January 12, 2005 12:00 AM PST
Perspective: Macintosh: It's a Madison Avenue thing
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But a new one dawned on me while watching Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs deliver a keynote at Macworld on Tuesday.
Mac people seem to want you to go into advertising. PC people don't give nearly as much career guidance.
The thing that has somewhat troubled me about Apple and the Mac community over the years, I now realize, is that there seems to be an overt agenda geared at giving everyone a makeover so that they can land a marketing position. It is always about presentation and posture with that company.
Jobs, for instance, introduced Pages, a word-processing and document-creating application, at the show.
"It is word processing with a sense of style," Jobs said. "It is designed so that mere mortals can create fantastic-looking documents."
He also demonstrated improvements to iPhoto. Now it's easier to put personal slide shows to music. In one demonstration, baby pictures swirled on a graphical representation of a mobile while Louis Armstrong sang "Dream a Little Dream of Me" in the background. In another, shots and videos from a Hawaiian wedding floated across the computer screen to the music of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.
All the presentations looked great, but they also seemed foreign and impersonal. Who puts a soundtrack to their family photos? "Mom's second-wedding shots--cue up the Skynrd." Most of us are lucky to have poorly labeled computer files, a cardboard box with prints and/or a vague idea of who is in the picture.
Again, it looked wonderful on stage, but if you actually synched your home photos into a slick presentation, your friends will fear that a pitch to buy a time share is coming next.
Then there was the new computer, the Mac Mini. Measuring 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches by 2 inches, the computer is one of the more stylish desktops out there. Dell's mini desktop is about twice as big, measuring 12.7 inches by 14 inches by 3.8 inches. Sony's handheld Type U computer is smaller but costs more.
Still, consumers pay for the style of Mac Mini. The $599 model comes with a 1.42GHz PowerPC processor, 256MB of memory, an 80GB drive and a DVD/CD-RW drive. A similarly configured Gateway 3250 (2.66GHz Pentium 4, 80GB drive, 256MB memory, same drive) costs $499; $100 less with a rebate.
But the Gateway also comes with some important extras--namely a keyboard, a mouse and a 17-inch screen. The Mac Mini has none of this. Cool industrial design with an artsy interface or a monitor? It depends what you're looking for.
I think the first time I ever picked up on this emphasis on presentation at Apple came several years ago, while watching a preview of a soon-to-be-broadcast Apple ad. In the ad, kids have to stand in front of the class and show an object for show and tell. The first kids stand up and give slightly dispirited monologues about rocks or other things they found on their summer vacation.
Then the kid with the Apple shows up. He cues a video that shows the family laughing it up on a canoe trip and just lets the class watch. Some reporters got teary-eyed. It made me feel sort of weird about the public-school system. The kid got high marks for all show, no tell.
Contrast Jobs' speech and product announcements with the standard stump speech from PC execs. Intel CEO Craig Barrett, for instance, delivered a typical one at CES last week. In each speech, there's a few irrelevant celebrity cameos. Then there's the sketching out of the brave new world of technology. Then there's always a reference to a billion of something--a billion transistors on a chip, a billion connected computers, etc.
But the speeches also typically contain two other elements: a nod to how PCs can help kids do their homework and how PCs are beginning to proliferate in the developing world. Corny and self-serving as some of the pitches might be, the audience is always reminded that there are people on the globe who have never been to Williams-Sonoma.
To Apple's credit, style and presentation--even with a mock turtleneck--are important. Baldassare Castiglione highlighted the importance of elegant nonchalance in the Renaissance classic "The Book of the Courtier." (Rule 1: Never shake hands with the pope.) There is also a personal bias here. I have knuckle hair that a rhesus monkey would envy.
Apple also comes out with some very cool software. One of the highlights of Jobs' speech involved a preview of Mac OS X Tiger. It includes a search technology called Spotlight and a handy tool called dashboard that gives quick access to weather, stock prices, a currency converter and more.
