Macintosh: The Computer for the Best of Us?
Buying a car can be a trying experience. If you have no idea what you’re after the salesmen will positively inundate you with questionable information about why you should spend the next six years of your life paying for a option laden luxury SUV. The situation is ameliorated slightly if you know which vehicle you want to purchase before the dealership looms into view. Imagine you’ve chosen to buy a 2006 Land Whale. You’ll still be approached by the salesman but once he understands you know what you’re after the pitch changes, no longer will the salesman be actively trying to convince you to buy a car, rather he will now spend all his energies reassuring you that your decision is the most logical choice. The conversation usually runs along these lines:
“Can I hel..”
“I want the Land Whale, with the V-28 engine”
“Oh, nice car. What do you like about it?”
“The trunk, I heard it is huge and covered in vinyl?”
‘Yew doggies, you bet it is! Why you could stuff ten bags of mulch in there and rinse the crud out with a hose! Easiest to clean trunk in the industry! Zero inch lift-over to boot”
“Excellent. And does the trunk have a safety so it can be opened from the inside?”
“Of course. Federal law and all”
‘Shoot me straight, is this featured easily disabled?
“Never been asked that.”
“Uh, I work with a lot of red liquids. I hate to have my car looking dirty. You have a red model on the lot?”
“Of course.”
“Great. Can the V-28 really out run a highway patrol cruiser?”
“Hey, let’s get that paperwork started…”
Which is seemingly analogous to the way Macs are being presented lately. Take a look at Apple’s Tiger page, you’ll se a lot of info on Tiger being based on UNIX. You’ll note the words spent highlighting the benefits of widgets and you can’t help but notice that Apple is fairly proud of Spotlight. Which is understandable, after all if Apple wasn’t saying great things about Tiger one would be forced to think that the marketing department was spending far too much time ogling a golf course. Still one can’t help but wonder if Apple has quietly abandoned the notion that the Mac is a computer for the rest of us and began marketing the thing primarily for the elite computer user who has already convinced themselves to buy a Mac.
Take the UNIX foundation of OS X. One supposes it does increase stability and foster a multi-user environment but does the average household with one or two machines even care? A better question might be: Does the average computer user even know what UNIX is? The answer is absolutely not only does the average computer user not know what UNIX is they also don’t care. In the end the UNIX underpinnings of OS X undoubtedly appeals to the elite, computer savvy among us (read: people who care overmuch about computers) but it doesn’t hold much allure to the guy who simply wants to edit home movies.
Casual reading of the aforementioned page will produce many more examples of Apple appealing to the very serious computer user. Apple spends several words touting the benefits of smart folders, Automator, Quartz Windowing, the H.264 video codec, Core Image, Core Audio etc. All of these have one thing in common no one except paste eating geeks and computer professionals care. Picture a sixty-year old computer purchaser in Oswego Wisconsin. The guy wants a computer he can surf the web on, buy some music, and maybe whip up a really bad song in GarageBand. Do you think he cares that the Mac comes with an operating system that features the H.264 video codec? Most would agree that discussions of various video codecs are a little too esoteric for our confused Wisconsinite.
Spotlight is the one thing that Apple gets right on the Tiger page. While Spotlight may be simply redundant in many cases (if the information is that crucial to you, you likely bookmarked the page with the info) it is also extremely compelling eye candy. In fact it is easily argued that for the 90% of computer users who really don’t care about computers Spotlight is the only thing on the entire page that holds any appeal at all.
The best example of Apple’s ploy for the elite is evidenced by the existence of iMovie HD. While High Definition televisions are growing in popularity as their price decreases the cost of a High Definition digital video camera is still hovering at around two thousand dollars. If you’ve laid out two grand for a camcorder chances are iMovie will not be your movie editor of choice. Unless, of course, you are in rarified company when it comes to financial matters and don’t wish to be burdened learning the intricacies of Final Cut. In short, you’re one of the elite.
