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We all know the infinite loyalty and optimism of the Apple faithful. Every action Apple takes, everything they do, is hailed as the Big Deal that will finally restore it to the top of the computing world. Every new version of OS X is the one that is now perfect, and will inspire the world to finally come flocking to the Mac. And then, of course, the NEW version of X comes out, and everybody hails it as the Big One that corrects all the defects of the previous slow, crappy one, and will restore Apple and have people flocking...yadda, yadda, yadda.

People tend to foget the rave reviews of every X version when the new one comes out to fix the problems of the one that people creamed over when it first came out. People forget the cheerleading, grandiose predictions that are made for Apple that never pan out. But all it takes to remember those predictions is to have old Mac magazines from a year or two or three ago lying around the house, like I do. I've quoted from them here before, as I work my way through them.

In the March, 2002, issue, Macworld (motto: "If it's X, it's great!") printed its "second annual look at the year ahead in Macs...four fearless forecasts for 2002." (pp. 36-37.) Here are a few excerpts.

David Blatner, MW contributing editor: "Apple News: That the Apple Macintosh has regained 10 percent market share."

Jim Heid, MW contributing editor: "[C]ontinuing profitability and a gradual increase in market share."

Scholle Sawyer McFarland, MW contributing editor: "That the Mac community has successfully completed the transition to OS X, and Apple has survived that transition."

John Rizzo, Macwindows.com publisher: "The Macintosh will begin to gain market share due to the lukewarm reception of Windows XP and a growing library of business software for OS X."

Franklin N. Tessler, MW contributing editor: "OS 10.5 will fill in almost all of the gaps in OS 10.1.1."

And I like this one from Chris Breen, MW contributing editor, who may be revealing the thinking of Apple, and who, ironically, mixes both reality and self-delusion: "Apple will create computers that can run ONLY with OS X--OS 9 and earlier will not be an option on these models. The only way to really move the adoption of OS X forward is to force people to use it. And the only way to do that is to join the OS and Macs at the hip....If Apple does indeed force its customers to use OS X, that's it. The success or failure of OS X will determine Apple's future."

So get the cattle prods. Because Mac users have no alternatives. A strategy that might work for Microsoft, but not sub-5% market share Apple (then) and sub-3% now.


In the January, 2002, issue of Macworld was a letter to the editor from a reader named Edward Boyer, who said:

"After reading eight pages that detailed, for one thing, how I might struggle through a Mac OS X kerel panic, I wonder why you think all readers will be OS X compliant by 2002. Considering the need to keep OS 9 handy in case of failure, and the need to enter DOS-like command lines just to get back to work, why would I look for trouble? I have OS X on the same disk as OS 9, and it'll stay there. Are you all crazy, or are you just bored with the idea of user-friendly computing?"

And in the same March, 2002, issue that contained the predictions quoted above was a letter from reader Steve Morris, who put his finger on Apple's OS X problem and proved once again that the laity can be more perceptive than the clergy:

"As Apple migrates to OS X and long-term users have to learn a new operating system from scratch, why would we learn OS X and not Windows XP? Fifteen years ago, I learned Mac OS because it was better than DOS. Today, as I am forced to make this choice again, two things are clear: OS X's superiority over XP is marginal, and Apple has 5 percent of the market. I didn't choose to start over and learn to troubleshoot a new operating system, but since I have to, I would be nuts to ignore the other 95 percent of the world."

So Panther isn't going to change anything, either.

Markle

The cloud of doom still follows Markle.

Here are some numbers from a recent report given by Fred Anderson:

Key notes from the Speech:

- PowerMac G5 2.0GHz machines now shipping
- 7 Million active Mac OS X users.
- Panther is due before the end of this calendar year.
- Over 5 million Safari downloads since 1.0 release.
- "You can see, we are getting more and more into the software business so that we become - over time - less dependent on hardware"
- "We're committed to porting iTunes to the Windows platform by the end of the calendar year"
- The iTunes Music Store for Windows is thought to convince people to purchase iPods and -- over time -- Macintoshes.
- US Consumer Marketshare increasing from 1.2% to 3.5% from Q1 2001 -> Q1 2003.
- Education Marketshare increased from 15% to 16% from Q3 2002 -> Q3 2003
- Portable Marketshare (Education) increased from 24% to 30%. (Although Dell has #1 overall, Apple is #1 is portables.)

Check here for a more thorough synopsis.

Apple Growth in the market?

