. Scrivener and Microsoft Word are my primary tools. There is no Scrivener for linux and there is no acceptable alternative for native MS Word when it comes to working with publishers. That means macOS or Windows. Here is why I use macOS over Windows: - Windows version of Scrivener is missing a lot of features, some that I frequently use. (The Mac version of Word is also missing features, but not critical ones.) - OS-integrated dictionary (three finger tap) - OS-integrated dictation (tap fn twice to start, tap fn to stop) I use this to speak words I can't remember how to spell. I don't know if Dragon on Windows is usable like this. - Preview (tap spacebar when any file is selected) - OS configurable keyboard shortcuts. Any item in any application's menu bar can have a custom keyboard shortcut. I have green, red, and blue highlighting in Scrivener tied to keyboard shortcuts. This is a critical part of my editing workflow. - Time Machine backup. Easy, seamless backup. If my computer goes down, I can be fully up and running on any Mac hardware with Catalina in two hours. I started using Time Machine in 2008. Since then, every new machine has been restored from a backup of an old one. I've never started with a clean Mac. - Reliability. Only my linux servers have better uptime. Every single Mac I have is more reliable than any windows machine I've worked with. - It Just Works. Actually, no it doesn't. There's fewer bugs but when you hit them, they are absolutely infuriating to workaround. - Unix terminal. Built in to the operating system. Homebrew adds okay package management on top of that. - Built in apps. macOS comes with significantly better default applications than Windows does. Preview alone is a thousand times better than anything I've seen on windows. - App install/removal. Almost every Mac application uses one of three install methods. App store, disk image, or package. Removing an application is as simple as deleting the executable from /Applications. If you want the configuration gone too, you can remove its associated folders from /Library and ~/Library. If I had to pick one thing, it would be Time Machine. It's easy to setup and forget it's there until you need it. Nothing else has saved me so much time and aggravation. It's allow me to effectively work on the same machine for twelve years while periodically upgrading the hardware and operating system.
dijit 7y ago
I want to answer, but people will come out of the woodwork to bash me. The answer boils down to not only personal preference but for some cases it's easier and more orthogonal to use. Even if that _wasn't true_ and many people are going to shit on me for saying it _is_ true, but even if it wasn't: the perception is that it's easier to use, more orthogonal and made with premium materials. Aside from the pro-sumer market, (which is still hit and miss) the build quality of laptops and battery life is sub-par in Windows-land. Add to the fact that unless you have a Dell support contract you're going to be fighting your laptop vendor over random things potentially and suddenly you're not looking at an appealing platform. This is _especially_ true if money is literally no object as is the case for screen writers who are probably the most well compensated people on the planet (as roughly 30% of a movie budget goes to the screen writer(s)).
- paulvorobyev 7y ago
  >orthogonal ergonomic?
- allovernow 7y ago
  I think there's a far simpler explanation. It's fashionable and writers are not technical people who are aware of the differences.
  - robenkleene 7y ago
    I'm curious if you'd use the same word "fashionable" to explain the popularity of Google Chrome or Visual Studio Code. If not, why not? What's the difference?
    - allovernow 7y ago
      Google chrome and visual studio are not status symbols. They are not optimized for outward appearance. And they are purpose built tools, which either work or not. With a laptop, any old laptop will do 99% of what the typical user needs and do it well enough most of the time, regardless of whether you spend $3k on a pretty MacBook or $1k on something else. I suspect there's a good deal of overlap between the kind of person who buys a Macbook and the kind of person who buys Beats earphones even though for the price they are subpar (at least earlier iterations were). It's the same concept - status signalling with expensive and outwardly pretty tech.
ortusdux 7y ago
It seems to be cultural in the US. Apple has convinced artists that Mac's just work, and everything else is hard. See: r/itsaunixsystem/
- throw0101a 7y ago
  > Apple has convinced artists that Mac's just work, and everything else is hard. At least macOS doesn't phone home (as much?) and doesn't show you ads like Windows does. Microsoft isn't helping themselves doing such silly things. Many PC vendors also install a lot of crapware.
Rochus 7y ago
Once you have established a cult - which Apple has undoubtedly succeeded in doing - you can count on irrational following and willingness to suffer from your believers. In a prominent religious community this has worked for two thousand years.
- deleted 7y ago
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- deleted 7y ago
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dmschulman 7y ago
All of the major screenwriting programs have been cross-platform for some time. Honestly I would chalk it up to the cultural cache of Macbook ownership. It's hard to even get a job interview in Hollywood unless your phone number is in the 818 area code. Appearances go a long way in that town as you can imagine.
- TMWNN 7y ago
  >It's hard to even get a job interview in Hollywood unless your phone number is in the 818 area code. I know 213 isn't the fashionable area code, but I thought 310 was.
onion2k 7y ago
The same reason developers like them. They're fast, relatively free of setup or update hassles, you don't need to worry about viruses, the software is good, and if you're reasonably well off (or someone else is paying) the price isn't a barrier. The keyboard is certainly a downside but not necessarily a reason to get a different laptop.
pier25 7y ago
A reason I haven't seen mentioned is that maybe they prefer macOS font rendering in retina displays over clearType on Windows. That is one of the reasons I don't like coding on Windows. I imagine people working with text all day long could have strong preferences here.

