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."

Comments

Re:MS is hurting

[truthsearch]

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.

You're confusing offering a great user experience with offering every feature ever invented. Apple is focused on what they perceive to be a very positive user experience. And based on user satisfaction they're very good at it. Many people actually like the walled garden.

Re:MS is hurting

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

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.

Good point, but not for your argument - most things people "need" the retarded implementations of copy/paste on other "smartphones" for were already implemented easier to use on the iPhone.

This is *interesting* ???

[Space cowboy]

Let's just go through the points the poster regards as OSX 'sucking':

• iTunes - What's wrong with iTunes ? It's easy to use, it plays my music (paid for, from the iTunes store, and ripped from personal CDs), and it's trivial to interact with the iPhone with. It's fast, efficient, has that genius thing which I've sometimes even used... Can't see what's not to like.
• Finder - Um, it's a hierarchical disk interface, which seems to work pretty well for me. Quick Previews works great, networked drives don't block these days, love the dock, has Spaces for multiple workspaces, love the dashboard, and the way it integrates with Time-machine. Again, what's not to like ?
• The BSD subsystem - Say what ? You're actually *complaining* that the BSD userland layer is there, overlaid on top of Mach ? This is one of the reasons I bought the machine!
• Support for non-sanctioned hardware - um, who cares ? We're talking about buying Macs here, they're all sanctioned.
• Obsolescence - Odd - I can still run PPC programs (I never cared about OS9, that's a 10-year old OS and macs weren't my thing until they metamorphosed into truly excellent unix workstations.)

Either you're just a hater (a far worse breed than the "fanbois", at least the fanbois are positive about their cult) or you're trying to make the opposite point (badly) using irony. Perhaps that's it - really you love Macs, but were trying to be clever.

As for market-share, again, who cares ? Sure, those numbers you quote are small, but Apple owns about 50% of the tablet market, about the same as Google (21%) in the mobile-ads market, almost 40% of the worldwide mobile phone profits (with only 3% market-share) and their shares of these markets is (as you say) really small. In other words, they're just getting started and there's a lot of room to grow.

Here's a thought. You don't get to be the most valuable tech stock on the planet by only appealing to "fanbois". You have to be able to sell to a wide marketplace to get that sort of traction. Apple does. Deal.

Simon

Re:This is *interesting* ???

[Space cowboy]

iTunes is blazingly fast on both my Mac Pro and my Macbook Pro. I don't know what you're talking about. I've heard it's not the best on Windows, but since I don't *use* windows apart from for EDA, I don't care.

Finder - far better than any of the others. See, I can make unjustified statements too. When you link to an article that says "here's how to do cut-n-paste rather than copy-n-paste", it's not such a good idea to be critical... The automater services are one of the cool things about OSX (in general) and Finder (in particular).

The BSD subsystem is not poorly done. Another blanket accusation. The reason why Fink (and MacPorts for that matter) roll their own is to maintain a single dependency graph as OS's change - surely that's obvious ?? For those who prefer more flexibility, Apple *provide* macports.

The "overpriced crap" *opinion* you state just makes you come across as a cheapskate who doesn't want to pay the price of entry. If the Mac is as bad as you suggest, you'd be saying things like "thank [insert deity here] I don't have to make the choice of Mac vs [insert system here] because the Mac is too expensive". You'd not be decrying that it's too expensive. Obviously it is desirable for you, or you'd not be complaining about it being more expensive.

Obsolescence: I can run *10* year old software on my current Mac. What's your point ?

Yes, you just hate. You don't like the fact that some people are very happy with their purchase, whereas you would not be. Mac users are the most-satisfied of every PC maker (and have been for years). This behaviour of yours is pretty much the definition of an antisocial troll.

Um, you can be popular without being omnipresent. An Aston-Martin DB9 Vantage is a massively popular car (as in: lots of people would love to own one, and those who have it, love it), but it's not anywhere near as commonplace as a Ford Focus. Popularity does not imply ownership.

Customers who want a company to prosper, to best-realise their investment in buying that hardware, *should* wish the company they've paid cash to (for products) to have high profits and a secure future.

Apple, IMHO, couldn't give a fig for whether they were .1 of a GHz faster or slower than their competition. They care about how the user interacts with the machine. They are far and away better at making that easy than anyone else. End of. No spewed vitriol by a self-confessed hater will change that.

Simon.