It must all be lies.

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David Blatner, MW contributing editor: "Apple News: That the Apple Macintosh has regained 10 percent market share."

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I read that first as "will increase market share by 10%" and thought that it was a pretty modest prediction. On the second reading I realized that he meant 10 share points. Holy crap! That's right, there's not even enough crap in OS X to do that.

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John Rizzo, Macwindows.com publisher: "The Macintosh will begin to gain market share due to the lukewarm reception of Windows XP and a growing library of business software for OS X."

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Okey doke.

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Scholle Sawyer McFarland, MW contributing editor: "That the Mac community has successfully completed the transition to OS X, and Apple has survived that transition."

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Actually the transition is complete. The cards have been dealt. The die is cast. The bloated lady has sung. Apple is just barely hanging onto what it has and prospects for conquering the world look bleak. Their next goal should be to conquer the Mac market. That's where they should have started.

I was just watching a History Channel program on the cola wars between upstart Pepsi and established Coke. Coke was rock solid among almost everyone who could shave or menstruate and Pepsi knew it was no use going after the established customers of Coke. They designed a brilliant strategy: Get 'em while they're young. It worked. They geared their advertising toward the young, those who did not yet have any established cola habits. Coke, after watching their market share get gobbled up by Pepsi, finally struck back with their "I'd like to teach the world to sing…" ads. The ads were well received but it was too little too late to stem the tide.

Then Coke panicked. They introduced New Coke in an attempt to become more like Pepsi. We all know how that was ended up – quite well, actually. The unintentional affect was that it re-energized Coke and their image. People had been taking it for granted until it suddenly seemed like a national treasure, a birthright, was being taken away. Coke gained back the market share that they had lost during this fiasco – and then some.

The parallels with OS X did not escape me. We see the same thing happening. A mature, well-liked interface (and system) is replaced by a sugar-sweet, eye-candy filled marketing contortion. It's meant to appeal to younger users. Oh sure, Apple thinks that it is being like Pepsi and is establishing itself with a new youth market in hopes of a long, slow process of steady growth. But they're not. There are just like Coke throwing away their one advantage in a panicked attempt to stave off further erosion.

The reason this is so is, despite Apple being the upstart and Windows being the established giant, is that there is no magic formula, no sweetening of tastes that will make this established PC world fall. This world is more task-oriented rather than fashion or image oriented such as with soft drinks. Frankly, I think Pepsi (particularly Diet Pepsi) tastes like crap. But despite this they gained a huge market on nothing but image. They could have simply bottled Coke's own recipe and put a Pepsi label on it. I know that people will spend thousands of dollars on high-ticket items like cars for no other reason but status but the computer, by and large, is still just a friggin' appliance, a tool. Other considerations come first, such as function. And that's where the news gets really bad for Apple – both aesthetically and functionally. There was a certain aesthetic to its software (less-is-more and all that) and it was something that people liked and it was something that also led to better software and greater productivity. The aesthetic itself gained a following and now they have abandoned that following like New Coke abandoned its adherents. And even if we talk strictly about productivity in terms of Unix's underpinnings (and set aside its interface problems), whatever gains OS X gets from the underpinnings, at least in my opinion, are quickly given back because it's such a fussy pain in the butt.

The one thing Apple probably won't do is put Classic back on the shelves like Coca-Cola did. The guy running Coke at the time had his heart in the right place. He was willing to do whatever was needed to stop the erosion of market share to Pepsi. He gambled and lost but the mistake was eventually corrected. I don't know if they fired his ass or what but things were put right. That's the problem with Apple. They don't make mistakes. It's their customers who are wrong.

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I was just watching a History Channel program on the cola wars between upstart Pepsi and established Coke. Coke was rock solid among almost everyone who could shave or menstruate and Pepsi knew it was no use going after the established customers of Coke. They designed a brilliant strategy: Get 'em while they're young. It worked. They geared their advertising toward the young, those who did not yet have any established cola habits.

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You mean like this?

'"Apple comes up consistently in our research," said DeeDee Gordon, co-president of Look-Look, a youth marketing and research firm in Los Angeles. "Apple is one of the top five brands for young people."

To conduct its research, Look-Look queries a worldwide network of 20,000 Net-connected correspondents aged 13 to 35 years old.

Asked recently what company they would most like to endorse (if they were a celebrity), the correspondents nominated Apple the most popular choice, followed by Coca-Cola, Levi's and Nike.'

