Well, go after digikids, make them your core market... and this is what you get.

If you have a small maglite flashlight with you, it makes cheating even easier.

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The low-tech hacking tip reached No. 1 on both Blogdex.com and Popdex.com, which track links from Weblogs.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment.

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Yeah, it hurts, don't it, when the man you used to fight, is you.

What kills me, is that Apple marketeers are gonna go "I told ya so"... ecce digi. The user base really isn't worth a damn. We're all music stealing chimps at heart, who get all wound up about cheating Apple out of a couple of bucks. So now we don't have to feel bad about spoon feeding them crap.

Hey Apple, digis will let you down. The Mac Faithful won't.

Pepsi is paying for the songs, from what I heard. Pepsi bottled them too so they get what they deserve. Pepsi only budgeted about $33million, only expecting 1 out of 3 redemptions. Sucks to be Pepsi!

Apple is merely allowing Pepsi to mooch off of Apple's (iTMS/iPod's) coolness. No hair off Steve's ass....

This last line is not true.

"iTunes, which only works with Apple's popular iPod player, runs on both Apple and Windows computers"

Just more disinformation about Apple and Apple products.

Sucks to be Pepsi!

Hardly.

Someone who would have said "eh, I'm not gonna bother buying a Pepsi, I only have a small chance of getting a winner" can now say "W00t! I can buy all the Pepsi I want, and get a winner every time!"

Yeah, the kids are really sticking it to the man; now Pepsi will only sell MORE bottles than before. Profit all around. No one loses (except for the parent who will pay for all the dental work).

Well, go after digikids, make them your core market... and this is what you get.

Wouldn't it just be easier to steal a song using Kazaa? Although I hardly think it criminal or even unethical to take a maglite and shine it into a Pepsi bottle in order to read what's under the cap (as long as the individual grocers don't mind), but if the point is to play by the rules and pay for one's music via a download service then certainly the spirit of this whole "don't steal music – drink Pepsi and we'll train you to use the ITMS" is broken.

And a Pro would drink Coke. Pepsi tastes like shit. Too sweet.

You guys are missing the poetry, beauty, and symmetry of this story. It continues to be about scamming, marketeering, dumbing down, downtalking, and putting shit over on each other... and nobody bats a friggin' eyelash about it.

What it's not about, is Apple computer making the best computers, or the best operating system. It's not about the one-time fierce loyalty and mutual respect between Apple Computer and its faithful user base. It's about Pepsi, music, and iTunes, and Apple's new target audience.

And lookit how suddenly the whole mess actually becomes very Microsoftian in spirit. It's that world of sharks and marks I keep talking about. A downlooking at the userbase, and brings out a general resentment and disrespect in the userbase toward the computer company... both trying to cheat and con the hell out of each other. An adversarial one-up relationship. Never used to be that way. I think it happened the DAY Apple took its loyal users off their pedestal and began trying to put one over on them.

This is totally a company that's sold out, and sold its soul. Dumbed itself way, way down. There's no doubt in my mind. But there's also no doubt in my mind that the whole situation can be turned around. AND turned around in such a way that none of the music or digital hub stuff will suffer: primacy of end user, and going back to making quality computers with an excellent, intuitive, and graphically simple, GUI.

Sorry, but I can see it all now. Pepsi is just the tip of the friggin' iceberg. If we keep going down this fucked-up road, the crappy GUI is going to start being like product crossovers in hollywood films. You know the kind, you're minding your own business, watching a scene, and the main character grabs a bag of DORITOS and all but points the label right at the camera. That's the kind of "let's put shit over on the dupes" mentality that's driving our platform's development. The digikids sense it, after all, it's like every other smarmy marketeer-driven organization trying to easily part them from their dollars... so the second they can put one over on the man, they do. Nya a ah, take that!

Where's all the Apple apologists now? All the slack-cutters and benefit-of-the-doubters and crap-settlers? I'll tell you, they're all tilting bottles in 7-11 and shining their maglites up those little Pepsi glory holes, to try and take 99¢ out of the pockets of Apple, Pepsi, and the music industry.

Save time. Save money. Save your teeth. Download Limewire for OS X if you want to game the man.

