[Don Pickett]

This post has been brewing in my mind for a few months, but I have been putting off posting it for a variety of reasons. I was finally convinced to do it by something in a thread in the "PowerBook" forum. In a wandering thread which started with the feasability of UXGA laptops and turned into the direction of the computer industry, I said:

Apple will definitely leverage OS X, because leverging image, and not technology, is the future of the computer industry, but more on that later.

To which helios said:

Absolutely, at least for consumer machines aimed at non-gamers. And I'm certain Steve feels the same way; he's on record as saying he wants Apple to be the Sony of the industry. Do you care what electronics you're Discman uses? No, provided sound quality is indistinguishable, under normal use, from that of its competitors. Under those conditions, visual style and brand appeal become crucial selling points.

To which I replied:

I've got a big, long reply to this sitting on my drive at home. Maybe I'll post it here tonight, albeit in a new thread. I've been thinking about it for a while, but I've been trepidatious.

To which helios said:

By all means, do! I can't think of an Apple-related topic with more long-term importance for the company than that one.

So, here goes.

I know of two surefire ways to start an argument. One is to start rooting for the Mets in a subway series at Yankee stadium. The other is to ask people whether Macs or Wintel machines are the better computer. Either way you will get heated opinions, raised voices, and, just maybe, a punch or two. That said, I�m going to wade into this because I see something happening in the computer industry that no one else has talked about, and I think it is more critical to the future of Apple than slow G4s, cracks in the Cube, and slipping tech support.

There are two big trends rearranging the computing world as I write this, and they directly affect each other. One is the rapid convergence of computing technology - more and more Macs and Wintel machines are the same under the surface. The other is the maturation of the computer industry as a whole. It�s not the same industry it was five years ago, and different people are buying.

Take a top of the line Wintel box and a top of the line G4 and compare them, and they are more alike than different. The biggest difference is the most obvious; Apple pours millions into the best industrial design in the industry, and it shows. G4s are not boxes filled with components; they are sleek, swooping computing machines, more like Crays you can sit on than humming beige boxes. Apple�s industrial design is striking in its vision and its integration. I saw the Cube in person at Macworld New York and was amazed at just how good it looks. I swear the things gleams it�s so pretty. Combine it with the new 22 inch Cinema display and those speakers and it becomes, literally, a work of art. It�s that pretty. The Cubes were mobbed for the six hours I was there, and I doubt the crowds thinned appreciably on the second and third days. For $1800 you could probably configure a Wintel system that�s as fast or faster, but you would just be getting a gray box full of chips. Buy a Cube and you�re getting an experience.

The other big difference is, of course, the processors, which, Linux aside, determines what OS you will run. This is one of the biggest opinion battlegrounds, and I�m going to skip it for now, because it doesn�t really impact my argument. Look past the processors, however, and the two machines are nearly identical. Both use ATA drives, fast busses, fast memory, USB, PCI, and AGP. Both have USB and Firewire, and both can run the same exact video cards. Their performance is very close as well, so close, in fact, that, even after eleven years of desktop publishing and pre-press, I probably couldn�t tell without a benchmark. Both will run the same applications - Netscape, IE, Quicken, Photoshop, Quake, Word � and both will surf the web and show DVDs with equal ease.

In and of itself this isn�t such a big deal, and is probably a �no duh� to most of you reading. But we don�t live in a vacuum, and technology as such doesn�t matter as much anymore.

One of the ways I make money is going to people�s homes and answering their technical and software questions, and, if they want, teach them Quark, Illustrator and Photoshop. Many of these people are among the great mass that has been swept into life online by the massive explosion that is the World Wide Web. Suddenly they want to be wired, to use Photoshop to edit their digital photos, Quicken to do their banking, and Toast to make their own CDs. If it wasn�t for the web, and all their friends asking them �what�s you email address?� most of them probably would have been happy using their computers at work and coming home to an unwired environment. These folks aren�t the Mac or Wintel faithful. They are people who want and need computers as tools and toys, useful machines to be turned on when there�s work to be done and turned off when something more important comes along.

