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Steve Jobs And The Oh-So-Cool iMac
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.
Ha ha ha ha, ha, . . . ha . . . you are joking, right?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Sorry Jon, I typically don't jump on the Katz-bashing, but today, I'm dumbfounded by this article.
1. How much market share does BMW have? Do you think that they have 4.5% of the world's market? I doubt it. Does it matter? Would I buy a BMW instead of a Ford? Definitely.
2. Steve Jobs knows exactly what he's doing. Do you think trying to trump Microsoft on making a commodity OS is the way to go? No, that job is already taken.
3. Take this example. I decide to open a store in a mall. There is a Walmart there already. Do I:
a) Build a gigantic department store and try to compete with Walmart?
b) Do I build a speciality store wherein I can attract a strong, loyal niche market, and make my money rather than getting crushed
I think Steve gets it fine. So do I, so do a good chunk of the posters thus far. But apparently, you don't get it.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
I owned a mac Classic and it was not a stable machine. I crashed that box like 10 times a day. However, only one out of a thousand crashes required me to reinstall anything. Most of the time I just power cycled the box and it was fine. Now with Windows 95 and later, whenever I crashed.... well who knows what would happen. Sometimes it would just work, sometimes reinstall everything. in 96, (freshman year of college) we had a weekly ritual of reinstalling win95 because it would die so often.
True, part of the reason that win95 died so much wasn't MSes fault. It was bad software downloaded from the highspeed access, corrupting the registry and whatnot.
Macs are not proprietary machines. This is an old notion. In no meaningful way are they proprietary.
If you disagree, please illustrate your points individually.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Why SHOULD Apple as a company be trusted? Why SHOULD Jobs be trusted? (ok, why trust any company?)
/// is a five year product. Dead in under 3. (Jobs was trying to prove himself as a designer. The lack of a fan was a big design problem here)
Apple
When Apple's income from the ][ line was sagging, and Apple NEEDED that money to prop up the Mac line, they came out with "Apple ][ Forever" and promises of 16 and 32 bit ][ products. Jobs had a BIG hand in killing the ][ line.
The Mac will sell 20,000 a month, thats why we need the automated Mac factory. They sold 512 and 1288 unit in two months. (ever wonder why the board fired Jobs)
How about the "Steve Jobs - Father of the Mac". He wasn't. Jef Raskin is. (Jef, Woz and Steve for serial #1 of the 20th annv. mac for a reason)
OpenDoc
Newton - Apple lost millions to Harris data over the Ameritech details. (Contracts that were signed and then Apple broke the legal promises) Before they killed the Newton, they were claiming they would not kill the Newton, and on March 3rd (they killed the product on Feb 27th) Apple staffers were seen at the national education convention saing "The Newton is an important part of the Apple product line"
WWDC 1997 the CEO said "Any machine sold by Apple in 1997 will run the new OS"
How about Steve Jobs himself? He lied to Woz over money paid on a contract job, and pocketed the extra money. He said the daughter from one of his flings was not his. That Daughter's name is Lisa. (Yea, he DID name the Lisa after her)
H. Ross Perot called his investment in NeXT - "his biggest mistake" Did Jobs lie, or was just 'overmarketing' the future of NeXT?
At least with Open Source and commodity hardware, you don't need to trust in a company, you place your trust in your fellow man, or in your own skills.
And, as an aside: Do you think people would have such a visceral reaction to Microsoft if the programs worked as advertised?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
When will people realize?
Apple sells computers to the Mac faithful.
The Mac faithful (a group that I am not a part of, by the way) do not care what the new iMac costs. It runs MacOS. They will buy it.
(This, incidentally, is why OS X won't be ported to x86 hardware.)
True, Mac hopes to gain some converts, as they do every time they come out with a new product (don't tell me you didn't lust-just for a second- over the Titanium PowerBook when it came out). But this is tangental to serving their sizable, captive market.
As long as they can keep all the graphic designers, video editors and grad students who have been the faithful for however many years, they'll be okay.
-1, Flamebait
Guvegrra?