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The Media's Crush on Apple
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports: "It's the first time in my memory that a product announcement by Steve Jobs has caused the AP to send an alert -- especially since this development was fully expected. And it says a lot about the intensity of media attention Apple generates. When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Clearly, the AP's editors determined this news was important enough to warrant such action."
Michael Dell has little to do with innovation. He's a brilliant businessman but I do not think his job function entitles him to media attention like Gates or Jobs. Dell sells computers, they don't invent them or the software they run. His expertise is reliability and customer support. Definitely an important figure head in the sale of computers but not so much the invention side.
I should point out that Gates won that probably because of all the money he and his wife donate to charities. The guy is a vaccine giving maniac no matter how much you hate his software. Oh and he is hott .
My work here is dung.
Clearly the news media is dominated by people who use Apple computers. This is a well-known fact, and I actually recall reading an article a while back about the fact that Apple gets a disproportionate amount of computer press when the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple, much less actually owns one.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This is rather off-topic, but has anyone tried Sour Apple Crush Soda? It's awesome :)
Anyway, to bring the post on-topic, I'm excited about the new hardware, but I can see how the media coverage of apple over the last little while is quite reminiscient of Slashdot's coverage of Google.
All praise, no raze. Or something. Basically, Apple is the Golden Delicious of the consumer tech companies right now. Eventually something will happen to change that, but for the forseeable future it will remain stable as the 'darling child' it currently is.
JOhn C Dvorak wrote an article in PC Magazine about this back in October.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Maybe I am wrong.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I still have this fascination for the man to this day, probably because he has this image as someone who does it his way, breaks the rules, and makes a shit load of money doing it.
There are, of course, people at work who use Macs at home, just are there people who use Linux. But there is not great Apple conspiracy at work here, I'm sorry to say. Apple just puts on a better show than the others. And, in contrast to Microsoft, when they say the will bring out a new product, they actually do. Still waiting for Vista here.
Does "the media" entail /. ? Just wondering... because I just saw 5 Apple-related stories on the front page.
Same components, same form factor, available now, cheaper, faster processor, double the ram, more hard drive space compared to the MacBook.
The media, along with Apple, is delusional.
What worries me the most about this latest Apple announcment is that the media seems to be both shocked and amazed that Apple was able to switch to Intel only 6 months after they announced the partnership.
This comes from media sources that claim to be in the business of reporting technology.
Why isn't this really all that shocking?
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it. There is no technological miracle involved in Apple getting an Intel CPU to work in a notebook formfactor, especially one designed by Intel to work in notebooks. I give a slight nod to Apple for putting it in a slightly thinner and lighter enclosure then the Acer Travelmate, but are we to believe that Apple spent the last 6 months designing the MacBook or iMac? Remeber that both the iMac and Mac mini use notebook components, so even those models are not technological miracle's as the media would have you believe. The fact that Apple moved to the Intel platfrom is not earth shattering from a hardware perspective.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX. There has always been some form of OSX avialable on some form of PC hardware. Apple hedged their bets that IBM's PowerPC may not take them everywhere they want to go, and with Wintel dominating 95% of the market, I would have been fool hardy for Apple not to recognize the potential to run their OS on an x86 based computer. Also, given that fact that Apple did not start development fresh at the moment Apple and Intel announced their partnership. Chances are, Apple already had much of this development up their sleeves. The fact they moved to the Intel platform is not earth shattering from a software perspective.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform. Apple's real design work came 3 years ago when they first created the Powerbook Aluminum line, Apple simply recycled components from the Powerbook, they didn't even change the case much except to correct weaknesses in that original design. These people foolishly believe that Apple redesigned OSX from the ground up to work on Intel hardware, but all they did was make it official.
The media hypes about Apple because Apple hypes about Apple. I will give it to Steve Jobs that he as a charisma that few other CEO's in the computer world have, or is it arrogance. It is because of that that Apple gets ANY newsplay for what they do. Remember that Apple is the underdog. The reason why there isn't any news alert for anything Bill Gates does is because there is no need to hype about Microsoft, Microsoft introduces new technology and 95% of the computer world uses that technology the next day or next month. There isn't any news alerts for Dell, Dell comes out with a new product and millions are sold the next week.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel. Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has in the computer world, zero! The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it. Its because millions will buy the Acer Travelmate and the HP dv1000t and a slew of other Intel Duo Core notebooks without a second thought.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Michael Dell is a HUGE figure in B-school, because he turned supply-chain management on its head. He took a business that was becoming a commodity, COMPLETELY commoditized it, and makes money while squeezing everyone else out.
He gets LOTS of coverage... in the business press.
Apple is arguably the most innovative company in consumer computer technology. The CORE focus on the mainstream "technology" press is the consumer computer technology. Therefore, Apple gets covered.
Note: celebrities get lots of coverage in lifestyle, but not the business section.