In my experience most folks don�t really care about processor benchmarks, sustained read and write times or PCI slots. For them the computer is another appliance, a more sophisticated microwave or stereo. From what I�ve seen, most of these folks won�t use any of those PCI slots, don�t care about the difference between 10 and 1000BaseT, and wouldn�t even notice if you swapped their G4 for a G3. They make their computer buying decisions the same way they do about toasters and cars; some research, some advice taking, some common sense, some ogling of bells and whistles, and a lot of gut reaction. They look at bottom line prices rather than price versus performance, and are swayed by good advertising and artful cons.

And, most importantly, these are the folks responsible for the massive growth in computer spending in the last five years, and these are the folks who will drive that wave into the future. There are only so many people who regularly read MacNN and Slashdot. We are a minority with elevated tastes and strong opinions, and we love to argue amongst ourselves. But we aren�t the people who keep Apple and Dell afloat anymore. It is the average home user, the people I explain extensions and SCSI termination to, whom the computer industry needs to capture.

So let�s look at things from their point of view. They need a computer. They want something reasonably fast, that will last a while, and won�t be a pain in the ass to use. They are willing to do some research, but don�t want to become experts � that�s what they pay me for. Stick a top of the line Athlon and a dual 500 G4 next to them and start rattling specs, and they�ll hear a lot of the same stuff. Both machines are equally buzzword compliant, both are about as fast, and, as I�ve found non-technical types to be very forgiving of what I consider to be inferior technology and user-experience (read: Windows), both machines are about as easy to use. Given the things most people will use a computer for � email, games, checkbook, DVDs - both machines are equally as fast and equally as impressive. Both will pull 50 fps in Unreal. Both will show the Matrix full-screen letterboxed. Both can send digital pictures to grandma in Duluth.

So what will the average person notice to differentiate the two machines?

Come on � say it with me: STYLE.

That�s right. Macs look like nothing else, and Steve and Chiat Day have done a brilliant job of attaching the idea of an elevated user experience to that image. You look at a G4, or a Cube, and you see a powerful, sleek, easy to use dream machine. It isn�t just a box of circuits waiting to be turned on. It�s a lifestyle.

I�m dead serious about this. If you want an analogy, look no further than the auto industry. There is no reason for the auto industry to release a new car model every year. Most of the changes are minor � trim colors, wheel designs, five extra horsepower, half a mile a gallon more fuel efficiency. Yet people put off their purchases to wait for the new model year, and fetishize the �new car smell.� Furthermore, there hasn�t been an technological �advance� in the auto industry in the last twenty years that wasn�t thought of in the first twenty years if the car�s life. Fuel injection, overhead valves, disc brakes: all were thought of in the early parts of this century, yet all are sold as if they were the latest technology.

The auto industry has done a brilliant job of tying cars to the idea of a lifestyle, of making style more than substance. A good car, well cared for, will last twenty years, yet people regularly buy a new car every few years or so. The changes in car technology have been ancillary, related, for example, to traction control and emission reduction, and the basic design of the internal combustion engine hasn�t changed in a hundred years. The only thing to constantly evolve, and the thing we notice most, is the style of the cars, how they look, and how they make us feel. Owning a Porsche Carerra convertible says something very different than owning a Ford Mustang, despite the fact that the majority of owners will never push either car anywhere near the limits of its abilities.

But that doesn�t matter, because it�s better to do seventy on the highway in a Porsche (or Ferrari, or whatever your car choice is) than in a ten year old Dodge. This is why auto manufacturers debut a �new� model year every year despite the differences between the two years being as slight as different colors and fabrics. This is why people will pay fifteen bucks for a pair of undies with Calvin Klein�s name on them when Hanes work just as well. This is why Starbucks can charge a buck fifty for a cup of coffee, when I can make better at home for less.