Brad, your New Coke analogy is always a good one. Remember the e-mails we exchanged last October about the OS X/New Coke parallels? Here was my impression of what a New Coke fan would sound like if he were as fanatical as one of the Apple faithful:

“Whattaya mean, you don’t like New Coke, dude?? You’re trashing Coke, you whiny asshole! Coke has to be supported! Shut the fuck up! Just go to Pepsi and stop complaining about Coke! You have no right to complain about it if you’re not drinking it! It just came out! Old Coke was a hundred years old, you can’t expect New Coke to be perfect right out of the gate! Give it time, you ignorant Luddite! It was great the very first time I tasted it, and it just keeps getting better. They were right to charge extra for New Coke 2.0! It was a MAJOR upgrade from New Coke 1.0! It’s multicolored sheen lets you find it from across the room! It doesn’t suck NEARLY as much as 1.0! It hardly ever makes you puke anymore! Old Coke was crap! Junk! New Coke is picking up market share every day! The saspirilla crowd is flocking to New Coke! We expect it to hit 20% in only a year! But just to make sure, they’ll stop making Old Coke in January! Old Coke may not be dead for you yet, but it is dead for the bottlers and distributors! You vill drink it, und you vill luff it!”

Markle

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RICO, I can't take anything Fred Anderson or Steve Jobs says about the Mac at face value. What they say for public consumption is often the opposite of what they say in SEC filings, which have to be filed under oath. They've admitted in THOSE filings that X adoption is below expectations, and there's no way they can prove that 7 million claim as Apple's market share continues to dwindle. I'm sure all current X users will install Panther when it comes out, but I doubt it will draw anyone new.

As I've said, Apple will stay in business with its music download service and the sale of those cool iPods to Windows users. But as a COMPUTER company, its day is done. That doesn't mean that it isn't selling ANY Macs, but it's NOT a growing business.

Markle

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Asked recently what company they would most like to endorse (if they were a celebrity), the correspondents nominated Apple the most popular choice, followed by Coca-Cola, Levi's and Nike.'

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That’s such a great comment from the researcher, Darr, that I think I’ll frame it. It’s almost living proof that Apple has become no more than a symbol of something – something great, for sure – but only a symbol, not the reality. And, as is the case of youth, they are attracted to symbols and ideals. In fact, like many people, they are more than ready and willing to mouth those ideals in opinion polls, but it’s only a superficial lip service. If it wasn’t then Apple would have at least 30% market share right now. It’s as if (and I believe this is the case) they feel better for simply having said that Apple is the kind of company that they would endorse if they could (they can buy buying their products in order to do so – and consistently don’t). It’s like an eight-year-old, after seeing the movie “Free Willy”, who suddenly wants to become a marine biologist. It’s eye candy for the mind. It might make you feel good to think those thoughts but what about the actions that actually follow?

Apple has become, and now seems to live on, the convergence of pop culture (and liberal) idealism and feel-good politics. It’s the kind of idealism that has movie stars saying how very sorry they are for the homeless and that they wish they could do more - and then shooing them off their fronts lawns when one decides to take up residence. It’s a case of the “Earth First” people bemoaning the use of SUV’s while flying around in a jet or being chauffeured in a limo from speaking engagement to speaking engagement. It’s hypocrisy run wild. From young kids I applaud their naïve idealism. From adults it just seems tiresome and dishonest.

Apple needs more than hopes and dreams. They need a good dose of substance to go along with those dreams. I don’t think Apple's dreams are anything like they use to be anyway, so dream on.

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In fact, like many people, they are more than ready and willing to mouth those ideals in opinion polls, but it’s only a superficial lip service. If it wasn’t then Apple would have at least 30% market share right now. It’s as if (and I believe this is the case) they feel better for simply having said that Apple is the kind of company that they would endorse if they could (they _can_ buy buying their products in order to do so – and consistently don’t).

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I go with this interpretation to explain that phenomenon:

"So what's going on, here, and why is Apple still at 3.5% in the consumer market?

It turns out that there's a bunch of reasons, actually. The first is that Apple being "cool" with the nation's striplings apparently only just happened over the summer. The second is that the main reason why Apple has youth appeal is the iPod, not the Mac, and massive sales of iPods have zero direct effect on Apple's share of the personal computer market. The third is that even if the Mac is ultra-hip among the youngsters, the really young ones are presumably at the mercy of their parent's decidedly less-cool judgment when it's time to go buy the family computer; we're guessing there aren't too many 13-year-olds dropping a thou on an iBook down at the local Apple retail store.