Very few companies play in the consumer tech space, Apple is one of them, Apple gets coverage. Other players, Sony, Symantec, anti-spyware company of the week, etc. Apple is a $6b company, which isn't small. I don't understand how on Slashdot a multi-billion dollar company in the top 200 of the Fortune 500 list gets treated like its a 5 man company in their garage, while treating random $5m tech company like a global dominating force.
Alex
You are not really trolling, but you are certainly wrong. People are buying iPods because they are very easy to use, their small size is handy, and they are very stylish, even cool. Geeky techno-gadgets don't really catch fire because they are too hard to use, unless they are the only solution to a problem. And of course, you might have noticed through the example of Windows that there are real benefits to owning very popular technology -- lots of accessories and stuff available for iPods. That's why many people choose Windows over Macintosh.
Currently hooked on AMP
Why is nobody talking about Acer Travelmate 8200
For the last umpteen years I could buy an intel machine and run Linux or Windows or Solaris or a BSD. I could also buy a PPC laptop that ran OSX or Linux or BSD. What I wanted was a Laptop of either variety with reasonable speed that could run Linux and Windows and OS X. As of February I may be able to buy such a laptop. This is different and is news. I'll read an article about this. I don't care about articles about other random laptops unless they can run OS X.
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it.
Pretty much. They also created a bluetooth remote control and incorporated a camera, in the laptop.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX.
Well, that and they created an EFI implementation, the first in a laptop I know of. Oh, and they tested things and got them working smoothly on 32 and 64 bit PPC at the same time as 32 bit intel. Oh, and they got all of their core applications working on the same. Oh and they announced they will have all their pro applications upgraded by march.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform.
You've missed the point entirely. News is not just when someone does something very well, it is when someone does something that changes things. Anybody can pull a trigger, but When John Wilkes Booth did it the news reported it constantly. Everyone knew Apple could release for the intel platform, but it is still news that they have done so.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose[sic] needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel.
Do compare what Apple has released lately to what MS has released. The press reports on what there is to report on. Apple releases new things. They report. MS releases nothing, they try to make up something and end up publishing articles that don't have any news in them.
Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has[sic] in the computer world, zero!
Actually, I use Widgets regularly. Every day, I press a button and see the weather, doppler radar, traffic reports. Many days I use the quick yellow pages, google map widget, or the simple timer to send me an alert in time to meet people for lunch. They impact my life, much more so than some random laptop I have no interest in buying.
The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it.
Yeah, but they aren't cool. They don't run OS X, just crappy old WinXP. They don't have a cool remote. They don't let you do new things. You just don't get it. Apple moving to intel is the news. It changes the industry dynamic and will change the way a lot of us work. I might be able to finally be down to one workstation. Who cares if there is a Windows box with the same specs, it isn't challenging MS's stranglehold on the market and it isn't going to fix the industry so that we can have competition and reasonable progress again. It does not carry with it the hope for an end to these computing dark ages. If Einstein had a brother who looked just like him, but would work for cheaper, would it make news?
I just kinda screwed up and gave the lower-spec Inspiron page... it looks like you can't really get the 'full specs' page for the higher-end Inspiron on it's own. Very much to Dell's credit, probably ( though I know some like their notebooks smaller, and MacBook is smaller ), it has the larger screen size in fully-decked-out-mode. But it is also actually more expensive, by over $190, and I'm not sure everyone would agree that the larger screen and 4 more USB ports are worth that, especially if you factor in the OS X/iLife difference...
But my point is this: as much as many of us think of it as expensive, it's not. It's *exactly* comparable to a similar laptop from Dell. It's time for folks like the original poster on this thread to wake up and realize that Apple is simply re-branding Intel hardware like everyone else, and surprise, surprise, charging the same mark-ups on that hardware as everyone else.
BTW, I'm not overly fanatic about Apple *hardware*, although I do think it's above-average; I'd be very happy for someone to point out a Core Duo laptop with all the stuff the MacBook has for less. It's just that I saw the OP's claim, noticed that it lacked anything to back it up, and decided to check Dell's website for Core Duo laptops... and did not find anything that made the MacBook look really overpriced. Really, I'm a bit shocked I found that to be the case... I thought for sure the Dell would be $200 cheaper, not $200 more expensive.
What's really interesting to me is that both Dell and Apple have exactly one laptop using the Core Duo processors ( the Inspiron and MacBook, respectively ), and that they're priced almost identically in two different configurations ( $1999 and well, almost identically : $2690/$2499 )... the only difficulty in comparing the laptops really is that the Dell has a larger screen, doesn't come with DVD+-R in the $1999 version, uses only the 1.8Ghz speed, and... who needs six USB ports on their laptop, what's that all about??
In the end, the truth is, comparing 1.8Ghz Core Duo laptops from Apple and Dell... the DELL is more expensive, even though it gives you less software! All that you can say in Dell's defense is they give you a larger screen ( and a heavier laptop ) and more USB ports... am I missing something, or are those the differences ?