This is the future of our industry, folks. As computers become more and more alike (and, with the advent of OS X, possibly even run the same OS) and as the buying population becomes less and less technically savvy, the only thing separating the winners from the losers will be looks.

Luckily for us, no computer maker manages image better than Apple. I would go so far as to say there aren�t many companies in the whole world who manage image better than Apple. Nike, Walt Disney, Coca Cola and maybe some of the big fashion houses, but that�s it. Among computer makers only Gateway comes even close, and they are strictly JV compared to Apple. What Steve Jobs has realized with the Cube (and the iMac) is that image is now everything. There was nothing technically special about the iMac � as someone pointed out here a few months ago, it was basically a Performa � but the iMac has style to spare and an image second to none. Same with the iBook, and now the Cube. technically they aren�t anything special, but their design, and the way their design is leveraged into an image, are, one more time now, all together, insanely great.

All this may offend some purists and anger some who feel that the obvious superiority of the PowerPC architecture and the Mac OS should be enough to crush the Wintel world, and I would be lying if I didn�t say part of me agrees. My experience over the last eleven years is that the Mac is a much better machine in all regards, and as long as Apple�s around I don�t see buying anything else. But I also know that my computer sensibilities are elevated when compared to most of the people I run into, and I think that, for most people, Apple is on the right track. Apple needs to leverage its design and the Macintosh experience over technology, because most people don�t care that much about technology to do any real research. I don�t think this means that Apple is in trouble, because my experience is that people who start using Macs rarely go back to Wintel machines. The user experience is too good.

I don�t think this means that Apple will fall behind in the technology wars, either. As far as I�m concerned, Apple has the technology edge over the Wintel world, and will continue to. But I do think it means that Apple will � and should � continue to introduce machines that wow people in addition to introducing leading technology. No computer maker can survive on technology alone anymore � if they could, we�d all be using NeXTs. But even though the NeXT cube was one of the best technology displays I�ve yet seen, it had no style, and it is no more. And don�t think Steve didn�t notice that.

The changes Steve has made to Apple � a simplified product line, impressive styling, focusing on Aqua�s �lickability� - all show a sensitivity to the changing face of the computer-buying universe. Steve knows we need to wow �em, to get �em in the door and make the sale before their attentions span slips. What this means for the techies is unknown at the moment, but if you feel that Apple is focusing more on image lately, your right, and you should be grateful. Because when the dust settles, and when the rest of the computer industry wakes up to this paradigm shift, many will fall, but Apple will still be standing.

[blizaine]

wow, that's a long post!

[Don Pickett]

I did warn ya.

Don

[try]

I was thinking more or less the same thing as you were. Apple has pushed it's computers totally into the stylish area. This made me jump to the conclusion that it actually wouldn't harm apple to release a intel version of osX. It would allow people to get familiar with Macos, and the next time they have/want to buy a computer they would also consider a mac more easily 'cause they already know the operating system. And then the stylish design of an apple computer is a big pro for a lot of people, as u pointed out.

That was a very well-written, well thought out post. I agree with you to a large degree. However, I do see another dynamic at work among computer newbies, and this dynamic works against Apple. To what degree the style element will counteract this, I don't know, but here it is:

People who know nothing about computers invariably do one (or both) of two things:

1. Ask computer-literate friends for recommendations.
2. Ask sales clerks at the computer store for recommendations.

I'm always amazed when I visit a CompuUSA and overhear the conversations between customer and clerk. Some of these customers know NOTHING, and are totally depenedent on what advice they get. Sometimes the advice is self-serving, ignorant, or just plain wrong.

Since most of the world uses PCs, these newbies are constantly being told to buy PCs. Even if they notice the shiny Apples, they are scared to go against the advice of their friends.

In my opinion, that trumps style considerations, unfortunately. Only when enough of their friends have Macs, will this begin to shift.

