We need an Apple that peddles Linux systems is what it boils down to. Someone needs to swoop in, add sexy branding, make it attractive to hipsters/teenagers/some other trend-setting crowd, and everything would work out just fine. The Mac/Apple fad is all about style and message. We need a company that will add style and message, that will make simple choices available to consumers (Apple has only a few different consumer-level computers, all with preset configurations), and something that has the withal to market it like crazy.
Consumers don't know or care about advanced functionality or technical considerations -- if your device can run the few applications that are relevant to their niche, then all systems are go; the company that performs those relatively basic technical requirements in the way that is most attractive to the end user is going to come out on top. That means sleek design and branding (probably above everything else), simplicity in choices, and high usability.
If you want your platform to succeed, you need to do the same kind of thing. Shuttleworth's investment in Canonical is good and has helped technically, but now, if he really wants to bring Linux mainstream, he needs to make a computer company that follows in Apple's footsteps. That's the way to make a dent in the market these days. Microsoft would be nothing if they were a startup now, their strategies wouldn't pay off in this environment.
I'm a developer, I spend 90% of my computing time in Vim and Terminal. I use a Macbook as my primary computer, and tend to bring it to work with me. I try to go to Linux probably twice a year, and have for a long time.
I use a mac because despite the tools I use being written originally for Linux, they work better on OS X. I've never neen unable to connect to a wireless network, I've never had problems with sleep/suspend, I've never even thought about upgrading the kernel. The things I need to do to the system, I can, and everything else works so well that I can forget it's there.
The Mac/Apple fad is all about things actually working. Windows crashes, Linux makes you think too hard about things that you're not doing. When things work, they're sexy, and that's how you can sell it to the masses, but the Zune is sexy too, and see how well pure style sells.
That might happen if you install Ubuntu yourself on a random machine. It's the same way that if you installed OS X on a random machine it probably wouldnt work right out of the box / would take a lot of tweaking.
This is why you keep things simple, find hardware that works well with it, and package it together.
The Zune doesn't have identity or message around it. It's from the big conglomerate. It's perceived as an iPod knockoff. It's lame to carry around a Zune, because although the actual device might be sexy, everything surrounding it is ugly.
You say that vim and Terminal work better on OS X than they do on Linux, and then proceed to give examples that have nothing to do with either vim or Terminal. I think the biggest annoyance I have with Terminal is that I can't highlight text and middle-click paste it like I can with X.
How much work does it take to get OS X on a Windows machine? Quite a lot. Are you complaining that OS X makes you think too hard because your machine, which originally came with Windows, is finnicky about OS X?
WiFi, suspend/resume, etc. all work fine in Linux on most of the hardware out there, and you don't have to think about upgrading the kernel if you don't want to -- just tell the updater to run automatically in the background and you'll never know the difference.
My post is about an OEM that sells computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu and integrates the whole system into a desirable identity, as Apple sells computers pre-loaded with OS X and has integrated OS X and the rest of the Apple brand into a desirable identity.
People want to be seen with a MacBook because it's stylish and cool and on top of that, it's more enjoyable than Windows.
It's about the brand, the identity. It's not about the computer going to sleep. Most computers sleep and connect to WiFi without any issues at all. People are not buying Macs because they sleep and connect to WiFi.
Consumers don't know or care about advanced functionality or technical considerations -- if your device can run the few applications that are relevant to their niche, then all systems are go; the company that performs those relatively basic technical requirements in the way that is most attractive to the end user is going to come out on top. That means sleek design and branding (probably above everything else), simplicity in choices, and high usability.
If you want your platform to succeed, you need to do the same kind of thing. Shuttleworth's investment in Canonical is good and has helped technically, but now, if he really wants to bring Linux mainstream, he needs to make a computer company that follows in Apple's footsteps. That's the way to make a dent in the market these days. Microsoft would be nothing if they were a startup now, their strategies wouldn't pay off in this environment.