The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Akst takes a sobering slap at Apple fandom in an opinion piece on Friday. Written by a hardcore (if relatively new) Mac snob, the article asks if The Cult of Mac is an elitist fad that will die in the face of grim economic realities:
Like eating only locally grown food or majoring in gender studies at college, Macs have become luxuries that command a premium out of all proportion to their utility -- unless their utility is simply to broadcast your own disposable income....
Most of the cool people I know use a Mac. My sense is that they like to think of themselves as egalitarian sorts unencumbered by snobbery -- rather than, say, brainwashed cultists obsessed with class-signaling. Yet at today's absurd prices the Mac is even less than ever "the computer for the rest of us." Instead it's a well-designed status symbol for the elite -- another way that people with money can distinguish themselves from hoi polloi.
While I dispute several of the author's assumptions, especially about the comparative prices of Macs and PCs (taking software and hardware into account, Macs fare pretty well against their "Proletariat" Windows peers), the author raises a fair point. Certainly some of the Mac's rise in recent popularity is driven by iPod infatuation and social lemmings' desire to be cool, and surely some people will leave the Mac for cheaper PCs, but I think this misses a more significant, long-term threat to Microsoft:
Most people I know who flock to the Mac do so because it 'just works,' and does so with elegance and style.
These people aren't trying to be cool. They're trying to get their work done with minimal bother from malware, and that "work" includes an increasing focus on things like photos and video, an area where the Mac shines brightly above Windows (and which software comes gratis on a Mac).
As for cool, well, most of my (seven-sibling strong) family runs on the Mac now, and I'm not sure I could credibly call my family "cool" in the author's sense of the word. My flight attendant this morning who gushed about her Mac to me when she spotted me using mine wasn't cool. The guy sitting next to me was very uncool. And so on.
Sure, there will be groupies. But these don't comprise the bulk of Apple's converts, in my experience. No, the Mac has gone mainstream, and it's being picked up by people that care about quality and are willing to pay a little more for it.
These aren't elitists and dogmatists. No, those are the people that have been hounding the college girl for not grokking Ubuntu in The Proper Way....Linux desktop users remain their own worst enemies in far too many cases
Mac adoption is not about elitism. It's about pragmatism and enthusiasm. People will pay that price, even in a recession.
Microsoft's "I'm a PC" trucker hat
(Credit: Microsoft)Why must Microsoft strenuously seek to earn the "dork" label that Apple has been pinning on it? In case you missed it, Microsoft is now offering "I'm a PC" gear - like ties and skateboards and probably pearl-encrusted thongs - online for purchase.
This is stupid. It's not stupid because it's Microsoft. It's stupid because no one wants to wear an "I'm a PC" trucker hat. Or, if they do, they have problems that Windows can't solve for them.
Microsoft needs to be defining its image, not letting Apple define it. Why isn't Microsoft telling the story about much of the world's economy being written in Office? "That memo that Hank Paulson just sent to the world's finance chiefs? Written in Word." Or highlighting that the world's youth are growing up with its XBox gaming consoles? Or something that demonstrates that Microsoft is a leader, not a follower?
I'm a Microsoft critic, but it's depressing to watch the company make such a lame attempt at creating its image as trucker "I'm a PC" hats. It can and should do better.
It has been years since I've had to use a Windows PC, having spent several years on the Mac (with minor bouts of Linux along the way). Today, however, I'm suddenly envious of my friends who haul around those monstrously ugly HP and Dell machines.
Why? Twenty-four hour battery life on the HP EliteBook 6930p, as ZDNet reports. Twenty-four hours!!! One battery. Dell was no slouch either with a 19-hour battery.
My MacBook Pro? Maybe three hours if I baby it. When I travel internationally I carry a BatteryGeek extended-life battery that gets me another eight to ten hours, but it's really heavy, making it a bit of a chore to lug around.
To get 24 hours out of the HP laptop requires a host of fortuitous events (special "Ultra Capacity Battery," updated Intel graphics driver, SSD drive, special LED display, etc.), but I'd happily pay extra and jump through hoops to get this kind of battery life from my MacBook Pro. Happily.
Heck, I already paid something like $500 to $800 for my lug-along extended-life battery for my Mac. Paying extra for something that would break my bank but not my back...? Done.
Correction, 10:45 a.m. PDT: This blog initially misstated Apple's global market share. It was 3.3 percent in the second quarter, according to IDC, up from 2.9 percent a year ago.
Gartner and IDC both see the global computer market rising, 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively, with Hewlett-Packard (18 percent market share) and Dell (16 percent market share) winning big, as The Wall Street Journal reports.
U.S. growth, however, was somewhat tepid at 4.2 percent, according to Gartner. (IDC pegs it at 3.6 percent.) As demonstrated in the earnings calls for Sun, IBM, and others, the U.S. is no longer the place to be for growth: China, India, and other developing economies are.
Even so, one vendor continues to make huge strides regardless of the geography: Apple. As CNET News' Ina Fried reports, Apple's Mac sales grew 38 percent in Q2 2008, and that's just in the U.S. Ironically, while Windows' growth has slowed to a 4.2 percent crawl in the U.S., globally it is up 16 percent, while Apple only managed 3.2 percent growth outside of the U.S.
Globally, Apple now commands a 3.3 percent market share, up from 2.9 percent in 2007.
We seem to be in technology spending slowdown, but good products continue to make headway, albeit in different markets. Microsoft has stalled in the U.S., but is making it up elsewhere. Apple has yet to make a dent "elsewhere," but dominates the U.S. computer market. Global slowdown? Or simply a subtle shift in spending opportunities?
Does Apple reflect the U.S. consumer-spending binge? I'd hate to think my beloved Mac is making its gains at the expense of sound fiscal conservativism. On the other hand, is Windows the new cheapskate strategy? Do people only buy it if they're looking for something cheap and "good enough"?
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