[SillyPooh]

In a word: Magnificent!

This is why Starbucks can charge a buck fifty for a cup of coffee, when I can make better at home for less.

You mind if I come over?

[Don Pickett]

You mind if I come over?

Sure, but it's one hell of a subway ride.

Don

[LY]

'People who know nothing about computers invariably do one (or both) of two things:

1. Ask computer-literate friends for recommendations.
2. Ask sales clerks at the computer store for recommendations.'

Totally agree but think price is a large factor also, Macs are still burdened w. the age old myth that
Macs cost more and software is not readily available in comparison to the pc world. So w. that belief system
in place it is no wonder that new computer purchasers gravitate towards pcs.

So how much does Apple charge Cube owners for a replacement of the outer plastic case, should it break out of warranty? Considering that they are made from the same material as eyeglasses, I would expect that they yellow with age also. I can buy flat planel speakers with a sub-woofer for 30 dollars that sound every bit as good as the Soundstcks at ten times the price. So how much extra should people pay for style. Should the next PowerBook also be button-less? I'd sure feel like a fool waving my hands over the laptop, like some Jedi Knight at the bargaining table, at the airport security checkpoint. This isn't industial (form follows function) design, but post industrial. Three years after designing a Powerbook that could house a 15" screen, and it still isn't offered, nor is a cd-rw. Apple doesn't have a business plan looking past the next couple of fiscal quarters, so you can be sure that once Apple releases a wire-less keyboard and mouse, Steveand his legacy will depart in a cloud of smoke.

Image? Speaking of image, Apple went from 15% marketshare to 3%, under Steve's new leadership. Do you think Ralph Nader is going to win the election with 4% of the vote? Get used to not being invited to the party. QuickTime has fallen behind the other technologies in all areas except content creation. No Final Cut for PC, did Macromedia keep that code from Apple, or did Apple drop the ball?

When NeXT management took over Apple, three years ago, it sold out Apple for short-term profits, and now they are going to pay the price. Of course the iMac was a success, all the clone makers were shut down !!! NeXT was a miserable company, just because Steve payed himself 300 million for it, doesn't make it worth beans. Steve paid 300 Mil for NeXT, and the management of Apple/NeXT gave him 500 million of Apple's money for making them rich. Apple has been sold out to the core, and now you can't get cd-rw drives, or three-d sound because of all the buddy-buddy-ness. How much money has Apple poured into it's next generation (more stable, enhanced GUI, etc.) OS over the past six years, and how much have they given to their CEOs during that time?

I installed OS X on my Mac, and while I was doing this, I installed 700 megs of mods, models, skins, scripts, etc., into my PC's first person shooter. At the end of the night, do you think I was downloading 32-bit icons or learning to map and bind wavefiles to my keyboard. Point is, with so much software available for the PC, PC users don't spend as much time in the OS as Mac users. You probably spend more time in your MS browser than in Apple OS anyway. Sure, a photo-realistic OS is the future, but not without software. OS X is waiting from an announcement from MS, with a ship date on a carbonized Office, and will remain 'under development' until then. Once MS is no longer considered a monoply, it won't have any reason to keep Apple around, and all it has to do is kill that one piece of software, and Apple tanks.

The future isn't looking good, over at Apple. The PC market has changed and computers are good enough for everyone except hard-core gamers, who are pushing technologies to the limits. Apple is using a chip that powers cell phones, and nobody needs a 2 gigaflopsidaisical cell phone/hand warmer. Motorola isn't interested in helping Apple:
"However, he did not detail manufacturing concerns with its processors that had been raised by Apple Computer Inc. In its most recent quarter, the computer maker had blamed a shortage of Motorola G4 processors for its lower than expected sales." (http://www.planetit.com/techcenters/docs/mobile_computing/news/PIT20001011S0028)
IBM's chip making division is running at 110% capacity. Apple had it's chance to dig it's heels in a become the premiere 'user experience' company, but decided to develop OS X for PPC. Apple OS's 3% marketshare isn't enough to get developers, and OS X is going to split the market again. There are 35 times the number of developers for Palm OS than for Mac OS. The resellers' catalogs have never been this thin in all the years (since '87) that I've been using Macs.

