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Similar story for my mom. She was used to windows because at work she used locked down, centrally managed, IBM thinkpads for many years. The trick is that those

Similar story for my mom. She was used to windows because at work she used locked down, centrally managed, IBM thinkpads for many years. The trick is that those were secure and managed. If anything didn't work, they just got swapped by IT for another clean one. But she always had problems with her private laptop, and no assistant or IT department to fix it. We thought she needed a windows one because that is what she knew, but the switch to a macbook air took maybe a week or so to adjust to. It was a bit of a gamble, since I don't own a mac so supporting one via phone would be very tricky. But she has had the macbook now for years and I've had to do absolutely zero tech support on it. For emails, Word documents and some web browsing it really just works.

gwicks56 4y ago
Similar story with my Mum. I bought her a Chromebook, and haven't had an IT support call from her since.
christophilus 4y ago
My dad had never used a Mac in his life until I helped him buy an M1 Air. He loves that thing. The only thing I did was install Brave and make it the default browser. I think he gives Apple credit for how fast his internet is, when really it’s due to Brave. But the rest of the experience— no crap ware, no spyware, no ads in the system— that’s on Apple. Edit: forgot the main point, which is that he needed no handholding. Given how often he had to replace his crapware-ridden netbooks in the past decade due to performance degradation or something physically breaking, I showed him the trivial math that made the MacBook look like an economic decision as much as a QoL decision.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Safari with a content blocker like Wipr is very fast too, and easier on the battery compared to chromium based browsers. My dad’s life is made easier with a MacBook Air + iPhone combo because all his 2FA SMS codes get auto inputted into the 2FA field so he does not have to type out the number.
civilized 4y ago
I wonder if there's a business opportunity here - managed IT, but for the less savvy consumer? Does that already exist?

gwicks56 4y ago

Similar story with my Mum. I bought her a Chromebook, and haven't had an IT support call from her since.

christophilus 4y ago

My dad had never used a Mac in his life until I helped him buy an M1 Air. He loves that thing. The only thing I did was install Brave and make it the default browser. I think he gives Apple credit for how fast his internet is, when really it’s due to Brave. But the rest of the experience— no crap ware, no spyware, no ads in the system— that’s on Apple. Edit: forgot the main point, which is that he needed no handholding. Given how often he had to replace his crapware-ridden netbooks in the past decade due to performance degradation or something physically breaking, I showed him the trivial math that made the MacBook look like an economic decision as much as a QoL decision.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Safari with a content blocker like Wipr is very fast too, and easier on the battery compared to chromium based browsers. My dad’s life is made easier with a MacBook Air + iPhone combo because all his 2FA SMS codes get auto inputted into the 2FA field so he does not have to type out the number.

civilized 4y ago

I wonder if there's a business opportunity here - managed IT, but for the less savvy consumer? Does that already exist?