Jeremy Roberts. A Blog

After many years trailing Microsoft and independent hardware manufacturers, Apple is back, and in a big way. But how? Why do we pay 3 times the price for an Apple Mac laptop when we can just as easily get a more powerful laptop with Windows 7 for a fraction of the cost? Why do we forgo practical mobile/cell phones to spend $1000 on an iPhone?

Absolutely amazing marketing.

There’s no denying that the Apple interface for all its devices is sleek and simple. However, is it actually worth as much as they charge. I don’t think so.

I can just as easily do whatever I need to on a crappy old PC/laptop running Ubuntu linux. So how has Apple climbed back into the everyday? Clever marketing that has been targeted at high-end consumers. Simple devices that, once high-end consumers have tried, become the envy of the everyday people. They become a status symbol.

On the train in the mornings and afternoons I don’t there is an iPhone left in a pocket or bag – they’re all out and being flicked by media hungry, status symbol displaying consumers.

The marketing campaigns that Apple has used to sell iPods, Macs and iPhones hardly say anything about the capabilities of the devices themselves. Somehow people just know what they do. They are infected. It doesn’t matter if there are better, more reliable devices out there. Even the Apple logo has become synonymous with wealth and a ‘look at me’ attitude.

If you recall the older Apple campaigns that really attacked Microsoft, “Hi I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC…“. These ads didn’t really say what a Mac did, but rather what it didn’t do… crash. Let’s be realistic though. If you try hard enough, you can crash a Mac (for example, don’t try using Boot Camp), but it just happens less often and is much less obtrusive to the user.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that Apple does seem to be offering hardware or software, it’s offering status.

Now look at the new release from Apple, the iPad. Is it actually useful? Think about it… when would you actually use it for more than 5 minutes? You wouldn’t. It’s a gimmick, a very expensive gimmick. However, I guess it might be useful for travelling… but then isn’t an iPhone (or pretty much any phone) capable of sending/receiving emails and getting on facebook these days anyway?

The iPad is nothing more than a glorified tv-guide that will live on your coffee table.

And then there’s the ‘Apps’. Wow, my handheld device can now play 100,000 games that are small, fiddly and pointless. If I want to play a game, I go get on the PlayStation. I’m not going to stare at a tiny little screen an swish my finger around. And on that… what can an iPad do that an iPhone can’t? They use the same operating system! It often frustrates me when I see people at a cafe  in a group chatting away, and then there’s a couple of people in the group that will have their iPhones out playing games, checking emails or just scrolling around. Why? Look up people! The world is going on around you. Connect with it in real-time in real-life! Life doesn’t happen in a shiny metal and glass box.

Apple has managed to convince us that in order the be accepted in society, we need to use their expensive, proprietary technology? Why? Because it’s shiny? Because it’s useful? Because it’s quality? Or, because they can, in order to infect us with their marketing tools, so we infect others.

It’s a big rant, I know. But there’s just something not quite right about the whole Apple wave. Having said all that, I would definitely recommend my parents get an Apple Mac right away and chuck out the data Windows machine they have at the moment. And, I’m actually writing this on a Mac myself.

Infected?