The hope, though, is that this is the start of something big and that Apple can somehow escape the Warhol effect and stay cool with the youth crowd for longer than fifteen minutes. If it can, then revenue from the consumer sector ought to skyrocket in the coming quarters. Or maybe not; after all, market share and coolth are largely mutually exclusive. The majority is rarely cool; cool stands alone. Case in point: there was only one Fonz. Aaaaaay."

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“Whattaya mean, you don’t like New Coke, dude?? You’re trashing Coke, you whiny asshole! Coke has to be supported! Shut the fuck up! Just go to Pepsi and stop complaining about Coke! You have no right to complain about it if you’re not drinking it! It just came out! Old Coke was a hundred years old, you can’t expect New Coke to be perfect right out of the gate! Give it time, you ignorant Luddite! It was great the very first time I tasted it, and it just keeps getting better. They were right to charge extra for New Coke 2.0! It was a MAJOR upgrade from New Coke 1.0! It’s multicolored sheen lets you find it from across the room! It doesn’t suck NEARLY as much as 1.0! It hardly ever makes you puke anymore! Old Coke was crap! Junk! New Coke is picking up market share every day! The saspirilla crowd is flocking to New Coke! We expect it to hit 20% in only a year! But just to make sure, they’ll stop making Old Coke in January! Old Coke may not be dead for you yet, but it is dead for the bottlers and distributors! You vill drink it, und you vill luff it!”

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Yes, I do remember that, and I'm glad you repeated it because it's pure gold. It captures everything in one simple paragraph. I hope thalo puts it on the front page.

I don't see it one bit like either of you two. The last five years and especially the last three years Apple has been as everyone is aware in a huge transition. One that took a huge amount of balls with a large dose of realism. The product they have put forward has been second to non on every front except MHz which was a condition that was not in Apples control. Apples products are essentially a standard in an industry that the rest of the field follows. One of the major reasons why is because their product lines for each consumer group they target has substance. Now Apple has even diversified their business model to include a source of revenue with the music store to supplement those times between periods of lean when hardware standards change and everyone is waiting for the change over and sales become stagnant. I don't see this as dreaming I see it as good practical business sense.

On a lighter note:

Brad did your friend try any of the hardware suggestions I recommended for her Beige machine?

Markle Sonnet released a 700mhz G4 zif card for your machine. It is more reasonably price at $350 than the 1ghz card they first released for $500. I reckon it would keep your machine going strong for another 5 years.

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Thanks for the tip, RICO!


Markle

Markle, that new Coke paragraph is absolutely brilliant. I laughed my ass off.

God, I remember my first taste of new Coke. I guess I had some screwy filling in a back molar at the time, and all I could remember was like this electric shock of agony, followed by an aftertaste of what-in-the-holy-frick-did-they-just-do-to-ruin-coca-cola?

The other analogy that is just too painful not to mention is what's happening to the NEWS. You tell me we are not in THIS world, right now:

News station a tries something new to boost ratings. Some bullshit like a meaningless celeb interview, or a tough-talking commentator or flashy new set, or superabundant graphics and crawls. Ratings improve.

News station b sees that News station a's ratings have improved, and endeavors to COPY a lot of that bullshit to try and improve its own ratings. Its ratings may have even been higher in aggregate totals than News station a's... but a's ratings are growing faster, and b's are still very respectable, but not moving upward like a rocket.

And so crap and bloat gets added. You guys are right, this is a flavor of PANIC. Of looking over the fence, and flipping out if your competitor has the slightest success. Then screwing what it is YOU do best, to try and ride the wave.

Apple computer? Absolutely. Pan-frikkin'-ANICKED. Couldn't hold it together. Caved. Soul-sold. And now they're on the road to doom. Because they're building their OS on flavor of the month. On shifting sands instead of bedrock.

Hey, it's EASY to be a flavor of the month. It's EASY to follow trends. To take a look at Windows, or Unix, or something else, and COPY it. It's much harder to stay true to your original vision, WHILE moving forward to the beat of your own drummer.

Let the rhythm of somebody ELSE's drummer affect you, and what happens? Right, missteps.

That's OS X. It has all the earmarks of desperately trying to be the flavor of the month, when its very STRENGTH has always been screw you, screw big blue, we're better. Always have been. Well, now they're not. Because they let panic-prone marketeers call the shots. And now the diaper is dirty and they're too afraid to change it.

