I'm not so sure about this -- it would only play out this way if people's perception of size were based on the company's size, rather than their exposure to the company.
For one example: one of my business clients has a couple of die-hard Mac users (who I'm happy to support), and the administrator there is one of those "bah, Macs are toys, why don't they just get a PC like everyone else?" idiots. I mentioned to him one day that Apple had enough cash in the bank to purchase Dell outright. However, this did not at all change his perception of Apple.
It doesn't help that many individuals' exposure to Apple right now is through consumer devices like the iPhone and iPod, and not so much through "serious" computers.
Oh, and also: software. I'd hazard a guess that most of my clients don't think of the stuff on their iPhone as software in the sense of "stuff that runs on a computer". I suspect that they think of it more as "features", so for them, the only Apple software that they know of is iTunes.
Apple can't do well for that segment of the market until those people start to take Apple seriously. Right now, the prevailing opinion among Apple detractors seems to be that all the little touches are "fluff" and polish that don't add up to any monetary value at all.
Evidence of this abounds: my favorite example is the multitouch touchpad that Apple uses. If somebody is saying something good about a pointing device on a non-Apple laptop, odds are good that they've never spent time with Apple's touchpad. It's that much better, but if you haven't used it and you don't trust Apple or anybody who uses Apple products, you'll probably never assign it more than about $5 of value, when experienced users would easily value it at ten times that. (That's why it isn't insane for apple to release a standalone touchpad for $70).
Fortunately for Apple, far more people have been willing to try the iPhone than have been willing to try their computers, and many of them have discovered that "not sucking" is worth more than a few hundred megahertz. The "halo effect" is real, and is not due entirely to people "buying in" to an Apple lifestyle.
The people who have strong technical or financial barriers to using Apple computers are far outnumbered by the proud Apple haters who haven't actually used a Mac long enough to appreciate the little things. However, unless somebody else starts releasing well designed computer hardware and software, Apple will eventually win over most of the haters through sheer ubiquity. (I expect that at some point, there will be a tipping point where hating Apple becomes uncool. If we pass that tipping point before Apple has serious competition, Apple will probably achieve a near-monopoly.)
The iPhone was initially a hit because it was the first smart phone that was really designed for the consumer. Yes, you are correct, because consumers want the bells and whistles I mentioned earlier. Apple's marketing was a success in highlighting the eye candy that the Mac OS X has been known for. Even MS eventually added most of the visual effects associated with Apple's OS.
The consumer is mostly uninformed when it comes to their hardware needs and that is where the manufacturer should step in. As another HN article discussed, the confusion in PC model labeling is another example of this carelessness. Steve Jobs has always said the consumer does not know what they want, you have to tell them.
I should have said most consumers use Mac OS X or W7 and those machines need more than 512M of RAM.
In helping large data centers improve their power consumption, creating consumer products that inspire and ignite a passion or pushing larger competitors to continually have to innovate, smaller companies always make a difference.
It is likely being poorly received because it is phrased as if it is suggesting a dichotomy that doesn't exist. Product perception and positioning almost always has multiple dimensions, and it certainly does in the case of choosing a computer. There are many differences between Apple computers and other brands, other than the name. I'll leave enumeration of that list to the reader, but you can choose any one of them, and people may make purchasing decisions based on them.
Apple seems to appeal to consumers by the appearance and experience more than anything. When they do mention numbers, it's always "x% faster, x% smaller!", which is really all anyone cares about -- "How much better is this compared to what I already have?"
Close, but Apple's real secret is that they make premium products, with profit margins that allow them to invest in researching the next big thing and spend time doing it right.
Dell, HP, Sony, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo: these guys live and die by razor-thin margins of the "we'll make up for it in volume" strategy.
Ultimately I think a (un)healthy share if consumers just don't care about the details of the experience enough to spend more money.
One big caveat to this - the difference between people's stated and revealed preferences. They say they want one thing, but when push comes to shove they choose differently.
Here's an example specifically with phones. Consumers in surveys and on social media would constantly say that they wanted small phones. They were insistent that Apple listened and made a fantastic mini version of the iPhone 11. It was universally praised by reviewers as a perfect small phone. And ... it underperformed heavily. Somehow Apple, a company that prides itself on its supply chain and ability to predict demand for its products overestimated the demand. Consumers didn't actually buy the phone like they said they would.
No matter, maybe it was a one-off. Maybe enough people hadn't heard of it. Maybe they weren't in the right point of the upgrade cycle. People still say they want it! So Apple tried again. iPhone 12 mini. Universally praised. Again, heavily underperformed.
Apple never made a mini phone after that. You know what they did do? Added a larger Plus version.
