You read that right. Hot on the heels of MacHEADS comes Welcome to Macintosh. This time around, it’s endorsed by Apple and thankfully, the angle of the documentary is more historical than fanboy.
While it’s quite a dry affair, the film is likely to get Apple-nerds wet and sticky as it’s largely comprised of interviews with key players in the development of Apple Inc (such as Andy Hertzfeld, Guy Kawasaki and Leander Kahne). There’s the mandatory Woz-worship and characterisation of Steve Jobs as demi-god, but Welcome To Mac handles things with a judicious amount of obsequiousness, making it watchable for the casually interested, and necessary viewing for any flavour of Mac nerd.
MacHEADS, as the tagline informs us, is “a fanboy documentary”. PC puns aside, the film starts with a precariously one-sided look at the Mac vs. Windows debate, which basically amounts to a few MacHeads dissing everything Microsoft. Thus, the anecdotal tone of the film is established early, and you have to get used to it, for little in the way of counterpoint is offered.
But then again, MacHEADS is not about the meaningless platform debate, or is it? I’m not sure first time filmmaker Kobi Shely even knows. It could be about the history of Apple Inc., but that story is so glossily condensed within the film that many crucial milestones are omitted or strategically avoided. Where is the bit about Apple pinching all its good ideas, like the Graphical User Interface, from Xerox’s pioneering Palo Alto Research Center? What about the fledgling Apple Computers early and unsuccessful court battle with The Beatles record label, Apple Records? For a company well-known for instigating a malignant copyright system in iTunes (read: DRM, which they have since dropped), such a flagrant trademark infringement is surely of interest. No?
Perhaps MacHEADS is just a fanboy doco rather than a doco about fanboys. However, the film’s sparse hints towards objectivity are made all the more confusing with the inclusion of self-evaluating and sometimes self-deprecating Apple die hards. Similarly the segments devoted to aggrandising CEO Steve Jobs’ already inflated ego are squeemish at best. Yes, they love you Steve.
What we do learn, is that the relevance of cultish Mac zealots has diminished, what with the success of non-Mac products such as the iPod and iPhone. We also learn that because of this, Apple couldn’t give a shit about MacHeads.
I could weigh into the debate with my own MacOS gripe list, but there’s more than enough bitching fodder to be found far and wide on the Interwebs. All I will say is that while Microsoft pushes little plastic discs of intellectual property known as software on us all, Apple is far more guilty of contributing to the global silicon imprint that is world’s e-waste. Why then, is there such a gulf in the disparity of the two companies respective public images? Apple markets to fanboys, and everyone else, a desire for the latest revisions of whatever gadgetry they will release next. Gadgets which are ultimately destined for landfill. You saw the crazies lining up for the first iPhones, right? Meanwhile, Bill Gates remains uncool and hated because he spends less on PR, it seems, than Mr. Jobs. And all he did was develop a computer operating system. Oh, and create the most generous philanthropic entity in the history of mankind.
Titicut Rating: 2 / 5
Info
Directors: Kobi Shely, Year: 2009, Country: USA, Runtime: 55 min
MacHEADS, as the tagline informs us, is “a fanboy documentary”. PC puns aside, the film starts with a precariously one-sided look at the Mac vs. Windows debate, which basically amounts to a few MacHeads dissing everything Microsoft. Thus, the anecdotal tone of the film is established early, and you have to get used to it, for little in the way of counterpoint is offered.
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