You can't beat Microsoft at its own game. Can't out-Windows Windows. And out-unixing Unix seems equally worthless (although I did hear once that Macs are CHEAPER than comparable unix workstations, so I could be wrong)... but the WORST thing that's happened, is that Apple abandoned its legacy. That's the real tear jerker. The ultimate tragedy. Why? Because the Mac was the ONE frikkin' computer platform that got personal computer's right. Philosopically. Their IDEAS were better.

Microsoft had the muscle and strategy to make themselves dominant. But they never had the product. The idea was never stellar. In fact, it was so much a Mac ripoff, that they went to court over it. And surprise surprise, the mega giant powerhouse with its operating system on every desk in the courthouse, won.

The mistake is trying to copy CRAP because the crap happens to be making money in the short term. This whole OS X debacle is proof that doing this does not make a better product. We don't have a better product than the legacy. We have a different product. With the appearance of being a NEWER product... but it sure as hell ain't BETTER. Oh no it is most certainly not.

And it's not because they let the ideas that FOUNDED the Mac, become diluted and dumbed down and pooched. By trying to copy other platforms, they inherit their fuckups and magnify them. They take one or two facile, quick-results ideas and adopt them, to disastrous effects. There it's REALLY like new Coke. Some marketing analyst went, "well, Pepsi is certainly SWEETER than Coke, maybe that's why Pepsi is doing better than us!" And what happens. Yeah, an OVER abundance of sweetness. The recipe guy puts the sugar pedal to the frikkin' FLOOR. They took an assumption, a hunch, and an erroneous one at that... and ran with it. Right into a brick wall.

Apple is doing the same dumb shit. "Windows people like big fonts." "Windows people like the task bar." "Windows people like a jillion untouchable system files and a complex bureaucratic file structure that lends an air of mystery and corporate supremacy to their hard disks." Oh, and we need kids too.

No wonder OS X is a friggin' junk drawer. These guys have totally LOST it. Hey, I'm a marketing guy in many ways myself... but in the big leagues, which I'm not, it's so clear to me that the higher the stakes, the more they panic, and the bigger the mistakes.

OS X is a mistake. Panther's going to be a mistake. Until they get "Less is More" and go back to the AHIGs, they'll be in panic mode, and will continue to fuck up.

But you know what? The iPod AIN'T a mistake. I hate to say it, 'cause it's a digikid gizmo... but they got it right there. Simple, clean, works, and a great no-nonsense less is more interface. And kids love it. Despite the fact that they have to save money from their paper-routes for a YEAR to get one.

The iPod isn't a Panic driven product. OS X is. And then they rush to make an iTunes music store to buttress the 'pod, and the marketeers can quickly say: SEE, we were right... OS X is gaining ground. Puh-leeez. The iPod was a good product. And because it was so good, you panicked AGAIN, and now the entirety of Panther is going to look more like iTunes... to try and ride that wave.

These guys need a massive reality check. They need to stop panicking and get back on track. And see that actual good products drive this stuff. The marketeers are doing nothing but chucking monkey wrenches in. Apple needs to get its CONFIDENCE back. And I'm telling you... hey hammerheads, get the crap out of your ears, and Uncle Thalo will save you paquillions of dollars: Start with a good product. Go back to ease-of-use as job one, and simplicity as job 2. Forget bloat and eye candy, and streamline everything. Make it lean and mean. If you have to, look at the damn iPod for inspiration. HEY THALO, YOU'RE RIGHT, THAT INTERFACE IS SIMPLE, AND KIDS LOVE IT.

Stop looking down at the user base. Stop trying to ride sheep-waves and stop trying to be the flavor of the month. Aim for timeless brilliance and excellence. You had it. You touched on it with Platinum and the legacy Finder. SCA-REW Microsoft, they are not worth copying. They're dominant for all the wrong reasons. You can be dominant for the RIGHT reasons, but not if you panic, and not if you play to Lois. (Lois Carmen Denominator).

Wake the fuck up and get it back. Your new coke attempt tastes like watery crap. You need a Classic. Especially for pros.

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Brad did your friend try any of the hardware suggestions I recommended for her Beige machine?

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Not yet, Rico. Last time I talked to her she was in the middle of a huge deluge of jobs and doesn’t like to screw with her computer at those times. Come slack time then I might get to look forward to spending some more of her money. I saved the text of those posts you made and I will no doubt ask for some last-minute advice when it comes time to grab some more speed.