Style means more than watching to see what colors are in with designers. Apple was shipping brown computers before it jumped on the beige bandwagon. Apple Platinum caused alot of people to take the platform seriously. When they weren't being taken seriously anymore, they switched to eMate colors. The Classic LCD and Bondi iMac still command priemium prices because the fruit colored stuff was second guessing. The new PowerMacs sure made those blue and white machines stale overnight. Imagine a PowerBook with dark smokey translucent plastics, instead of coffee colored with a silver yo-yo power adapter (with blue and orange cable!). Think it would sell better? Two years in the making, and now sales have dropped, and all they had to do was wrap it in a new skin to get sales back. So why the wait? Because it is what Apple is counting on for sales in the first quarter, and if it came out sooner, there would be too long a void, with no new products, until OS X. This is marketing at it's worst. (Apple ordered ten 1 gig chips from Motorola for January's Stevenote, expect lots of 'OS X' speed demos.)

After the stock drop, Apple could have taken a full page ad in the Sunday Times and explained it's position and roadmap for the future. If it had one. "Just gonna get by on our looks alone."??? Everyone wants to marry a supermodel, until they find out that models think the world owes them a living just because they look good. That combined with no shame, high price-tag clothes, and 'if you don't like it, I'll find a newbie to take your place' attitude, thank goodness for the girl next store. Divorce is costly, and nobody wants to learn a new way of making love, Apple has kept some of the old timers around because of familiarity. A familiartity it is giving up with OS X. Sadly, without much new software, all the OS in the world isn't going to save Apple from reality. Why would someone buy Maya for OS X when model translators, utilites, and plug-ins are going to be lacking on the Mac side? No Mac is an island.

Today, I downloaded two programs for my PC, DivX ;-) and FlasKMPEG, which will allow me to convert DVDs to CDs, 1/11th the size, and burn movies onto cd-r. When I hand someone a movie on cd, will they care what machine it was made on, what color it was, what the os looked liked, or just that it plays on their machine? Apple took the PC-Exchange software out of their OS, go figure that one out. Apple has become the unofficial fashion consultant of the PC word. Most people would consider a fashion consultant to be a flake, and not a key decision maker.

The computing landscape is indeed changing. The computer has lost it's mystery, glamour and uniqueness. The machine has become a tool to get things done, period. Just like a hammer is a tool to drive in a nail. A good hammer is one that you don't think about while using. How much extra would you pay for a hammer that looks better? 5x, 10x? What if it only worked with special nails? What if those nails cost more and arrived late? Logic, it seems, doesn't apply to Apple purchases, and emotions are never good for one's wallet.

The 'Porsche vs. Ford Taurus' debate is over, the winner is...the two car family. It only takes one ride in a car like an NSX to realise why Porsche doesn't race anymore. I hear that they are hard at work on a mini-van to keep the company profitable, as if prices like seven hundred bucks for a set of six spark plug wires isn't enough. A Ford Taurus SHO could take a new 911 over 100 mph because it just plain poops out, but does that justify spending 50 grand extra for twin-turbos and fender flares? Handling grace works only at the racetrack, raw horsepower wins on the street. People will climb over the Porsche and NSX to look at a Viper, as raw and unpolished as it may be.

FYI- Those new LCD screen resolutions are causing major performance hits (20-30%) in PC laptops, even with "+" enhanced graphics chips.

[mac freak]

I would also have to say that one of biggest factors affecting first-time computer users is a number...

To an newbie, a computer with 1000 MHz sounds more appealing than one with 500 MHz that costs the same or more (and might just perform better). That's what everyone tells them, what everyone argues over.
"My computer has 80000 MHz!"
"So, I'm buying one that has 150,000 MHz- next month!"