You guys are missing the poetry, beauty, and symmetry of this story. It continues to be about scamming, marketeering, dumbing down, downtalking, and putting shit over on each other... and nobody bats a friggin' eyelash about it.

Oh, brother Thalo, I think we're well aware of the point as you see it. We're just making other points.

What it's not about, is Apple computer making the best computers, or the best operating system. It's not about the one-time fierce loyalty and mutual respect between Apple Computer and its faithful user base. It's about Pepsi, music, and iTunes, and Apple's new target audience.

It's about arrogance, brilliance and zealousness – things not necessarily bad in their own right - being too disconnected from just plain decent and moderating things such as nobility and respect; and therefore these things do become somewhat tainted. Yes, I get it.

Of course, what's so wonderfully ironic is that you have all these record companies promoting music that tells us to be rebellious, nonconformist, and to stick it to "The Man". But then they turn around and say "Hey, we're not The Man. Honest. Don't steal our music."

I don't think you can have it both ways. Keep magliting those pop bottles, kiddies.

if the point is to play by the rules and pay for one's music via a download service then certainly the spirit of this whole "don't steal music – drink Pepsi and we'll train you to use the ITMS" is broken.

While the "spirit" of the promotion is being suggestively tarnished by the insular geek media, it hardly effects the bottom line. Pepsi sells a bottle. Apple gets a new customer in their database. Nothing has been stolen, and indeed everyone profits. They aren't losing sleep over this. In fact, I'll bet high-5's all around at the boardrooms as sales escalate.

And a Pro would drink Coke. Pepsi tastes like shit. Too sweet.
You're right; Pepsi is crap, Coke is indeed "the real thing". I'm damn glad the promotion is Pepsi

While the "spirit" of the promotion is being suggestively tarnished by the insular geek media, it hardly effects the bottom line. Pepsi sells a bottle. Apple gets a new customer in their database. Nothing has been stolen, and indeed everyone profits.

Sort of a "no publicity is bad publicity" type of thing – as long as they spell the name right. Let me just state unequivocally that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Pepsi Generation. The taste for me has never beaten the other cold. Although I harbor no grudge against the Pepsi Generation (Liar! Liar!), I would feel much more comfortable if Apple aligned themselves with someone like Rolex, Mercedes Benz or even Duncan Yo-Yo (those were some good quality Yo-Yo's). But this association with Pepsi surely shows who Apple believes butters their bread: The Yutes. But not just any yutes; these are the cutting-edge skateboard-jumping iPod-wearing yutes. I've have no desire to besmirch the reputation of these young people (Liar! Liar!). If they're into snorting Pixi Sticks instead of reading Tom Sawyer then fine with me. But oh how I'd love to see the tables turned and instead of a "Pro" day once a year, have Apple feature a "DigiKid" day. How I'd love to see Apple align their marketing with a quiet, quality product like Corona beer rather than a loud, obnoxious product like Pepsi Cola.

I can dream, can't I?

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Originally posted by Arlo:
Someone who would have said "eh, I'm not gonna bother buying a Pepsi, I only have a small chance of getting a winner" can now say "W00t! I can buy all the Pepsi I want, and get a winner every time!"

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It's only a bargain for those that will drink Pepsi. I do not. Me forcing myself buying Pepsi for $1.25-$2.00 just to get a .99 cent song is not going to happen.

Thank goodness for Pepsi/Apple's sake that most people will put anything down their throat for a buck.

Brad, Corona is decidedly a less-is-more company

Their bottles are nice, the beer is basic but good and their commercials can't be beat.

I can easily imagine it's Thalo in the beach chair skipping his beeper into the ocean...

Oh definitely, if I had a beeper, or a cell phone, I'd flip it into the ocean. And yeah, I love those ads.

Computer companies don't need to align themselves with anything... uh, if they're good enough. If they're good enough, people want to align with THEM. Lookit how many great TV shows prominently display Apple computers: Smallville, Alias, CSI... and why? Because they look friggin' GREAT. Nobody can touch Jon Ive. Trouble is, it's all show, no go.