Darr, I must confess that I’m more than a little skeptical whenever an analyst or magazine makes pronouncements, predictions or provides analysis concerning Apple. In many ways Apple is a cause celeb with them and their views are infused with too much wishful thinking.

I think Apple’s quickest route to fulfilling their marketing notion would be to put out a jazzed-up version of Windows on Apple’s own Ive-produced hardware. Similar to what other PC makers are doing with the “media center PC’s”, Apple could produce an XP machine with iTunes built in, a special skin, a replacement shell, etc. On the home front they should then go back and continue development of OS 9.

<< On the home front they should then go back and continue development of OS 9. >>

Yes, and in the meantime they should remember that it's the job of business to sell products, not lead crusades for technological purity. They should meet the pent-up demand of legacy users like me who will never buy an X-only Mac. They should put out Macs with modern speed and up-to-date hardware that are ecumenical enough to run several Mac OS's, back to at least 8.6, and that also have connections for SCSI and ADB as well as USB and Firewire. No R&D would be needed, just off-the-shelf technology.

But that's too obvious and predictable for the likes of a Stevie Jobs. The Apple Board of Directors would have demanded this long ago if he didn't own it.

Markle

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They should put out Macs with modern speed and up-to-date hardware that are ecumenical enough to run several Mac OS's, back to at least 8.6, and that also have connections for SCSI and ADB as well as USB and Firewire. No R&D would be needed, just off-the-shelf technology.

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That's a good point. I wonder why Coca-Cola just didn't introduce New Coke alongside existing Classic Coke and let the market decide? Hell, that's what they do nowadays anyway. As I understand it, one of the reasons for so many different varieties of products is that it squeezes shelf space from competing products. There's a real Darwinian competition going on in that regard. You can't sell a product, no matter how great, if it's not available on the shelves of the grocery store.

So what's with this Puritanical idea that the old product has to be crushed and exterminated before its supposed replacement can be introduced? Okay, I can see, for example, that it might not be profitable for Chevy to maintain seven different versions of the Camaro. They sort of have to phase out old models because, presumably, the new ones are better, and it's just too expensive to keep a factory tooled for so many different variations. In the case of soft drinks we're not only taking about an advantage of having more than one brand, but switching syrups in the bottling plant is hardly a major retooling job.

I can actually see the logic in someone like Apple, because they are relatively small and vulnerable, needing to get behind only one operating system. Still, it makes absolutely no sense to dispense with legacy ports when your main business is selling computer hardware to run the various third-party peripherals. That was purity gone wild. If there can be ethnic cleansing in regards to computers then that is what it looks like.

<< I can actually see the logic in someone like Apple, because they are relatively small and vulnerable, needing to get behind only one operating system. Still... >>

You're right that in a way we can understand Apple needing to streamline its operation as much as possible. But there is that "still...." Apple's problems are of its own making, and this "our way or the highway" attitude is a big part of it.

My idea will never happen as long as Stevie is the fuhrer of Apple. He's scared shitless that if users and developers have a choice, everyone will get lazy and OS X development will stop. He's too personally invested in X to allow that. That's more important to him than selling who-knows-how-many new Macs to people who will not ever adopt OS X, but would like a newer Mac. It's more important to him than losing customers who decide that if they have to migrate to a new platform anyway, they may as well just go to Windows and join the rest of the world--MY next step, as much as I'll hate it. He has basicially drummed people like me out of the active customer base...although I guess I was briefly a customer again when the local Mac shop ordered a new motherboard from Apple to replace the one that died in my G3.

<< Still, it makes absolutely no sense to dispense with legacy ports when your main business is selling computer hardware to run the various third-party peripherals. >>

Exactly! A MAJOR point of nonsense. Since Apple no longer sells printers or any other peripherals, there is NO BENEFIT to it to remove our ability to connect our existing equipment to new Macs. ANOTHER disincentive for us legacy guys to buy. What do SCSI and ADB sockets cost--a few cents? Has Jobs no sense of what it's like to be an average person, for whom all the legacy hardware is a big investment, not to be repeated just because he decides that USB is better than SCSI, so SCSI is too dirty for Apple to touch it anymore?

Stevie's problem is that he's richer than God, doesn't need to answer to a REAL corporate Board, and so he can run Apple like a hobby instead of a business. His ego isn't involved in sales numbers, it's in his version of "changing the world."

