Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/8-signs-that-ap.html

by rtw • 18 years ago

18 46 18 years ago

blog.wired.com

mdasen• 18 years ago

I've been using Macs since the 68k days and I have been waiting for this to happen. Apple makes, in my opinion, wonderful products, but they'd always been so niche and have to act that way. That meant product introductions at fan events (Macworld), outrageous pricing, etc. We're seeing that change and it's great. Apple is pushing products out when they're ready, their products are more competitively priced, they're more open than they have been in the past, they're selling through normal channels rather than exclusive retailers like they did in the past. . .

It's great!

gaius3• 18 years ago

Excellent. Right now then, we're at the point in history we'd be at if things had gone to plan for SGI with the Indy, a Unix workstation as a desktop computer for the masses. Which is, umm, 15 years ago...

wmf2• 18 years ago

Wasn't the Indy $15,000? Even accounting for Moore's Law it would have been hard for SGI to go mainstream.

gaius3• 18 years ago

Contemporary fully-loaded Macs were comparable.

kragen• 18 years ago

I think you could get them for less than that by 1994, like $5,000. But then Jim Clark gave up trying to turn SGI into a mass-market company and went to go start some software company.

GHFigs2• 18 years ago

I think NeXT is a more apt comparison.

unalone7• 18 years ago

Explain.

razzmataz• 18 years ago

The irony of that is that NeXT served as the basis for Mac OS X.

cosmo75• 18 years ago

The first Mac I actually owned was an SE. Since then I've owned five more Macs. I bought top-of-the-line Macs when people were telling me that Apple was about to go out of business. I developed a lot of software for the Mac.

I'm all about developing for .NET now; Apple is toxic to developers.

anthonyrubin3• 18 years ago

Care to elaborate?

cosmo75• 18 years ago

Where to begin? * the almost total lack of development of Interface Builder * ouch Java * iPhone application approval yumminess * Hi Konfabulator! * Hi Watson!

gaius3• 18 years ago

Apple has gotten a lot better since the days they pulled crap like abandoning APIs as soon as anyone started developing on them. Remember OpenDoc? And if you think IB is stagnant, remember MPW?

cosmo75• 18 years ago

Ah, MPW. An environment that even made CodeWarrior look good.

mattmaroon3• 18 years ago

A company can't give off that aura when their products sell 100s of millions. Apple maintained it for longer than anyone else ever did though.

unalone7• 18 years ago

Did they ever really have that aura? I mean, I'm a Mac fanboy. I've argued with you about Apple a thousand bajillion times on this site. I watch the keynote. But I never got into it because it was a cult thing. I got into it because every blog I liked reading took some time to talk about loving Apple (Shaun Blanc, John Gruber, John Welsh, even Paul Graham), and so I took some time out to try the computers and I really loved them, and still do. When I argue Windows with friends, it's usually because they make the argument that a Mac is not inherently better than a PC, and I happen to disagree. There's nothing pretentious about that, it's just an argument that happens.

Somewhere along the line it got decided that there's a fashion statement being made with Macs. I don't really see that. I think a certain type of person that's obsessed with aesthetic does like Apple, because it's clean, but was there ever a feeling that using Apple products made a person special? Because I've never noticed that, and yet it's brought up and constantly mocked. I don't get it.

mattmaroon3• 18 years ago

Their brand clearly inspires a lot of cultlike devotion. Charismatic leader, followers who overlook their own flaws and magnify those of everyone else, feelings of persecution (fading since Microsoft's antitrust suit ended).

OSX users often look down on Windows users, as if they just don't know better. They say things like "OSX is inherently better than Windows" without specifying what it's better at or pausing to consider that there are many reasons to choose an OS, and by a very large number of metrics (compatible programs, compatible hardware, price, variety, ease of finding someone who can help you with problems, etc.) Windows crushes OSX. In fact, by almost any easily quantifiable measure, Windows is better.

Apple's been the hip underdog, ironically largely because of spending billions of marketing bucks to style themselves that way, and I think Steve Jobs's tyranny over the tech-related media.

I'm not saying any of that about you personally, but things like Digg turning into an extension of Apple's PR don't happen to any other brands at all, not even ones like Toyota or Lenovo that consistently make top quality products. The fervor indicates there's a lot more to the fanboyism than just "Apple makes good products." They've struck a chord. Their marketing over the past 5 years may be the best in the entire history of capitalism.

The problem is that Apple users includes everyone who owns an iPod or iPhone, most of whom don't use any other Apple products. You can't keep the underdog luster on the company as a whole when you achieve ubiquity, but they still do with their computers.

Prrometheus2• 18 years ago

Owning a mac is still a cultural statement, like an Obama bumper sticker or worrying loudly about Global Warming in public. I even know poor humanities graduate students to pony up the extra $300 for a mac, because that's what they are supposed to own. Macs are common possessions of workers of DC non-profits, despite their meager salaries. It's a token that proclaims yourself to be part of the well-educated, hip, cool culture.

Owning a PC? That would be as much of a faux pas as owning a large vehicle, working a blue collar job, living in the suburbs, or voting republican. You certainly won't improve your chances of getting invited to the cool parties by doing that.

I do admire Apple for consciously making itself into a subcultural icon. Few brands are as successful as Apple. And as they have hooked themselves up to a subculture that is ascendant, it is a good strategic move.