Any reason why screenwriters don't just use Windows laptops?

by prvc 7y ago

Any reason why screenwriters don't just use Windows laptops?

dhosek 7y ago

Macs are magic

chipperyman573 7y ago

Yeah, I always hear "Mac is great for writers/artists/video editors/etc" but I never have been able to find out exactly why.

klodolph 7y ago
I’ll take a stab at it. This is less true than it was, for sure. A big part of this was also pure marketing. Even so, there are reasons. I could go into details, but the audio APIs for Windows and Linux were complete hot garbage in the 1990s and 2000s. Not so big a deal for games or web browsing but a pain in the ass for audio production. In the same era, the software for working with video on the Mac was just miles better. QuickTime was really amazing. Everything was super editable. If you had iMovie and iDVD you could easily create an amateur movie and hand people DVDs. Famously, there’s an email from Bill Gates in 2003 where he just rips into the terrible experience he had with Windows Movie Maker. Desktop publishing is a similar story. Installing fonts and working with printers sucked on Windows in an era when it was super easy on the Mac. The desktop publishing apps on Mac had a much better UI when it came to integration. You could just drag and drop images however you wanted between applications and it just worked. This is no longer true but people still remember it.
andor 7y ago
The difference is mainly not technological, but about user experience. Mac OS doesn't bother users with alerts and notifications [0]. There is no busy start menu with distracting ads and Apple doesn't push ...gems... such as Candy Crush to everyone's computers without asking. It just quietly works and lets users focus on their jobs. Windows has come a long way but they're not there yet. For people who aren't interested in tinkering with technology, spending a bit more to get a nicer experience is a no-brainer. [0] except for the software update prompts
drunken-serval 7y ago
I use a Mac for writing. Scrivener and Microsoft Word are my primary tools. There is no Scrivener for linux and there is no acceptable alternative for native MS Word when it comes to working with publishers. That means macOS or Windows. Here is why I use macOS over Windows: - Windows version of Scrivener is missing a lot of features, some that I frequently use. (The Mac version of Word is also missing features, but not critical ones.) - OS-integrated dictionary (three finger tap) - OS-integrated dictation (tap fn twice to start, tap fn to stop) I use this to speak words I can't remember how to spell. I don't know if Dragon on Windows is usable like this. - Preview (tap spacebar when any file is selected) - OS configurable keyboard shortcuts. Any item in any application's menu bar can have a custom keyboard shortcut. I have green, red, and blue highlighting in Scrivener tied to keyboard shortcuts. This is a critical part of my editing workflow. - Time Machine backup. Easy, seamless backup. If my computer goes down, I can be fully up and running on any Mac hardware with Catalina in two hours. I started using Time Machine in 2008. Since then, every new machine has been restored from a backup of an old one. I've never started with a clean Mac. - Reliability. Only my linux servers have better uptime. Every single Mac I have is more reliable than any windows machine I've worked with. - It Just Works. Actually, no it doesn't. There's fewer bugs but when you hit them, they are absolutely infuriating to workaround. - Unix terminal. Built in to the operating system. Homebrew adds okay package management on top of that. - Built in apps. macOS comes with significantly better default applications than Windows does. Preview alone is a thousand times better than anything I've seen on windows. - App install/removal. Almost every Mac application uses one of three install methods. App store, disk image, or package. Removing an application is as simple as deleting the executable from /Applications. If you want the configuration gone too, you can remove its associated folders from /Library and ~/Library. If I had to pick one thing, it would be Time Machine. It's easy to setup and forget it's there until you need it. Nothing else has saved me so much time and aggravation. It's allow me to effectively work on the same machine for twelve years while periodically upgrading the hardware and operating system.