They'll hear that, and assume that more "megahertz" equals "more popular" and "faster" and "better."

You could tell them that a 500 MHz Apple is as good as or better than a 1000 MHz Dell, but odds are they would not believe you. Salesman will say that "the 1000 MHz Dell over there" is the fastest thing they have, and even if you ask about an iMac or Power Mac or whatever, they'll ignore you and sell you a PC. Unless there happens to be an Apple rep at CompUSA, everyone there is completely ignorant to the Macintosh world.

And although Apple is gaining some market share back, the vast majority of new computer buyers are still buying PC's, and I don't think that it will end anytime in the near future.

Sigh...


------------------
Be Happy.

Don - excellent post.

This is an issue that needs to be front-and-center in the minds of all those trying to read the tea leaves of Apple's future.

The car analogy isn't perfect, but it's a solid one, on several levels.
Here are what I would argue are the key observations:

(1) In the very early stages of automobile technology, cars were purely functional objects. Little or no thought was put into their visual design - so little that the earliest cars were essentially just horse-drawn carriages with an engine where the horses used to be. The focus was on working out technical glitches, and (with Henry Ford) mass production. The devices were noisy, failure-prone to an extreme degree, user unfriendly (most required the driver to get out and turn a hand crank to start the engine), and the design philosophy was most cogently expressed by Ford, who famously said "You can have any color you want, so long as it's black."

(2) By the mid-fifties, all major kinks had been worked out of the tech. All cars, with the exception of the occasional blunder, worked quite well, and all had become vastly more user-friendly. No more hand cranks, much more responsive steering, much smoother suspensions, etc. Reliability was still an issue (any repair is a hassle, even if it only has to be done once or twice a year), but I would argue that around this time, the thousands of little, individual details that make up a car and that might sway a buyer into buying one were distilled into three identifiable categories:

Performance
Luxury/Comfort
Visual Style

Nothing has changed since the fifties - we've reached a steady-state, in which the industry continually mixes these three things together in varying proportions from year to year, to appeal to the constantly shifting distribution of tastes, desires and demands in the buying public. Different companies carve out different niches - some are sprawling behemoths that try to capture the largest possible fraction of the total market, while others are small and selective. Innovation still continues, but it's mostly of the "minor tweaking" variety; the industrial ecology of the auto industry is now fully mature.

(3) Performance and Luxury/Comfort were present as important selling points from the very beginning - the latter because those same qualities were also important in horse-drawn carriages, and the former because immature technology resulted in wide differences in how well things worked from car to car. But Visual Style only became important when the technology and production techniques had stabilized enough that it no longer struck people as a needless "frill". This transition, from purely functional to functional-plus-aesthetic, occurs in damn near all technologies, at least the ones we have to spend a lot of time looking at or touching.

The personal computer industry is now in that messy transitional phase in which the functional aspects begin to be taken for granted and the visual design aspects begin to be noticed. This does NOT mean that visual design will become the only relevant consideration when purchasing a computer; there will always be those who value performance more. Performance freaks fetishize speed and flexibility just as much as Aesthetes or Martha Stewart fans fetishize visual style. Both are fundamental aspects of human nature (sometimes in the same person - myself, for example!), so it's silly to think of them as being in competition. They simply coexist. By the way: arguably there is no analog of Luxury/Comfort in the computer world, at least at the moment; but there would be if sensory interfaces became common, and when they do, there will be plenty of people who value Luxury/Comfort more than Performance or Visual Style.

The bottom line is that we are moving into an era in which the visual design of personal computers (and mp3 players, handhelds, etc) just plain matters to a lot of people. Not everyone, but a lot. Certainly more than enough to keep Apple viable and thriving, if it does its job well.

So Don is absolutely right. And lucy4's analysis, in my opinion, is superficial, myopic, and in some ways just downright wrong.

