Slashdot Mirror
Media Loves Apple and Its Army of Fans
cgriffin21 writes "Apple is getting more media attention right now than any other technology company, including Google. Microsoft, meanwhile, is languishing in the shadows like Cinderella on the night of the ball. That's the upshot of a study released Monday (PDF) by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that Apple was the focus of 15.1 percent of media coverage between June 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. Google received 11.4 percent of media coverage during the period, while Microsoft garnered just 3 percent."
This is not surprising. Apple and Google cater to consumers. That means the masses, the general public, the hordes. Microsoft's activities the last 10 years and all their successes have been in the enterprise space along with SAP, Oracle, IBM and HP. That makes them boring to most people and that includes the media. Apple creates really cool products that capture imaginations. Even Apple haters want things like what Apple produces - just not from Apple - witness Android phones and tablets. Google touches everybody too. We all use one or more Google services.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Meanwhile, in Reality Land... Microsoft continues to hold a dominate position in a mature market, targeting business customers Apple doesn't seem to care about. They have a market cap over $211bn and have started paying out dividends. They're in IBM territory now, but the media loves underdogs and sexy startups, and one thing Microsoft has never been is sexy, even when they were a startup. However, I don't really think they care. Not that I really have terribly much use for any of their products, and my personal situation is in no way tied to their fortunes. But to say that only getting 3% of the media coverage is going to hurt them is just kind of stupid. Its almost like Boeing running commercials -- anyone in a position to be purchasing ANYTHING from Boeing isn't going to make that decision off of a 30-second ad. For some companies, media interest is irrelevant, because they're entrenched in their market.
In my view, Apple is the only company focusing on the user experience (and the only company focusing on the user) as opposed to feature lists products that will be close to become unusable. As a result, they release more expensive products, sell more of those than the competition, and then get a bigger revenue. This revenue is invested in R&D. In Apple's terminology, R&D means exploring existing technologies and finding how they can be integrated into end user products.
The users we speak of here are not slashdot readers, they are the general public.
As a result of all that, they get good press. And it seems well deserved.
This is my view on Apple, so you may express your view but you may not say I'm wrong because I don't claim to express a fact.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
> In my view, Apple is the only company focusing on the user experience
> (and the only company focusing on the user) as opposed to feature lists
> products that will be close to become unusable.
Yes. Because no one ever uses "features".
The notion that Apple "focuses on the user experience" quickly seems absurd
as soon as you try to do anything that Apple didn't account for or is actually
trying to prevent.
"plays my movies"
"reads my files"
"installs some random app"
"reads some website"
If another device gains traction, it will be due to the fact that it is good
at doing the things that Apple refuses to do. Being able to ignore Steve's
vision is a great feature for a lot of people.
Apple may have cared for the end user once but now they've jumped the shark.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
MSFT would be even more irrelevant than they are already becoming if it weren't for vendor lock-in.
Seriously, where would they be?
And we see another example of this phenomenon, as news outlets rush to report how news outlets cover Apple.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, what the parent is saying is that the user experience is good as long as you conform to Apple's definition of user behavior. It's not even about including every feature ever, since Apple is notorious for omitting even the most rudimentary industry standard features.
Take copy/paste. Apple allegedly omitted it because for some reason with all their resources they couldn't figure out a way to implement it. I own an iPad, and the implementation they came up with isn't anything special, to be sure. Try selecting a line of text near the top of the screen; the magnifying glass goes over the edge and you can't see what you're doing.
Another example is transferring files from the iPad. This goes beyond the Apple sanctioned usage of the iPad, so they make it really difficult, and it turns out the easiest way to share files is to e-mail them (a function which must be implemented on a per app basis, as the mail application does not allow attachments).
What about downloading a PDF from safari to read in iBooks? You can't do it from safari, you actually have to download it to a computer and transfer it via iTunes (the worst option, as you need the cable due to lack of wireless sync); through e-mail it to yourself (dropbox is a good option too); or download an app like goodreader, copy the link from safari into goodreader, download the PDF, then export it to iBooks. What a great user experience!
Oh, and the calendar app is a dream to use. It can't actually schedule events that repeat on odd schedules, like every Monday and Wednesday. Apple has sanctioned that your events can repeat weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly, or yearly. To solve this I have to create a google calendar, manage my events there, then subscribe to it in the calendar app.
Or what about this slashdot post? typing <p> takes 8 keyboard strokes on the iPad. </p> takes 11.
But yeah I agree, iPad and other Apple products are great if you stay within its narrow Apple sanctioned usage.
Maybe because parent is trolling. I have a MacBook Pro that just works.
And many millions more people have Windows (or Linux) laptops that "just work".