There's a big, empty hole inside the platform, where a great operating system IDEA used to be. Now, what's there, isn't strong enough to carry the show. The Mac OS has to be made better. There is no dancing around that issue. No music or caffeinated sugar water is going to hide that fact. The better the foundation of the platform, the better and smarter the interface, the better a chance Apple has of getting the ENTIRE computer market, not just digis. People always say, oh, nobody will ever ditch Windows. I say, they will. The SECOND something truly better comes along. That means clearly, undeniably, significantly better. In every single way. You have to make it NUTS for people to stick with Windows. You have increase productivity and ease of use so drastically that it's cost effective to go with Apple.

Apple was on its way. They had exactly the philosophy it was going to take to take all the marbles. But they caved. A Mac Renaissance, will put them back on track. It's just gotta start with no more crap-settling.

They had exactly the philosophy it was going to take to take all the marbles

At no time in history did Apple ever have a philosophy that meant capturing the dominant marketshare. It was the computer "for the rest of us", not "the most of us". The difference now is that Windows has gotten good enough to work for the rest of us, and the only thing keeping the Mac platform above water in the graphic arts industry are rainbow bleeders like us.

You disparage digikids, and that's all well and good, but Apple is just trying to survive. Profit and growth doesn't come from catering to a marginal userbase, so they diversified. Sucks for the bitter, hoary old-timers, but that's business.

I don't buy any of those arguments. First off, Apple DID have a philosophy that meant capturing the dominant marketshare. Meaning everybody but geeks, who are a tiny percentage.

I disparage digikids only as Apple portrays them. Where they'd have you believe they are NOT the rest of us, I say they are. I say geeks are us too, and so is every-friggin'-body else.

Precisely what I DON'T want, is catering to a marginal userbase. But that's exactly what they're doing, now. Actually it's TWO marginal userbases: OpenSource geeks, and the digikid demographic, seen through the perverted lens of Apple marketeers.

When Apple had a good GUI... when it had things like graphical simplicity, a pervasive metaphor, and ease-of-use with a commonsense, intuitive internal logic... the platform was for ANYBODY. Just because creative types embraced it first, and stuck with it... doesn't mean that the entire world wasn't going to be far behind.

Because it was basically the PHILOSOPHY that made them strong. That hammer-girl attitude. They defined PCs, and every PC on every desk owes pretty much everything to Apple's ideas. All they did was rip them off and dumb them down. Now, Apple's doing that to its own damn self, and sorry, but being Mac Faithful, I see that as a cryin' shame.

"Just Business" is no excuse. It never is, for doing a bad job at something. For lowering the bar. Diversification with excellence? Fuck, count me in. The illusion of diversification, with the reality being catering to absolute opposites, leaving the middle wide open... and ruining the product and the ideas that drive it in the process. Nah-ah, that ain't diversity and it ain't business. What it is is lazy, easy money based on exploitation.

It's simply been easier for Apple to con their way through this development, rather than do the work it needs to do to redefine and reinvent the personal computer according to their original vision. So what did they do? Aimed way lower. Went for the lowest common denominator, and a market even MORE marginalized. Cutting out pretty much everybody who works for a living, and making it all about passive entertainment.

The biggest strike against the operating system, is that it requires you to know squat, and expect squat... those people love it.

But the Mac Faithful, who were sitting here waiting for something great... who know more and expect more... are left out in the cold. They saw through the con in a New York Minute. Apple is fooling no one but their new marketing demographic.

Guys like me are only keeping our hand in because we've seen Apple turn it around before. And the WAY they do it, time after time, is listening to their core loyalists. Whenever they focus group or listen to marketeers, you get crap like the Newton, and the round mouse. There's a period where the Mac Faithful raise holy hell, then Apple wakes up.

That's what's coming, and there's no stopping it. Ya see, nobody is going to forget those original AHIGs. Not if I can help it. The principles the founded Apple Computer, are the principles that can save it. NeXT? Those principles are not saving the Mac, they're dumbing it down and ruining it. Windows? Those principles are not saving the Mac... OS X is an operating system that's completely sold out to those two sets of non-mac ideas. Plus a kind of goofy Geek spinning gears/intellectual everest/eye candy nonsense.

Apple is hanging all its hopes on being an MP3 player, and that, sorry to break the news, is not diversification.