Edit: It is possible that in the future that Apple will make the jump like Starbucks did to be a universal brand and not just a brand of the hip subculture. I consider Starbucks to be one of the greatest marketing successes of all time; at first a cool urban delicacy, later reaching the other half: the suburbs, the parents that may send their kids to the military but never to grad school, the PC owners, the small business owner (think "Joe the Plumber", not Steve Jobs), people who never worry about "materialism" or "consumerism", the Republicans. Sarah Palin and Bono, investment bankers and environmentalists have their favorite latte. Of course, the cool hip culture tends to lead the rest, so that's a good strategic place to start.

I don't see any signs that Apple has made this jump yet. I certainly don't think my blue collar dad even considered a Mac when he bought a laptop, even though I am certain that he would have had an easier time learning its user interface.

qqq• 18 years ago

Some of those people, including poor people, pony up an extra $300 because they consider the value of the mac to be, say, $1000 higher. If you spend 1000 hours a year using a computer, and a mac is 50 cents an hour nicer to use, that's $500 per year.

Whatever you think of the mac experience, some people do find it significantly nicer, so for them it's worth buying.

Also, Macs don't necessarily always cost more.

potatolicious2• 18 years ago

I'm one anecdotal example of why Macs are sometimes worth the extra cash.

After being fed up with my old Toshiba laptop being crap, and their warranty department refusing to service (apparently bad fan bearings were "wear and tear" items), I splashed out for a top of the line MacBook Pro 2 years ago, and started experiencing problems soon after getting it - first the lid would refuse to close (the latch button got stuck), and then my HDD died. Anyhoo, long story short I sent it in twice, and in total got about 5 major parts replaced.

Rewind to 4 months ago, my machine was really on the fritz, VRAM was shot and would display random colors (textbook memory corruption). Below is everything that happened:

- Called Apple, waited <5 minutes for an agent.

- Gave the agent my info, and she immediately remarked that given my repair history I could qualify for a full replacement, and asked if I would like to proceed.

- Waited <5 minutes for tier 2 support.

- Tier 2 listened to my problem, got me to run some diagnostics to confirm my VRAM was shot, and after a few minutes authorized a full replacement, with a brand spanking new unibody MacBook Pro. I was handed off to a replacement rep via email and the shipping label was sent to me within an hour of hanging up.

- I have some projects in the pipe that I didn't want to put on ice for too long, so I called my rep after I shipped my old laptop off to explain, he sent the new one before even confirming with UPS that my old one was on the way back to Apple.

- That was Friday, it got here Tuesday - across a national border.

On this experience alone, and contrasted with the service I've received from Toshiba and Dell, Apple has basically cemented me as a repeat customer.

Prrometheus2• 18 years ago

There are also plenty of people happy to be typing their essays in Microsoft Word for the Mac, rather than Microsoft Word for the PC.

nickd• 18 years ago

Please get over yourself. Lots of people have lots of reasons for owning whatever computer they choose. Thanks for the comical generalization though.

mynameishere• 18 years ago

That's all very "maybe" though you might be correct. The test will come when the uberHip Jobs steps down and some accountant takes his place. I really dislike OSX and the only good thing about it is its Unix roots. Well...why pay a premium for Unix which should be cheaper than Windows?

Why...? Well, it is just branding, as far as I can see. It's not 300 dollars, either. It's sometimes 600 dollars for a PC vs. 1299 for an equivilent Mac. To me, that's stupid. If you don't like Windows, well, this will add $0.00 onto your price:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

sh1mmer• 18 years ago

The point is valid, the "signs" to back it up are tenuous and the attempts at humour lame.

While I don't disagree with the author's premise the article probably isn't worth your time reading.

unalone7• 18 years ago

Here's a question that isn't addressed: does being special matter? I thought the point of capitalism and competition was how good products were, not how special you felt using them.

GHFigs2• 18 years ago

How special you feel using a product is part of what makes it good. Where "special" can mean a lot of things. Don Norman covers this very well in Emotional Design.

anthonyrubin3• 18 years ago

Honestly, who cares? Why are so many inane articles submitted to HN?

unalone7• 18 years ago

I'm not saying this is why this was submitted, but some people do it because you can't lose karma with submissions, and because articles that'll spark controversy will attract people who upvote the article much more quickly.

rtw2• 18 years ago

(original submitter here)

I care. I care about end-user personal computing trends.

They a) amuse me and b) affect my income. That's why I submitted, to see discussion on a topic I am interested in.

Quoting from http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site."

rtw2• 18 years ago

I see downmods on above comment without explanation. On a whim, this prompted me to say a little more:

The more OSX crosses into mainstream consumer territory, the better. I only run Linux myself, but having been a long time developer and troubleshooter for Windows, I am seriously psyched about seeing the OSX market grow and grow. Getting over the stigmas of "coolness" and elitism is a good step in a positive direction. Whether you like it or not, these stigmas are out there (I doubt people frequenting this website were lured into Macs for this particular aspect of them).

richcollins• 18 years ago

I didn't buy my Macbook to "feel special". I bought it because Windows sucks.

maurycy• 18 years ago

I wish I could buy ThinkPad with Mac OS X.

kirubakaran• 18 years ago

http://www.subbrilliant.com/blog/?p=168

quellhorst• 18 years ago

I wanted to do that too but ended up just getting a new macbook pro unibody. My time is worth more than messing with a nonstandard install.

Tichy• 18 years ago

Luckily now there is Ubuntu Linux to the rescue.

Signs That Apple Customers Are No Longer Special

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