Steve Jobs And The Oh-So-Cool iMac

From the first, this has been a cornerstone idea at Apple Computers: make stuff that is cool and hip enough and it will eventually succeed. Until recently, this foolish idea permeated the hacker culture as well -- if it's neat, it's good. Initially, Apple was a welcome antidote to the elitism and cluelessness of the tech elites who designed early computers. Although that seems a long time ago, the early idea behind Apple was revolutionary -- make computing accessible to everyone, not just coders and programmers. But the recent history of software development, networked computing and the Net suggests that now just the opposite is true: being cool is nice, but it's not nearly enough. Steve Case and Bill Gates have known this for awhile. Nobody would ever label them cool, just stunningly successful.

The truly successful technologies and technology companies are utilitarian and dull -- decidedly non-hip. You will never seen a Microsoft or AOL exec talking about how cool the their companies or products are, only how useful and easy to use. They don't really care how much heavy breathing they generate in the media or among excitable teenagers and college students. Those two companies have, in fact, dominated their environments by pointedly focusing on the non-technologically adventurous middle-class and busy business executives and workers and by presenting themselves not as cool but as reliable and accessible. And for this sin they get jeered at -- all the way to the bank. Their motives may be money, greed and power, but they understand what really drives technology in America and much of the world. Steve Jobs does not.

The tech media have served as enablers and co-dependents in Steve Jobs' sometimes-brilliant marketing impulses. Last week, the volatile Jobs projected himself onto the cover of Time magazine by unveiling the oh-so-cool new iMac, a computer as entertainment/culture center, a "hub for music, pictures and movies." It's elegant and affordable, says Time, and takes up little desk space, "but will millions of PC users get it?"

Probably not.

Gates understands something Jobs and media don't. When it comes to technology, it's middle-class consumers and their tastes, needs and expectations that determine success or failure. This is a hard lesson for many hackers and programmers too, who remain bewildered that superior systems like Linux aren't on every desktop. But the middle class, for years abused and exploited by the arrogant tech industry (just think of what poor Comcast subscribers have been going through for weeks now), wants easy of use, safety, utility. Just consider at the telephone, the automobile, or for that matter, Wal-Mart. Apple has demonstrated for years, and so, to some degree, has Linux. Harry and Martha in Dubuque decide which products will enter the mainstream and last, not college kids editing movies or downloading music and DVDs, or using firewire ports to fiddle with video clips.

Apple, perenially aspiring to coolness, has always been the favorite computer of the non-hacker hip and the creative. And of many people (like me) whose entry onto the Net and Web has been made easier for the first programming language that really made sense to non-techies. Jobs' colorful, well-designed, fun and entertainment-centered iMacs and Powerbooks have been getting fabulous press for years. His idea to fuse the desktop with pop culture is, in fact, a powerful one. But it's too soon. The middle-class isn't ready for that. Most Americans don't need the 1,000 songs the iPod can store, and would rather go to the megaplex than edit movies on their computers.

So Apple accounts for only 4.5 per cent of new personal computer sales, according to Gartner Dataquest.

That's probably because Jobs hasn't addressed the central problem facing computer makers: the public doesn't trust them. Burned by years of outrageously poor tech support, increasingly expensive software, and hardware that's almost instantly outdated, middle-class consumers aren't the least bit interested in the coolest new new thing. They want computing that works like TV does -- that's easy to use, takes little space, costs relatively little money and works every time you turn it on, year after year. The public is increasingly wise to tech scams like hardware that's obsolete every 18 months and software that doesn't even last that long. Computers -- even the jazzy new iMac -- are a long way from reliability, and are profoundly mistrusted. In fact, it was only a couple of years ago that the candy-colored iMacs were the next cool thing. Now they're about as hip as Windows 98.

If you're a teenager, Web designer, film editor or visual arts major, or even a loving Grandma, it's great that the iMac allows you to create your own DVDs, organize and edit digital pictures, play CDs or convert MP3's, turn home videotapes into high-quality edited films. What's less clear is whether or not the public -- especially that critical middle-class chunk of it -- wants to do those things on a computer, or is confident about its ability to use machinery that's still more complicated and problematic than its makers seem able to admit.

For nearly a generation now, from Jobs to the makers of instant replay TV machines, some of the best minds in the tech world -- usually the younger ones -- have been crippled and misled by the confusion between what's cool and what's going to be successful, between what's neat and what's necessary. The survivors of the Net's first generation -- brilliant plodders like Gates and Steve Case -- understand quite well that they aren't the same thing, and have, as a result, increasingly come to dominate the Net.

Comments

Re:Ease of Use

[goldid]

Not really. Remember here that I am talking about general consumers. You and I can easily use Linux, which is a better desktop alternative, but most people are afraid of it, while they are not afraid of Mac.

Unless, of course, you're arguing Windows is better, in which case I couldn't agree ...

You know...(OT)

[Dimwit]

...I always stopped myself from deactiving Katz stories from the main page, because I liked seeing the news on Slashdot. It made me all happy to see a new article, and I would start reading it...

...then I noticed I could always tell when it was Katz. *sigh* Has anyone here read "The Art of the Freshman Essay"? It basically says that someone who doesn't know anything about the subject matter will use inflammatory speech, the largest possible words, the airiest possible analogies, and the most breathless superlatives to mask that he doesn't really know what he's talking about.

