Wall Street Journal tech journalist Walt Mossberg has called attention to the annoying “craplets” that many PC manufacturers install on their computers. Craplets are swarming, gnat-like trialware and adware applications that bring system startup to a crawl as they load. Mossberg noted that his new Sony Vaio came with 24 craplets installed. As you can imagine, this litany of unwanted applications taxed system resources, appreciably hurting his Vaio’s performance.

Macintosh detractors often paint Apple’s relentless attention to user experience as “shiny interface” add-ons, but they’re missing the point. A well-designed computer is an integration of hardware, operating system, and applications. The revenue these PC vendors makes from stuffing unwanted crapware into their machines certainly helps them, but it is also a slap in the face to users and a clear violation of good design principles.

Their message is clear: “In order to get the performance out of this computer that was advertised, you have to first figure out exactly what crapware we placed on your system. Then you have to find and remove it all.” I suppose they’ve never heard the phrase “Time is money.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t like having my time wasted in this fasion. It’s a classic bait-and-switch, and a clear indicator that the engineers play second fiddle to the business development department at these companies.

Every time I see a Windows machine sluggishly start up, loading all of that crapware, I am reminded of what it feels like to go to a movie theater that plays those obnoxious advertisements. You’ve already paid for the ticket, and you want to see the show, but now they have you, and they’re going to force you to sit through the ads. As The Big Picture blog sees it, this “Hamburger Helper” approach by the theaters favors short-term profits but alienates moviegoers; no wonder movie ticket sales have been declining. Annoy customers enough, and they’ll realize they have other alternatives.

Oh, and there’s one more thing: In Mossberg’s test, a brand new MacBook booted in 29 seconds. The Viao took over two minutes to boot, as it loaded up craplet after craplet. On reboot, the Vaio did even worse, taking over three minutes, while the MacBook took only 34 seconds.