How many models of Mac from G3 on up were supposed to be able to run both Mac OS and X? JUST KEEP MAKING THOSE IN UPGRADED VERSIONS, AND WE'LL **BUY** THEM!

Markle

[This message was edited by Markle on Fri September 05 2003 at 04:56 PM.]

Brother thalo, I have a question for you. We've been talking a lot lately about visual superabundance and I wondered if there were any similarities between that and aural superabundance. Perhaps the answer lies in harmony, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was listening to "Pet Sounds" the other day, which is a rich and multi-layered album full of sounds (it's hardly minimalist). I remembered the story told of the Beatles being wildly impressed by it and that they were then motivated to try and outdo it which resulted in Sergeant Pepper. Sergeant Pepper itself is complex and rich and light years away from the drum/bass/lead guitar sound of the early Beatles.

Perhaps there is little correlation between the visual and the aural, but can you explain why superabundance can work in music and not in interfaces? This is not a test or a trick question. I don't have the answer and am curious as to your thoughts.

"Apple is one of the top five brands for young people."


This is something I could believe. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is believable.

I don't see what good it does any of us though. Most of us here never bought the "brand." We bought the computer.

I've said right along that Apple was more or less giving up on innovation and and had focused on image and branding. I's quite amazing how effective that marketing strategy can be, although it hasn't worked for Apple thus far. Marlboro cigarettes convinced millions that their paper tubes of dried leaves were substantively different than other paper tubes of dried leaves even though most everyone used exactly the same paper and exactly the same dried leaves. The strategy does work.

Building an image and selling the brand rather than the product is a strategy you use when you know your product is little different than anyone else's. You must either do that or go the low price route.

So yeah, I can believe that Apple is building a brand and selling that. It doesn't do me any good. All it does is affirm to me that Apple has nothing better than the competition and is not planning on having anything very different so it must go this image route or else lower its price. All things being equal I'd rather see a price decrease than pay a premium for an invented image. But hey, this is good news for those who think one guy's tube of dried leaves is very different than the other guy's. You know, such people "would rather fight than switch." And they do. Oddly, mainly with us.

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Perhaps there is little correlation between the visual and the aural, but can you explain why superabundance can work in music and not in interfaces?

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That's actually an excellent question, brother Brad... and you touch on the answer right in it by more or less wondering why superabundance can work there and not here, one place and not another. I think it boils down to context or appropriateness, structure and intent, and ability/execution.

Superabundance in and of itself is not the whole problem. Hell, I wouldn't be complaining about superabundance if the context was thousand dollar bills, on my bed, and me rolling naked in them. When the servers at the fast-food joint give me a superabundance of french fries, packed into their cardboard container so well that they are tough to extract... I pretend to be annoyed, but somehow I manage to find it in my heart to FORGIVE that, because when fresh and hot and crisp and salted just right, those bad boys are pretty damn tasty. I can kind of put on hold my "too much of a good thing" thesis. Even though in the case of fries, it's a potential health issue.

OS X criticism of visual superabundance is a slippery slope. In many ways it reminds me of McDonald's guilt. McDonald's guilt is a truly American phenomenon. And it's basically the disconnect between what we know in our heads and our behavior. You talk to anybody in the office, and dare to mention the name "McDonald's" and there's an instant negative connection made. There's usually a knee-jerk verbal response like "ugh." Somebody arriving to this planet from Pluto would think that the name of the restaurant was "McDonald's-ugh" rather than McDonald's.

Yet very, very few people will come out and say that they enjoy eating there. They ADMIT to eating there, they regale us with stories of how they were FORCED TO EAT THERE AGAINST THEIR WILL, but ugh, how they really didn't like it. How crappy the food is. It's bullshit. I know, because the people who talk the talk? I still see them in line. They still have McDonald's trash in their car. I completely can't STAND Aqua, my hand to god... and yet where am I this minute? You got it, OS X. What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I keep trying, keep going back? I've clearly proven that this software is woefully inadequate for pros. That it ain't for me, that Platinum is better. It would be better for me if I never booted into OS X again, until it's fixed... But here I am. I paid good money for it, and despite how truly lousy it is, I give it second, third, tenth, and two-jillionth chances. I slack cut. I crap settle, work around my distaste. It's Aqua-ugh. Every time I use it, I say it's the last time. Same as McDonald's guilt people. I make all kinds of excuses, that I'm only here to beta test... to make it better... and I BELIEVE that. Just like people BELIEVE they hate McDonalds. They don't WANT to like it. They know its dumbed down, artery-clogging, superabundance of calories is somehow WRONG. Self destructive. They feel played, arm-twisted, forced to consume. That's the thing with this OS. As much as I'm here to expose the con, the fact is, dumbed-down stuff does play. At a certain level, where we're at our weakest and laziest, when we're really the chimps Apple says we are, they're pushing our buttons.

