"""There's another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can't work them"""<p>Not <i>everyone</i>. It's more and more obvious to me that I only thrive in computing where I can control my environment. I do make a living from the tech industry, and I find myself in the same position as "normals" do when faced with "software for normals", and I hate it as much as "they" do.<p>Error messages are meaningless to "them" but meaningful to me. So called 'friendly' error messages are also meaningless to "them" and worse they are meaningless to me as well.<p>Hiding complexity isn't simplifying things. Arjan van de Ven said about the 5 second linux boot project "Don't settle for 'make boot faster'; it's the wrong question. [..] It's not about booting faster, it's about booting in 5 seconds". - <a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/" rel="nofollow">http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/</a><p>Apple are saying "it's not about a nice GUI over the top of a complex system, it's about a simple system". They've thrown out everything they can get away with and then a bit more; which Linux distro's can't or wont do. Linux is 'simplified' by people who don't want or need it to be simple, Windows is 'simplified' by people hobbled by backwards compatibility, inertia and lack of focused obsessive direction.