So when he article says "People want dumbphones", take that with a pinch of salt. Instead it should say "People say they want dumbphones."
Isn't Apple targeting more of a niche than the general market, though? They service that niche very well, but it's easier to understand a niche than it is to understand the entire body of consumers.
Sorry. I was speaking generally, not specifically, in regards to why people who don't own Apple products react to them the way they do, or at least one reason. I was addressing the specific question in a general sense.
I will add this, however. When you purchase Apple products, you are beholden to them. They have a certain standard they need to live up to. If I am dissatisfied with a Dell, I have options with HP, or Lenovo, etc. If I'm not happy with Apple, I'm stuck. I have no other option for a Mac.
I think that the more "pro" market might overestimate its own representativeness. Sure you can go to a tech meetup and see a sea of glowing Apple logos, but dominance in a relatively small portion of the market is still a small chunk of market share.
I think if that was the case Apple would be a much smaller company. People buy iPhones because they "feel nice." And the feel they are talking about is performance.
If you are forced to use an app with bad performance (say Teams) you cope. Humans are great at coping. Maybe you turn it off and back on again periodically, or alt tab to something else while it's showing a spinner.
It's true performance isn't a major selling point but IMO that's because most software products are not sold to users. They are packaged with other products, part of monopolies and imposed to users by others.
I buy video games where performance undoubtedly matters. Apart from that, most software I use, I didn't choose, and I'm pleasantly happy when it's not garbage (Outlook, IDEA) and annoyed when it is (Teams, Facebook). In either case, performance wasn't a contributor to my choice: I didn't have a choice.
I agree with the perception argument, for what it's worth. My parents are a good example, still refusing to buy macs because "it's a closed system where you have to buy everything from Apple"... They still harbour the impression that if you buy a mac, you can only buy hard drives, screens, mice, etc from Apple.
I think the reason people see this is that different groups value different things. Apple perfectly fits many people's values, but the group that have different values can't understand that someone else might other values.
I'm not talking about companies that have a cult following, I'm talking about the perceptions of Apple's design process and how many web startups often try to emulate that fantasy version -- to their detriment.
I guess using Apple as an example made that confusion more likely, but the way they project their design process is part of why people are so obsessed about their products.
Let's be honest with ourselves here. This is a tired, tired, worn cliche about Apple, as well as a misunderstanding of fashion for real people. Top it off with rhetorical tricks that don't do your argument justice; "And sure, you might argue that not everyone does that..."
This is just a variation on the "Apple only succeeds because of marketing, or shiny iObjects, or consumer stupidity." That if consumers were only intelligently informed, they'd all run either Linux on home built desktops or something other than what is currently popular.
Why is it so hard to accept that sometimes things become popular because they are good?
I know the car analogies are tired and cliche but that's not too far off. I used to work for a guy who was an Apple zealot whereas I was more the type to do price comparisons and buy whatever I could afford without going overboard for bells, whistles, and extra layers of polish. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that the guy was a business owner who got his start via a nice big trust fund his family had set up for him whereas I was paying my way through college working for him.
Either way, this wasn't a tech company but more like a retail shop with an attached cafe. People frequently would chit-chat about computer stuff and several times people would complain that their old or severely underpowered/low end PC was too slow or crapped out on them. Boss' answer: "Get a Mac!" Every time without fail.
It really made it hard not to bristle at the sentiment or take it out on Apple in general since they had similar themes in their ad campaigns at the time (this was the "I'm a Mac" days). Essentially people were either using the equivalent of aging Camrys or newer models at the extreme low end of the market like some 3cyl Ford Fiesta and the solution to their problems was obviously to buy a Mercedes.
Of course a luxury car (or computer) is going to run better than something old or low-end but there's a much wider range in between that will often cover your needs, sans some extra layers of polish that demand an understandable premium, for considerably less money.
So yeah, marketers will market. Fanboys will fanboy. I get it. But it doesn't make it less irritating when users and customers start parroting the lines from ad campaigns that seek to convince you that anything less than the Porsche or the Benz are just going to crap out on you and leave you sad and lonely.
For one example: one of my business clients has a couple of die-hard Mac users (who I'm happy to support), and the administrator there is one of those "bah, Macs are toys, why don't they just get a PC like everyone else?" idiots. I mentioned to him one day that Apple had enough cash in the bank to purchase Dell outright. However, this did not at all change his perception of Apple.
It doesn't help that many individuals' exposure to Apple right now is through consumer devices like the iPhone and iPod, and not so much through "serious" computers.
Oh, and also: software. I'd hazard a guess that most of my clients don't think of the stuff on their iPhone as software in the sense of "stuff that runs on a computer". I suspect that they think of it more as "features", so for them, the only Apple software that they know of is iTunes.
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