And finally, the emphasis on education and science that PC companies often stress is also a form of a sales pitch. Microsoft blankets TV stations with ads that emphasize the importance of school, but they also sell Xboxes.
Still, with Apple, I can't help but feel that I am being judged by the cut of my chassis.
Biography
Michael Kanellos is editor at large at CNET News.com, where he covers hardware, research and development, start-ups and the tech industry overseas. He has worked as an attorney, travel writer and sidewalk hawker for a time share resort, among other occupations.
See more CNET content tagged:
Steve Jobs, Apple Intel Mac Mini, presentation, IBM PowerPC, word-processing
Apple figured out that within a commodity market, style and design are a value-add that has very good margins. If you define the term PC in its original form, as a personal computer, not as just a Windows/Intel personal computer, Apple is the most profitable PC company out there and nobody gives them that recognition.
Since Apple is a niche player, it fits perfectly into a niche market for computer products for upscale/status/design/niche conscious customers. They are the "Sharper Image" of the PC sector, with their own stores too!
I've used both Windows and Mac machines over the last 20 years years, and currently using a Windows laptop for five years. I've found that both get you wheere you want to go, but the Mac does it with a a few fewer clicks. You get a stylish design, and you get some excellent software bundled with the system. And probably more importantly than ever these days, you don't get bothered by all the malware that hits Windows systems constantly. The Mac malware is a tiny fraction of the Windows malware. I've lost tons and tons of productivity through having to deal with viruses and spyware and the admin tasks that Windows requires.
Also, $600 was the price for a DVD player not too long ago, and that didn't have a screen either :-) The Mac mini looks pretty damn tempting, especially since it looks very portable, or at least luggable. I can see a lot of uses for that kind of form factor...
And as far as the iPod goes, Apple is demonstrating yet again, that proprietary technology is the way to make money! What did the Windows PC makers get in return for adopting a single platform? Microsoft and Intel sucked in most of the profits. That's why the cell phone sector is still heavily based on proprietary technologies--they don't want a repeat of what happened in the PC sector.
From Tom Foremski at http://SiliconValleyWatcher.com
Second, you say "proprietary technology is the way to make money!" Go out and take a look at Sony's alternative to VHS, called Beta. Do you see anyone making money on it now? Nope, yet VHS continues on. How about IBM or HP? Companies who sell their services, a commodity as far as that goes, and they make more money at it than most countries.
Just being proprietary is no guarantee that you will make money. Check the patent record for 2004 and you'll see thousands of proprietary products that lost millions.
And Apple is not nearly in the game of proprietary things as windows is. Longhorn supposedly is gonna be written in proprietary code.... OS X's unix foundation is open source.........
iPhoto display, but how about a DVD menu? Yes, the examples
you gave are all from iDVD, you pick a theme and drag and drop
pictures and movies and it creates a DVD menu for you.
just the way it is. You may not like it, and you may wish to cling
to the notion that substance is more important than appearance,
but in everyday interaction, and especially first impressions, it's
just not so. And, have you tried watching a slide show of family
pictures with appropriate music? It elevates the experience to a
whole new level. Really, Mike; try it and see. As for the whole
Mac vs. PC thing, I can say that I enjoy looking at and working
with the Mac interface for hours at a time, whereas the PC
interface induces instant anguish. Yes, apperance is important to
me, both in what I look like?and what I look at!
shlub. And your family would actually enjoy seeing your
vacation photos instead of smiling tightly and groaning
inside. To compare the larger ugly Gateway to the new Mac
Mini? Please, the software alone that comes with the Mac
is easily worth the difference in price, and you don't have to
mail in a rebate and wait eight weeks while you're still
trying to figure out how to make your pictures look halfway
decent. Poor guy.
Where do I sign up?
Bwhahahaha!
1. People who want to throw their PC in the ocean. These folks
just want to do their work without the endless viruses, bugs,
spies and reinstalls. The mini sells them OS X at minimal
expense.
