Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Wendland apparently got raked over the coals by overzealous Mac fans after he posted a review of the new iMac entitled “Apple’s sexy new iMac is seductive — up to a point.” Now he’s responded to his detractors in a new article entitled Cultlike Mac followers are touchy over criticism.
Wendland lauded Mac OS X and the iMac in his review, but ultimately said that he wouldn’t switch because he couldn’t get Mac versions of Windows-only applications — which ones, he wasn’t specific about, other than Microsoft’s Web authoring application FrontPage.
Wendland dedicated this week’s column to talking about the public reaction to the review, which he said generated more than 300 e-mails from people, some of whom berated him, called him names and insulted him fairly ferociously.
Wendland also noted that most of the e-mails were “polite and reasonable” in their defense of the Mac, and some encouraged him to give Connectix Corp.’s PC emulator product Virtual PC a try.
“But what has most amazed me is the incredible fight-to-the-death loyalty my column’s extremely mild criticism generated,” said Wendland, who later noted that “Apple’s cultlike following is legendary,” enough so that another journalist he spoke with talks about Macs infrequently because the “constant nitpicking” from Mac users is too much to take.
Critical though he is of certain foul-tempered Mac users, Wendland said he’s impressed with the passionate zeal that most Mac users have for their systems, and he admitted that he can’t think of any other consumer product that engenders such fierce loyalty. He said he’ll keep “checking out [his] iMac” to see if he can figure out why.
“But all you Apple users out there, please let me find out for myself. Restrain yourselves from replying to this column. I already know: You really like your Macs,” said Wendland.