In the end Apple seems to be selling to the already convinced. If you fully comprehend the advantages of smart folders or the abilities of Automator then you’re either intent on buying a Mac or just waiting for one more thing to push you to the Mac side from the techy embrace of Linux (even Linux folks occasionally enjoy the GUI of OS X). Unfortunately for Apple these people are few in number and happen to be better informed than 95% of computer users out there. Of course it wasn’t always this way. In days of yore Apple positioned the Mac as a computer that everyone could use straight out of the box. The Mac, we were told, was the computer for the rest of us. With the release of the Mac Mini it is time for that message to be renewed, after all arrogance repels as many users as it attracts and over technical arrogance? That even repels me.
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Apple hasn’t got it right for years in advertising. They have been preaching to the choir for as long as I can remember. Even in their stores they have the same elitist attitude. They should have a couple of grandmas in there showing the simple folk, (like me), how great and easy to use the Macs are. I’ve sold loads of Macs to friends.
They should also advertise on The Rush Limbaugh show. He has 20 million listeners and has probably sold thousands of people on the Mac by saying how great they are. Politics aside.
What is Apple supposed to market then? All those features are the strongest and most important. The people you describe who only want to check email and download some music also really don’t need the advantages of a fast processor or a good sized amount of ram. Those people could probably be perfectly content on a blue and white G3. So why should any PC manufacturer advertise any of these crazy, so hard to understand tech specs or new features, since it is going over the head of 95% of the non paste eating geeks and computer professionals. It’s like buying a car, most people do not understand all the features they are getting, but they think the car is good because it comes with them. I have converted many pc users to the mac platform and the public opinion I have heard is that the mac is just easier to use. I think that message is already out there. I mean, Apple is making the best personal computers in the world, so we shouldn’t announce it beacause too many people won’t understand it. I say those people don’t need macs.
Also I am not for Apple gaining too much marketshare. Aside for the money Apple would make, I don’t see any good coming out of it.
One thing that the author is missing in the case of iMovie HD and iDVD HD is this: future-proofing.
While most people indeed don’t have HD camcorders yet, they will in a few years. And guess what: their computer and its software will be all ready to handle it.
Given that most Apple owners keep their systems for several years—much longer than the typical PC owner—it’s shrewd to tell them that they can buy a Mac with confidence knowing that it won’t become functionally obsolete before it becomes physically obsolete.
The apple store service is garbage. We are letting the freaks make us look like a cult. We have the strongest computing platform…thats FACT. We have to get rid of this snobby attitude as a platform if we are truly going to be the best. We have the best operating system, the most optimized hardware, the strongest video publishing portfolio…cmon we dont have to hustle as the underdog anymore. We need to show people the pleasures of using a mac and the time it saves as a “userfriendlier” platform. Enough with the image style ads, even Gap shows their clothes on their ads… Show the OS! Show true plug and play! Show iChat! Dont miss the boat Steve! Longhorn is coming!
It’s not quite right to compare the marketing of the *Mac* with the marketing of the *Mac OS*. Indeed, if you look at the iMac pages, you see a lot of the for-the-people sort of marketing language (“technology democratized,” “your life on a computer as beautiful as the ipod.”)
Tiger, on the other hand, is an OS *upgrade*. Upgrades are always marketed primarily to early adopters, power users, and potential switchers. Sure, in the old days, Apple pretty much sold one thing: a Mac. Now, there are clearly different products, some hardware, some software, that are targeted at different sorts of customers.
“The Mac, we were told, was the computer for the rest of us.”
And it still is. Don’t conflate the positioning of *Mac hardware* products with the *Mac OS* product.
“The people you describe who only want to check email and download some music also really don’t need the advantages of a fast processor or a good sized amount of ram. “
These regular people are exactly the people who are buying millions of machines from Dell. Precisely the people Apple should advertise to.
“Also I am not for Apple gaining too much marketshare. Aside for the money Apple would make, I don’t see any good coming out of it.”
You’d make a great salesman!
You’d probably be more comfortable with, “salesperson”
I think the proliferation of technical jargon is at the casual computer user as much as the elite. The casual user assumes it must be powerful BECAUSE they don’t understand any of it. That’s been a common technique among technology and electronics manufacturers for years. Anyone know what a “comb filter” is on a TV? Not really, but they all brag about having them, and if they’re bragging about it then it must be a good thing to have.