2. Ipod users who are ready for the next step. They already
define their reality through an apple appliance and they'll use
the thing as a souped-up set-top box for their HDTVs.
Confusing the mini with ilife/iwork, etc, is foolish. The mini is
nothing less than Apple's grab for the whole PC-using world.
Jobs wants his dinner back and there's not a damned thing Gates
can do about it.
iPhoto demo was actually iDVD menu creation demo.
Being able to create a nice presentation easily and successfully is
very useful. Apple is putting usable technology in the hands of
everyone. Being able to edit down a home movie from hours of
junk to a few minutes of highlights, add a slide show with music
and burn it to DVD and send it to the grandparents across the
country is not Madison Avenue, it is just excellent visual
communication that PC owners can only wish for.
Catchy story but author really hasn't got a clue.
Do you have a genuine beef with Apple's pricing department, or is it that Apple offends your sensibilities with the way they do business? Let's be clear about this -- I can understand if you find Apple to be overly polished, hollow and arrogant. But let's stick to the facts and refrain from spreading age old FUD about price differences between Mac and PC. In any case that cheap $499 Gateway with the all important mouse and keyboard (you'd think people who are tempted to switch would already have a keyboard and mouse hang around, wouldn't you?) is built exactly that -- cheap.
USB keyboards are still rare for PC users, hence add the price of a keyboard to the price.
Great question! Let's get this entire price issue off the table.
Let's assume that Apple charged 99 cents for a new iMac Mini.
Mike, would you then recommend the machine to your freinds
and family? Maybe yes, maybe no... but at least the
recommendation would be based upon the features of the
computer.
sound slick and markety. There's no arguing that Apple's
product may be distasteful, then.
But what I've always admired (and probably others too) is that
there is always an underlying functionality to Apple's product of
late...
So the iPod looks fru, fru. Looks are a matter of taste. But can
anyone seriously argue that the iPod is hard to use, or hasn't set
the standard for music player functionality?
Look, for instance, at the design of the iPod shuffle. this isn't
minimalism for minimalism's sake. the minimalistic design offers
serious, serious functionality in a wide range of consumer
situations: party with the lanyard, excercise with the arm band,
hike with the sports case, ipod naked (as in surf naked) when
sitting at a table reading, etc.
Even the Mac Mini has a reason (besides cost-savings for Apple)
for leaving out Keyboard and Monitor. For someone who already
has a computer set up, this saves them a trip to the local
electronics retailer or wasting time on eBay unloading a used
keyboard/monitor. And yeah, the looks may be to precious for
Mr. Kanellos and there may be a slight cost-premium for a small
form factor, but is saving deskspace really a bad thing? Careful
Mr. Kanellos, there may be accusations that you own a stake in
one of those furniture manufacturers that pump out desks
featuring a 2'x1' space designated for a CPU housing...
So the amazing thing to me is that despite (or maybe because?)
Apple's attention to slick-looking design, the functionality of
their products seem to often surpass those rivals whol pay little
or no attention to appearance... The best-dressed person in the
roommay be a model, but she could be an engineer, too...
style + substance = beauty
and 'beauty' is how we humans have always processed
complexity.
whether in science (mathematical proofs and physical laws can
be beautiful) engineering (beautiful bridges or skyscrapers) or
computing (software is my point here, not so much hardware) -
beauty always reflects a deeper truth, something 'right'.
this is all that apple is aiming at: to find that deeper truth in
computing (again: through software), so that the computing
experience is actually enjoyable (and so much more productive)
for the masses.
granted there is a lot of style there, too. and while they dont
always succeed, they sure keep trying.
and apple deserves credit for that.
because, with Einstein, in science and elsewhere the challenge
is: "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not
simpler."
proofs and scientific theories are elegant, not beautiful.
labeled by the author as iPhoto) - even though the author
seems to be trying to review the Mac Mini. The Mac Mini
is a small Apple computer, not the software that comes
on it - you can put whatever Mac-compatible software on
it you'd like.
