I would like to start off by saying that Apple makes wonderful products, and I like the work they do. However, I think the tech community and the world as a whole needs to stop paying so much attention to these Apple events. The first reason to do so is because the price of apple products will go down. The next reason is because it's plain sad to see so many people whipped up into a frenzy over small revision on a laptop. Lastly, Apple is becoming a regular company, seriously.
The prices of apple computers will start going down once people stop tracking and analyzing every single move that apple makes. When Apple announces a new product and there are people waiting in line for days to get that product, Apple feels empowered to place a higher price on their goods. They are perfectly justified in doing so, but why would we want them to? Furthermore, Apple events generate a ton of buzz by themselves, but when the tech community runs around like crooning Elvis fans, this gives apple ten times more press then they would have otherwise. The more press time Apple gets the more people use Apple products, the higher the price will go.
To build onto the last point I made, is a laptop revision really that big of a deal? The community is not only giving apple extra press they are giving Apple unnecessary press. Writing up articles on the fact the new Macbook has a better processor. Why wouldn’t the Macbook get a better processor every once in a while? Also who really cares how the computer is made? Is anyone trying to figure how dell builds a laptop case? The more we give in to these ridiculous attempts to generate buzz the more Apple will attempt them.
Apple is becoming a regular company. Apple has been growing steadily since the return of Steve Jobs. They no longer serve just a niche market, they are serving everyone. I saw hundreds of iPods on campus and dozens of Macbooks. Apple is no longer making a narrow set of products for a narrow set of people. With the growth and expansion of Apple, come higher profits, more scrutiny, loss of mystery, and most of all more mistakes. Apple has had some bad times lately, like the release of iphone 2.0, mobile me and others. The community chose not to pay too much attention to these issues, and made a big deal out the fixes. Soon Apple will be a regular company, and I think we should start treating them like one, for better or worse.
It is time to start treating Apple like a company and not a national icon. The people following Apple around like a lonely puppy aren’t helping anyone. The more we hold Apple on a pedestal the higher the prices will go. The more we fall into the hype, the more hype we will get, and the longer we take to realize Apple is just a company, the longer we will we have to wait for them to become one.
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1 Response to Apple Events No Big Deal
/agree. Apple products are given far too much hype. IMO apples are underpowered compared to similarly priced PCs. They do have a nice streamlined and stable OS, but that' just b/c it's *nix based with a shiny coating. You could put *nix on a PC and it would perform better, faster, and still just as stable.
I've always had a big qualm with Apple's advertising as well. They are amazing marketers, I'll give them that. Their commercials are always filled with "young and hip" people enjoying their products like iPods, but their commercials are filled with some half-truths and many deceptive "facts" that are designed to push people to their market.
For example:
PC/MAC Virus Commercial
This type of commercial bothers me. Viruses can infect MAC's too, they just have to be written for it. Since there is a much smaller market of MAC's out there than there are PC's most malicious people who write viruses wouldn't take the time to write a virus for such a small subset of the consumer computer market. If you ran some flavor of Linux on a PC there's very little chance of getting a virus as well since most of them are written for Windows.
Another example:
PC/MAC out of the box
This is another example of how through subversive techniques they're trying to make their product look superior to a PC. PC's are ready to use out of the box as well. The fact that the PC owner had to read a manual about how to use it doesn't mean that they're more difficult to use or it's necessary to read a manual to use it. The very same user would probably have to read a manual about how to use a MAC if they were to attempt that as well.
Once again I agree that over all they do make good products and have really good marketing techniques, but I feel there is WAY too much hype over apple products.
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