There's a period where the Mac Faithful raise holy hell, then Apple wakes up. That's what's coming, and there's no stopping it. Ya see, nobody is going to forget those original AHIGs. Not if I can help it.


The fact of the matter is, there is simply no longer enough people unhappy with OS X to merit the kind of backlash you envision. You're pretty much screaming into the wind here.

At no time in history did Apple ever have a philosophy that meant capturing the dominant marketshare.

I agree, Arlo. There was a number of obvious steps they could have taken if that was their goal. That's not to say, of course, that the mere act of creating a best-of-show product isn't the foundation to making a world-beater.

It was the computer "for the rest of us", not "the most of us".

Truly, at the time the "rest of us" was a market that could have included just about everyone. But that was just a marketing slogan – and somewhat a mission statement too. But Apple's famous 1984 commercial – as impactful as it may have been – also laid the groundwork for the niche they eventually dug themselves into. Counter-culture might be a great way to sell a load of jeans, soft drinks or skate boards but if one wants to be a world-beater in the computer market then one must embrace business as well. That 1984 ad (and later the "Lemming" one) was a clear sign to business that Apple wasn't exactly reading their minds and intent on meeting their needs.

The same thing is happening all over again with OS X. The fit and finish of almost everything having to do with it, from marketing campaigns, slogans, package design, and of course the GUI, screams "counter culture". That's niche-ville in my eyes. Apple is not making the obvious moves that a company would make if they wanted to maximize sales. A simple goofy (aka "hip") alternate theme would have been all they needed instead of hard-wiring in Aqua which has inherent and obvious problems associated with it. Apple could and should facilitate as many people as possible. Instead you get this "purity of vision" thing that once again, and quite pointlessly, narrows the appeal of OS X and Macs. The loss of legacy ports before their time is a good example.

The difference now is that Windows has gotten good enough to work for the rest of us, and the only thing keeping the Mac platform above water in the graphic arts industry are rainbow bleeders like us.

Truer words have not been spoken at thalo.net.

Profit and growth doesn't come from catering to a marginal userbase, so they diversified. Sucks for the bitter, hoary old-timers, but that's business.

The thing is, I don't think they've diversified. I think they've narrowed. If they had wanted to diversify then the G5's would be able to boot into OS 9; Apple would have purchased VirtualPC and bundled it on every Mac; legacy ports would have been maintained longer; the high standards of the GUI would have been carried over; they would produce an inexpensive entry-level Mac in the $600 range; they would have done all they could to keep Microsoft writing Internet Explorer for the Mac; and most of all they would have re-committed themselves to the idea of ease-of-use. I can guaran-damn-tee you that that's a market with potential.

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Apple is just trying to survive. Profit and growth doesn't come from catering to a marginal userbase, so they diversified.

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You’re right, but losing more than half of your user base is a sad kind of survival. Going to a completely different computer platform that only about a quarter of your base follows you to is an embarrassment. Finding yourself more than 3 years into your big Hail-Mary play with your niche and market share smaller and more marginal than they were when you started it indicates what is known in technical terms as a “disaster.” Diversifying by selling to your arch-rival’s dominant platform is both necessary and an admission of failure.

OS X accomplished nothing. Not ONE of the new apps—iTunes, iMovie, or whatever—couldn’t have been made for the Mac OS. The iPod could have worked with Mac OS just as well.

You are completely correct about another thing: this late in the game there is not suddenly going to be a user uprising or backlash. People are either still using their pre-X Macs, like me, or quietly just saying “fuck it,” and going to Windows.

Markle

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Originally posted by Markle:
People are either still using their pre-X Macs, like me, or quietly just saying “fuck it,” and going to Windows.

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Or the 40% like me who dig OS X and pray for the best

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The fact of the matter is, there is simply no longer enough people unhappy with OS X to merit the kind of backlash you envision. You're pretty much screaming into the wind here.

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So they tell me. I don't buy that either, because I see what's going on in my industry. There are way too many unsatisfied Mac Faithful out there, to NOT have a MacLash.

And I don't think praying will get the job done. Praying won't make OS X any better. Starting to demand better from Apple, and more... is way more likely to.