A strange kind of joke has made it to the final build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Some call it an “easter egg”, but for it to qualify as such, I find it a bit too easy too spot and too frequent for a typical user to run into. Easter eggs, in contrast, tend to be deliberately hidden.

I’m talking about the default icon for computers accessible through SMB/CIFS, as displayed in the new Finder. As CIFS is primarily used by Windows computers, the Finder assumes that’s what they are, and represents them in a rather stereotypical fashion. The three striking features (the CRT screen, the beige hardware, the Blue Screen of Death) all represent a clear message: Windows computers crash often and, both inside and out, are generally technology from the last century.

When I first saw it months ago in screenshots of a pre-release seed, I admit I chuckled; it was a cute joke of the “look just how much detail you can put in a 512×512 icon” sort (the poem in the new TextEdit icon easily beats it on that count, though). But to leave it in the final build, and in such a frequently-used place at that?

I don’t object to teasing, but this seems a fairly cheap shot. Why not something more recent? The average Windows computer hasn’t been beige since around 2000, for a few years now, it’s been hard to find CRTs at regular stores even at budget prices, and as for BSoDs (the one depicted, by the way, being a Windows 9x one – not one you could get in 2000, XP or Vista), they only happen with junk hardware and/or equally low-quality drivers. Of course, you get what you pay for: to avoid BSoDs, you effectively pay very similar prices as for Macs. Once you do, though, BSoDs aren’t any more or less common than kernel panics on Mac OS X: they rarely ever happen.

It’s easy to come up with a more fitting prod that rings true to recent sources of aggravation. Why not have a screenshot of an anti-spyware tool? Or an Allow/Deny message from Windows Vista’s UAC? (Or even Windows Update installing something you never wanted due to human error, blown out of proportion by means of mass hysteria?)

Leopard is another driving factor of Mac sales (I believe this even though, right before Leopard release, they’re already at an all-time high), and with Mac OS X as a whole being a big part of a Windows convert’s first experience, and the Finder being one of its core applications to work with, it plays a big role; it can make or break a “switch”. Clichés that haven’t been true for over half a decade, and aren’t really something ex-Windows users would laugh about (why get reminded of the pain?) aren’t a great encouragement.

I don’t believe “you were a fool to have ever used Windows to begin with” is the right message to send to could-be switchers.