The $499 (not $600) Mac Mini comes with a CD-RW/DVD
drive, 256 MB of RAM, Firewire, USB 2.0, and built-in
compability with Mac or Windows style keyboards, mice,
and monitors.
The author is right that you can get a cheaper computer
with Windows on it and more stuff - but it won't have the
"form factor" (which is important, and a value-add even in
Wintel world) and it won't have Mac OS X...
The Mac Mini comes with over $350 worth of software,
including Mac OS X, iLife, Quicken 2005, AppleWorks, and
a trial version of Microsoft Office 2004, as well as a
couple of games. The author's $500 Gateway comes with
Windows and WordPerfect - that's it.
Before this announcement, the cheapest Mac was $799,
and it was an eMac (which *does* come with a keyboard,
mouse, and built-in monitor). The eMac is not nearly as
*cool* as the Mac Mini, and it costs more, plus you are
kinda -stuck- with the 17 inch CRT monitor that makes up
most of the computer.
The Mac Mini is a step towards the lower-priced PC
market. For $499 (and free shipping, which Gateway and
Dell *don't* offer) you get a powerful *little* computer
that looks cool, gets the job done, can be easily moved
anywhere, comes packed with software, and - best selling
point of all - it's a Mac.
-Chad Smith
Life-long Windows user, since 3.1....
my plasma theater system and for under $650 I have a killer
system that will play (and soon record) DVDs, stream music,
access the web through my DSL and run all my apps - right in
my den in 40" glory.
Function with style, Mike - you loser.
When I saw the Mac Mini I realized that hey! this would make a superb Living Room or Den computer. Simply add it to your large Flat Screen HDTV and get wireless (bluetooth) keyboards and mice and you are set to go.
Now all Apple has to do is create a TV-dinner tray that has a built-in mouse pad, mouse and TV remote storagage organizer holder and you are set to go.
Duncan Stokes
presentation at MacWorld I have only one suggestion for
Mike...go back to being a lawyer...dry, insensative to what you
project to others and opinionated.
I hated them through the 80's, why did we need windows and mice, when the command line worked, fine. I thought the iMAC was a joke, but they pushed usb through, they got firewire started, they have moved adding devices from the internals to the externals with fast ports. They make it look pretty but the actual technology they push and innovate is amazing.
I have an IBM think centre with and XP a self made Slackware workstation and two servers. I bought my daughter an iMAc and we all use it for the photos and publishing documents. Not because it makes it look more pretty, but because it does it better and with an interface that is human intuitive.
I am scared as a linux fanatic, because OS X is the best Unix like system out there. With a pretty desktop and solid features it could actually hurt the OSS movement on the desktop.
Pretty is the angle the use to sell their products, but not what the products are 'about'
But I will admit this, when I first saw the new mini I was tempted but when I added all of the extras up to the asking price my temptation faded.
PS - I used to be an avid Apple fan and Apple certified support tech. What turned me off was the arrogance of our district representative.
Your personal problems should not play into whether something
is good or not. Unfortunately, that IS human nature. We see
that played out time, and time again since the beginning of time.
remove spyware. And viruses. And adware. Because Macs have
lots of that. Big problem, you know, not at all like Windows,
which doesn't have any of that.
Maybe the guru would help you do things like browse the
internet, or check eMail, or run Microsoft Office? You know, all
those things that are so different on the Mac, because, well,
they're on a Mac, right? And everything's different on a Mac.
I'd better go call my "district representative" now, because I don't
think I can figure all this Mac stuff out by myself.
What is there only like one profile of a mac user? Some of the
nerdiest, hackeriest, hands dirtiest people I can think of use
macs. They rip them apart. Swap processors. Over clock them.
Build fish tanks out of them. Put them in PC cases. Make them
run X11 ****. Program on them. Design on them. Create art.
etc...
You stopped using macs because you didn't like a district
representative?
man.
The Mac mini is clearly aimed at "fence-sitters." Most of these
PC users already own a monitor.
