
Apple doesn't owe you anything - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/83607/apple-doesnt-owe-you-anything
======
jamesbressi
The real story here about Apple is at the end of the article (that is if you
noticed to click through to page 2 of it).

"Still, it seems that many people are going to keep loving Apple no matter
what, and getting hurt when the company acts to make money rather than loving
them back. And, as it turns out, those rumors about 10.6.2 not working on Atom
chips might not be true after all! Fall in love all over again."

Apple's marketing trust isn't a bunch of marketers, rather a bunch of
psychologists. No one has ventured to write in-depth about this yet, maybe
I'll get around to it one day. Apple accomplished two things with this latest
action and I'll quickly explain both below.

This is only ONE example of Apple marketing vs. psychology and I will keep it
relevant to the article: \- Steve Jobs has said before that Apple doesn't seek
to create markets or chase them. Point and case regarding netbooks: Steve Jobs
said on the quarterly earnings call a little over a year ago that "not a lot
of them are getting sold" (which is debatable) BUT then admitted that Apple is
going to "wait and see" how the category evolves and "we've got some pretty
interesting ideas if it does evolve."

So, on that note, the psychology behind the OSX update that could have
eliminated the popular atom chip support in netbooks, potentially locking out
a bunch of netbook owners from updating the OS or face inoperable computers...

It has been a year and netbooks (which is now just a buzzword since they are
really a recycle of selling smaller screen laptops that fell out of favor and
are now made more lightweight and with hardware that isn't overkill for the
general population) are popping up like crazy appear to be selling like
hotcakes.

Apple knows that OSX is being installed on these and I'm sure keep an eye on
all the posts about how to do it and watch the comments on those posts and
other forums. I'm sure just how Google monitors search term popularity, Apple
does the same for things they are watching.

So, one year later, how do you test the temperature of the market for OSX on
netbooks? Indirectly threaten the entire market by potentially not supporting
the processors that run them and watch the reaction.

The second thing accomplished by this was what Apple seems to do that I have
not seen any other company pull off so frequently: create controversy and then
have people fall in love with you again. I don't need to list all the examples
from just the last two years alone, I know you know them. Not only could they
test and measure the reaction of possibly shutting netbook users out, but then
come back to be the hero and give back what was almost taken away. Reaction
goes from angry (without merit in my opinion) to "oh thank God" "whew" "thank
you Apple".

Hopefully I'm making sense up there. Just wanted to bring the topic up and
hear your thoughts as well.

~~~
roc
Over the last year Netbooks have grown, but at the expense of laptops. Is
Apple the sort of company that would cannibalize their laptop sales in favor
of a user experience that people don't like?

And to what end? Their netbook-less laptop lineup is growing _faster_ than
netbooks are.

~~~
catfish
"people don't like"

perhaps you refer to the "mac people" as there is at least one of us out here
who "likes" the asus netbook he typed this with and uses every day, and LOVES.

~~~
roc
Yeah and I loved my n800 too.

But everyone I know that has purchased a netbook and doesn't know an Atom from
Adam has been disappointed. (None of them own Macs, btw) I also noted Michael
Dell's recent admission that most netbook purchasers are chasing a price point
and are disappointed in short order. So I feel it's a fair opinion, not
limited to 'mac people'.

I'd be very interested to see proper customer satisfaction surveys though.

------
drewcrawford
The gist of the article (which is the gist of the headline, and the gist of
several comments I've read about this on HN) is that Apple doesn't support X
and don't whine about it. If you want OSX buy a mac, if you want open
development don't buy an iPhone, if you want X, don't buy a product that's not
X.

That's true in a tautological way--it's true by definition. But it's not
useful. I don't want a mac--I want a netbook that runs OS X. I don't want an
iPhone--I want a phone with an iPhone-quality software stack with an open
software ecosystem. These are not mutually exclusive--they're not
inconsistent. There's no inherent property of OSX that excludes netbooks.
There's no inherent property of the iPhone software stack that excludes an
open software ecosystem. These are arbitrary choices by Apple--perhaps good
for a lot of people--but not what I want.

And so I want these things--netbooks, phones--that don't exist. Well, fine.
I'll make them. But then there are people out there who are actively
preventing me from making them, and thus having the things I want. Not only is
Apple saying "We don't care about X" but they're saying "we hate X and will
prevent it from coming into being." It's being needlessly antagonistic.

That's where the whining comes from. People want things that don't exist, they
try to make them, and something actively prevents it.

Now you could theoretically go the other way--we have an open software
ecosystem and let's construct a great software stack--we have netbooks and
let's construct a great OS. But this must be harder to do, because (as an
experimental fact) it happens much less often.

~~~
tumult
Apple is preventing you from making your own netbook or phone?

~~~
rbanffy
If OSX tests the hardware to see if it is a Mac and fails on Mac-compatible
but non-Apple hardware, then yes: Apple is actively preventing people from
building netbooks that run OSX.

It's just not a big problem, IMHO. If you want a Unix netbook, get one and
install Linux, *BSD or OpenSolaris and get done with it. All three are much
better unixes than OSX

~~~
tumult
you're not building a netbook, you're buying some other company's netbook and
running Apple's OS on it.

~~~
rbanffy
You are building a netbook the same way a lot of companies do: you are buying
it from someone else.

The main difference is that you are not stamping your brand on top of it.

------
thehigherlife
_This is the reason why Windows PCs are pricier than Macs._

Even if the sentiment of this article has some truth to it; you end up looking
silly with typos like that.

~~~
jamesbressi
I didn't point it out, but I too was wondering if that line was a typo.

I have always argued that Macs (at least from when I heavily compared them to
PCs from '02 to '06) were in fact cheaper or comparable when you did a side-
by-side comparison including software. And, yes, it was only cheaper if that
software was relevant to the purchaser.

Anyway...

~~~
thehigherlife
my statement was more directed to "apple's goal is to make money, not be your
friend" then to apple's are more expensive.

~~~
access_denied
Ah, yes, it should be: "This is the reason Macs are prickier than Windows
PCs." (Jokes a fanboi.)

------
duh
I used to avoid Windows because I thought Linux was superior "technically".

Now I use OS X and avoid windows because it's fucking awful.