dijit 7y ago

I want to answer, but people will come out of the woodwork to bash me. The answer boils down to not only personal preference but for some cases it's easier and more orthogonal to use. Even if that _wasn't true_ and many people are going to shit on me for saying it _is_ true, but even if it wasn't: the perception is that it's easier to use, more orthogonal and made with premium materials. Aside from the pro-sumer market, (which is still hit and miss) the build quality of laptops and battery life is sub-par in Windows-land. Add to the fact that unless you have a Dell support contract you're going to be fighting your laptop vendor over random things potentially and suddenly you're not looking at an appealing platform. This is _especially_ true if money is literally no object as is the case for screen writers who are probably the most well compensated people on the planet (as roughly 30% of a movie budget goes to the screen writer(s)).

paulvorobyev 7y ago
>orthogonal ergonomic?
allovernow 7y ago
I think there's a far simpler explanation. It's fashionable and writers are not technical people who are aware of the differences.
- robenkleene 7y ago
  I'm curious if you'd use the same word "fashionable" to explain the popularity of Google Chrome or Visual Studio Code. If not, why not? What's the difference?
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Google chrome and visual studio are not status symbols. They are not optimized for outward appearance. And they are purpose built tools, which either work or not. With a laptop, any old laptop will do 99% of what the typical user needs and do it well enough most of the time, regardless of whether you spend $3k on a pretty MacBook or $1k on something else. I suspect there's a good deal of overlap between the kind of person who buys a Macbook and the kind of person who buys Beats earphones even though for the price they are subpar (at least earlier iterations were). It's the same concept - status signalling with expensive and outwardly pretty tech.

ortusdux 7y ago

It seems to be cultural in the US. Apple has convinced artists that Mac's just work, and everything else is hard. See: r/itsaunixsystem/

throw0101a 7y ago
> Apple has convinced artists that Mac's just work, and everything else is hard. At least macOS doesn't phone home (as much?) and doesn't show you ads like Windows does. Microsoft isn't helping themselves doing such silly things. Many PC vendors also install a lot of crapware.

Rochus 7y ago

Once you have established a cult - which Apple has undoubtedly succeeded in doing - you can count on irrational following and willingness to suffer from your believers. In a prominent religious community this has worked for two thousand years.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dmschulman 7y ago

All of the major screenwriting programs have been cross-platform for some time. Honestly I would chalk it up to the cultural cache of Macbook ownership. It's hard to even get a job interview in Hollywood unless your phone number is in the 818 area code. Appearances go a long way in that town as you can imagine.

TMWNN 7y ago
>It's hard to even get a job interview in Hollywood unless your phone number is in the 818 area code. I know 213 isn't the fashionable area code, but I thought 310 was.

onion2k 7y ago

The same reason developers like them. They're fast, relatively free of setup or update hassles, you don't need to worry about viruses, the software is good, and if you're reasonably well off (or someone else is paying) the price isn't a barrier. The keyboard is certainly a downside but not necessarily a reason to get a different laptop.

pier25 7y ago

A reason I haven't seen mentioned is that maybe they prefer macOS font rendering in retina displays over clearType on Windows. That is one of the reasons I don't like coding on Windows. I imagine people working with text all day long could have strong preferences here.