The deal is, we're WIRED to dig superabundance. Maybe we justify it economically. More for the money. Colors are pretty, so why aren't A LOT OF COLORS super-pretty? Sometimes they are. A Jackson Pollock painting is visually superabundant and superbly compelling. It touches us deeply, gives us a lot to deal with, and the riot of visual noise becomes a MAGNIFICENT distraction, a meditation. I think it's because of intent and structure. More on that later.

Fast food joints never want for customers. But only small children can admit that they really do like the food, that with all its fat and salt, and sugar in just the right proportions, that the stuff is pretty friggin' tasty.

But there's a certain age where a certain type of parent installs McDonald's guilt into their teens. I know, I am like the last of my generation to be single, and so I've got lots of friends with children at that age right now. Kids uncle thalo used to TAKE to McDonald's for a happy meal... kind of a fun thing to do, is now an eye-roller. It's becoming McDonald's-ugh. There's a kind of loss of innocence, a kind of maturity that happens, where one becomes sophisticated or cool enough to dis McDonald's. Some kind of teen chops where, yeah, they'll GO, but they really don't want to. They'll make all kinds of excuses. Guilt. McDonald's makes them physically ill, and yet they go, place their orders and pay cash money.

Superabundance is a jones that really tests what we're made of.

Now, context. I mentioned the Jackson Pollock painting. Gallery or museum context, places ripe for meditation and getting lost in the art. Would you want our STOP signs or other traffic signs to be abstract expressionist veils of spattered and swirling color? Is driving in a car, thousands of pounds of potential kid-squashing metal, moving at speed, the time and place to meditatively regard the superabundance of these new traffic signs? Say they're really, really beautiful. Hugely visually complex. Splendiforus, you could get lost in them for hours, enjoying the color, movement, forms appear and dissolve and----POW you kill a kid. Run over a cat, or a squirrel. Ya got distracted.

I'm not saying we don't LOVE distraction. That we don't love meditation. In music, sometimes we WANT a hammer-blow of superabundant noise. We want a wall of sound or a jillion peice orchestra. But we're not performing brain surgery at the time, where somebody's life is in our hands. We're sitting and ruminating on the art or music.

Film too. There's a time and place for quick-cuts, montages, frenetic superabundant visuals... I love the flick "Requiem for a Dream." That's a visually superabundant movie that's brilliant. It's an assault, but it uses superabundance as an artistic choice to get us to become absorbed (sometimes against our will) in the altered state of drug abuse. But do I watch that movie while soldering delicate circuit boards, or coding software? No.

So when is superabundance appropriate? Doesn't it depend on what you're doing and the mood you're in? Ya think too that there's CRAPPY superabundance as well as superabundance of unmatched richness and artistry?

Babette's feast and a McDonald's meal are both superabundant, and yet we have no trouble telling which one is executed with superior artistry. Which comes along at the exact right place and time and context to have it ELEVATE our lives, instead of just filling us up with empty calories.

Eye candy is the same story. We can charge LESS rendered, simpler forms with MORE semiotic meaning, more structure and thought... or we can bloat the living bejeezus out of every pixel. We can structure things so they make sense, so they hold together in the context of working pros... or we can make it a visual free-for-all, a soup, to entice and impress a new mass market. Is superabundance APPROPRIATE for an operating system? You tell me.

Apple thinks so. Apple says cram 20 pounds of crap into a 1 pound bag, and hope that there's so much to deal with, that newbies and digikids will see faces and bunny rabbits in the clouds. Let THEM make sense of the static... let the audience project their hopes and dreams and desires on to the superabundance. Let them become involved... let them find their purpose in twiddling.

But pros? We're more like the guys behind the wheel. Give us too much to twiddle and we crash. Force us to waste our time wading through superabundance WHILE WE'RE WORKING, and we resent you.

[This message was edited by thalo on Sun September 07 2003 at 01:16 PM.]