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Dvorak on Mac: 'The machine is not half bad'

Perhaps the PC industry's most notorious Apple-basher has changed his spots, professing to like his iMac and recommending it to friends and family.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit

John Dvorak said something nice about a Mac this week.

Dvorak, the long-time tech industry columnist with PC Magazine, is notorious for his negative stances on Apple and its products. So when he admitted to liking the iMac he's using, the world seemed upside down for a second.

John Dvorak is using an iMac, and he likes it. Apple

Now, it's quite possible he's pulling our leg. Dave Winer once got Dvorak on camera, commenting on how easy it is to get traffic by tweaking Apple users, but it was hard to tell if he was being serious or just in character. Still, in a column titled "Me and my Mac," Dvorak revealed that he thinks "that the OS is more solid than Microsoft Windows, but I cannot say why exactly."

Rest assured, Dvorak's not going to be lining up outside the Moscone Center for Macworld any time soon. He seems to think that a lot of Mac OS features are "gimmicky," but it does sound like he's grudgingly accepted that there might be some virtues to the Mac.

"Anyway, the way I see it is that the differences between the Mac and the PC that really matter are minor. The big exception is the usability factor. And, in the end, that's probably what the majority of users care about."