Secondly, sure you can do a lot of creative stuff with a Mac, but
more importantly, you can use the thing without crash and after
crash; you can surf the Web without worry of viruses, etc.
Average computer users should be able to have a positive user
experience: that's worth $499 alone. Sorry, but you Windows
guys just don't get that... I can understand how that'd be
"foreign" to you.
12.7 inches by 14 inches by 3.8 inches."......... er no, its
actually about 4x bigger(more bloated) and weighs - oh
never mind!
computer (length x width x height).
depth for a competitor to the Mac Mini he, too, speaks volumes.
His Math, however, is abysmal. The machine he uses for
comparison has roughly 8x the volume of the Mini, not 2x. I
suspect his lack of rigor here pervades all his thinking.
outside not really knowing much about Macs. It maybe why the
focus of yor writing is primary critical to the style/form of macs
since you might not know much about Mac functionality.
Nowdays, if you are writers, you can write about anything even
without enough knowledge on the issue. There are too many
Windows biased (close minded) writers who write about Macs
and we can always predict the accuracy and flavor of the
writings.
Style is not a bad thing, but you managed to give notion that it
may bear a negative result. We call it being creative; you call it
advertising that is impersonal. Why close your mind that an
individual cannot be that creative - Mac is a tool to help you to
be more creative and it helps you know that you have the skill of
creating well packaged DVD without buying $100K systems and
spending 20x as much time and training.
Just like most Mac users, I use Mac and PC at work and at home.
I automatically use one or the other without thinking since I
know which one is best for certain task. I used to have 2 PCs
and 1 Mac at home and now it's 2 macs and 1 PC. Due to the
virus and spyware headache, I want to get rid of the PC but I
cannot. I cannot deny the criticality of Windows PC: Accessing
web based financial institution, Compiler, Robotic application for
my sons etc.
So Mike, relax....be open minded and take advantage the benefit
of Mac and Windows. Mac can be very personal and can be used
to create very personal slide show, DVD that your friend and
family would be in WOW (Try it first then write about it). With
this mindset, you will be writing on view that people can learn
from. Even if you have negative view about Mac and if it is
based on real knowledge (not guesing or speculation).... then
people will learn from it without being misled. This is what real
journalism is about.
- The 'wrath' of apple people
- by Squre-ed January 12, 2005 7:58 AM PST
- This wont sit good on them - the apple people, Mike. They want 'others' to appriciate all the crap coming out of apple as much as all the good stuff.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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- iTunes
- by Byronic January 12, 2005 10:56 AM PST
- iTunes does *NOT* lock you in. It's actually quite simple to
- Like this
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- Mac People Are Like Canadians........
- by PCCRomeo January 13, 2005 3:51 PM PST
- When you think about it, Mac people are like Canadians....They get all pissy when people say anything even slightly relative to them...They must just be jealous of something because Windows is cheaper, and even thou probably isn't as great as Mac, has the potential to be so much more than Mac...
- Like this View all 2 replies
Processing -
Showing 1 of 5 pages (128 Comments)But Apple - it was a nice alternate to MS, if you had a lot of money - has started becoming another MS in a way. Locking down consumers on iTunes+iPod and a lot of other such policies etc is making the blur now.
convert the AAC files (much better quality than windows media,
according to the experts) to MP3, etc... without a lot of loss of
quality--less than you would get from taping an LP in the old
days, certainly. And the CDs it burns (and you can burn more
than one, unlike windows-ONLY options) work fine ANYWHERE.
The only closed part of the iTMS was necessary to get labels to
agree to sell songs online in the first place. Notice you could
not do this at all until Apple pioneered it.
And iTunes does not force you to use AAC!!! You can still buy
CDs, use MP3, APPLE LOSSLESS format (awesome for
audiophiles) etc...
Apple has *given* PC users undeniably the BEST music jukebox
softare ever put together for FREE and you complain and call it a
monopoly tactic. No, MS exhange email (proprietary!) is a LOCK
down monopoly tactic, if you want a decent example.