Wow...I didn't realise it was supposed to be biographical. :)

But. . . . I like elitism!

[Com2Kid]

What is wrong with elitism? It is not like the enterance bar has ever been very high to gain entry into the computer world, all you have ever really /had/ to have is a DESIRE to learn!

Seriously, is that too much to ask of a person now days? Ok mabye now days it is, but hell, that is all the more reason to RAISE the enterance standard back to what it used to be.

Sure I love the fact that computers are getting cheaper and more affordable all the time, but, if price is equivilent to elitism, then Apple is right up there promoting elitism. (Though their old policy of equipment donations to schools wa rather nice.)

If having a monopoly is elitism (be it UNIX, ITS, or Windows), then Apple is right up their promoting elitism. (use our hardware /and/ our software or else you cannot use our platform!)

If pointing out and laughing at or ridiculing people because they 'just don't get it' it elitism, then apple is sure as heck promoting elitism.

"If you don't like pretty color computers then your st00pid and obviously like that /ugly/ beige box of yours! bleeeeh!!!!"

Sheesh, yes I like my beige box, I happen to /like/ beige Thank You So Very Much. I also happen to like steel. I just do not like a society of computer 'users' that choose their computers not based upon their speed or functionality but rather on the color of the plastic case that surrounds it.

Granted not all Mac users do this, but Apple specificaly went ahead and interrelated the color and the speed of the iMacs, thus making what color imac a person had a sort of quasi social order type of a thing.

Now one of the things that I love _BEST_ about the computer community (ah, or at least I used to, it is quickly disappearing these days) is that your social order was dictated by two things;

Great Deeds commited in the past (and by Great Deeds I mean that you had to make World Changing types of events to get any sort of notice, we all know who the Gods are. :) ) and actions commited in the present.

Sure on some kiddie BBSs people would be judged by what type of computer they had (all caps on certian models of AppleIIs for instance VS those with a lowercase option put in), but shoo the computer community in a whole doesn't give a rats flying fig if you are helping people out from your Commodore 64 living in a shanty in one of the worst parts of your town.

It is the fact that YOU ARE HELPING PEOPLE that made the difference. Always. Period. That you where a positive member of the community, that you cared for others, that you had a good heart and a workethic that got things done. Nobody cared how you got access to the net, just so long as you did.

It wasn't your gender or your age or your racial background that mattered, it was who you were. Nobody knew your gender or your age or your racial background, all they knew was YOU.

Now days a person is far more likely to be judged on the basis of moral or social stances then anything else. Hell I've gotten I don't know how many death threats thanks to my strong anti-drug stance ("excuse me, but how the heck does you threatening to kill me make the situation any better for any of the parties involved?" Bleh).

If not that then a persons viewpoint of issues such as the progression of the artists into the computer community.

Yes computers have great possibilities for artistic achievement, but we should /never/ let it interfere with true technical advancment. Yes fancy see through GUIs look nice, and even if the OS has some nifty enhancments, the fact is that every moment that was spent programming in fancy graphical effects could have been used to actualy make /more/ progress over that which was already made. Let us not forget how slowly the artistic community has a habit of moving along on things, and how they obsessivly work towards perfecting one area of art before they move on to the next.

Heck even in these modern fast paced times one notices that rarly is a compleatly new form of art created even once in a decade, but rather art tends to be a slow progression of movements. While it can be said that all achievments work this way, well. . . . ah. Take a look at the plurality of vector standards and 3d over the web standards out there for an example of exactly how long it is going to take the artistic community to actualy accomplish anything.

Do we really want to limit our selves like this? To petty social-economical classes and a surrender of the desire, of the movement, of the fast paced. . . newness, interduction of technology, into the computer community?

Do you think that the C language would ever have been created if instead all efforts were going into making the prompts blink in pretty ways and making the computer 'polite' and more 'user friendly'?

Where do you think networking would be today if intead of working towards just better technology in general, more 'interactive' or more 'user transparent" networking was worked on instead?

What would it have been like if artists had run things all the way?

1990, introduction of the IEEE 802.3i 10BaseT standard;

"Sure our new ethernet standard is just at 5kbps but you just plug it in and go, it sets itself up! Why the network overhead isn't a problem, here, just see the pretty colors that the cords come in! You /do/ like pretty colors don't you???"

I am a new Mac owner; my aunt & uncle already

[Gryphon]

This is just one example, but my aunt and uncle, in their late 50's, early 60's, bought one of the original iMac's. They couldn't be any more middle class, run-of-the-mill-type-users if they tried. With this original iMac, they got on the Internet all by theirselves, can scan images easily, do word processing, etc. I don't think Katz's claims hold water in their case.

BTW -- I'm a power user. I just sold my P4-1400MHz/512MB RAM/40GB Wintel system to a friend at work. My new flat-screen 800MHz/256MB RAM/Superdrive equipped iMac is on order and arriving next week. I can't wait to try serving my website with Apache on Mac OS X. I've been using Linux & BSD for > 4 years. Windows for as long as I can remember. I think there are a lot of users out there like me, wondering whether to take the plunge into the Mac world... I for one am excited about computing again. Can't to get my new iMac! :)