“These regular people are exactly the people who are buying millions of machines from Dell. Precisely the people Apple should advertise to.”
Why again do you want these people to buy a mac?
Why should they buy a mac? Do you want to be so elitist that the platform doesnt survive? The 90s were a dark age for Apple that Jobs brought you out from, dont repeat your mistakes. Innovate and lead and everything will be okay, but let people know what they are missing as well. There are 2 types of the elite…the ones that follow anything another elitist says (the elitist troll) and the one that truly has the knowledge , understanding and practice to be elite.
...and you know what? If Longhorn beats Mac OS Im going PC. And thats the truth. The software needed for my profession is currently running smoother on PC, but the Mac OS is truly ahead of the game. The Mac OS is a luxury.
That is an interesting thought, heyotwell I see the logic of it. Still if you take a gander at Microsoft’s XP page the first thing you see is a bit about digital photos. If you catch one of the Microsoft ads on TV they extoll the creative stuff you can do with XP (like make a song and burn it on a DVD). I maintain the tech folks know all the underlying coolness of OS X so Apple should tell people why the OS is so great in terms they can easily understand. Though perhaps Beeblebrox has really hit the nail on the head, it may be that not being able to understand what the page is saying is actually alluring to the average user.
Not sure I agree with the premise of the article. As #6 said, there is a difference between marketing the Mac and marketing the Mac OS.
Apple talks to the tech illiterate consumer when it markets iLife for instance. It’s all about ease of use and fun with the “digital life.” The iPod/iTunes marketing ties into this, too. Sure, iPod/iTunes is also about the “Apple experience” on Windows boxes as much as Macs, but the halo effect is very real and quantifiable now. How else do you explain 40% growth in Mac sales in the last two quarters after years of sub-10% growth?
In fact, NPD says that retail shipments of Macs were up 75% in May alone. So clearly, it’s consumers who are now flocking to the Mac. Apple’s quarterly next week will show if that flocking is turning into a flood.
But I think what the author misses is that Apple still needs to market to the “elitists” or rather, the power users. The developers. The influential chief researchers at universities. Apple still has a lot to do to shake off all the platform biases that were deservedly loaded on its back in the bad 1990s.
These so-called elitists were once Mac users in large numbers. Let’s not forget that Macs were the majority of the installed computers in universities at one time. But these users largely abandoned Apple because it floundered on many fronts from the late 80’s to the the late 90’s. You could say that they felt betrayed by the Mac.
So I think it’s smart that Apple is appealing to these users with the Mac OS. These people need to know just how superior the Mac OS is even though to the average consumer, the Mac just seems to be a prettier face to the caked makeup of Windows XP.
For years, people have bought into the idea that you have to choose between functionality or style. Either or. But just like Toyota is showing consumers in a big way with hybrids, that dichotomy is an artificial, self-imposed one.
Apple is trying to show that you can have BOTH functionality and style whereas before, the general bias is that Macs are all style and limited functionality, i.e a “toy.”
So, iPod/iTunes/iLife marketing is all about how the Mac can let you help enjoy your digital life, nevermind about the underlying technologies. It’s about feeling good. Mac OS marketing is all about the hybrid Synergy system, regenerative braking, super ultra low emissions, and low drag coefficients. Look at how Toyota markets hybrids and you’ll see the Apple’s strategy isn’t all that different.
Another point I want to add is that Apple seems to be successfully attracting hordes of new developers to the Mac. These users care about the tech more than just about anyone else, and the record attendance figures in June’s WWDC shows that Apple is gaining mindshare with this critical core group.
And this is important because new, innovative apps are what will move the platform forward by leaps and bounds for the average consumer.
Check out this editorial about just what kinds of innovative software is appearing only for the Mac.
http://www.computerpoweruser.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archive/c0508/44c08/44c08.asp&did=844&aid=27197
It’s a must read, even if you don’t agree with the premise simply because the author talks about one app called Comic Life that seems so obvious in hindsight, but absolutely inspired and only for the Mac. And “only for the Mac” and “first for the Mac” is something that we will be seeing a lot more of in the years ahead.