<begin annoyed objections to lucy4>

You're bitching about no CDRW in the current line, in this context? That is a minor annoyance and a temporary drag on sales, not a reason for worrying about the long-term viability of the corporation. And your impuning Steve and others of "selling out" is just juvenile. From a business standpoint a CEO, indeed an entire corporation, has to be ruthless; it's simply how you survive in a competitive industrial ecology. Complain about his decisions or his taste if you want, but complaining about him being a hardass when it comes to profits is just silly. And as for interoperability of operating systems is concerned, as regards the future of OS X - have you heard of Linux, by any chance? I would argue that there's a strong probability that Linux will, under the hood, dominate the desktop OS space within 10 years. And when it does, OS X won't have anything to worry about vis-a-vis interoperability, or whether Microsoft will write them an office suite. Again, I think your analysis is superficial and short-sighted. Finally, on the subject of performance hits from high-res LCD displays: first off, these are graphics subsystem hits only; if I'm running a Photoshop filter or doing numerical simulations or compiling the kernel, am I gonna notice this? Nope. And besides, similar graphics subsystem hits were taken in going from VGA to SVGA and from SVGA to XGA; but how many people, even performance freaks, do you know who still use VGA? For the latest 3d shooter, maybe, to maximize framerate, but for everything else? It's irrelevant.

<end annoyed objections to lucy4 - not because I ran out, but because I'm tired of polluting my brain with them>

helios

Quoting myself here:

Originally posted by helios:
Performance freaks fetishize speed and flexibility just as much as Aesthetes or Martha Stewart fans fetishize visual style. Both are fundamental aspects of human nature (sometimes in the same person - myself, for example!)...

Just to clarify: I am an aesthete - not, I repeat, NOT, a Martha Stewart fan. Not that there's anything wrong with Martha Stewart fans, mind you... I'm just saying, for the record's sake... <cough>

helios

[Don Pickett]

This isn't industial (form follows function) design, but post industrial. Three years after designing a Powerbook that could house a 15" screen, and it still isn't offered, nor is a cd-rw.Apple doesn't have a business plan looking past the next couple of fiscal quarters, so you can be sure that once Apple releases a wire-less keyboard and mouse,Steveand his legacy will depart in a cloud of smoke.

It is, in fact, some of the most brilliant industrial design in the world. Just look at all the awards Apple has won in the last few years.

Apple�s business plan looks far into the future. Why else bring an entirely new OS into the picture? Because the new OS is the OS of the future. Why wack the product matrix down to five models? Because that simplifies production and frees more money and resources to make new products. If Steve wanted to make a quick buck and run he would have gutted the company, held onto the patents, and split. He didn�t.

Image? Speaking of image, Apple went from 15% market share to 3%, under Steve's new leadership. Do you think Ralph Nader is going to win the election with4% of the vote? Get used to not being invited to the party. QuickTime has fallen behind the other technologies in all areas except content creation. No Final Cutfor PC, did Macromedia keep that code from Apple, or did Apple drop the ball?

It�s hard to get good market share figures for Apple. I�ve seen everything from 3% to 11%. I split the difference and guess that the real number�s around 8%, and note that it has steadily increased under Steve�s reign. About a third of iMac buyers were new to computers or coming from the Wintel world.

Quicktime is the most popular streaming and viewing software for the web. It just had its 100 millionth download. Not exactly falling behind.

When NeXT management took over Apple, three years ago, it sold out Apple for short-term profits, and now they are going to pay the price. Of course the iMacwas a success, all the clone makers were shut down !!! NeXT was a miserable company, just because Steve payed himself 300 million for it, doesn't make itworth beans. Steve paid 300 Mil for NeXT, and the management of Apple/NeXT gave him 500 million of Apple's money for making them rich. Apple has beensold out to the core, and now you can't get cd-rw drives, or three-d sound because of all the buddy-buddy-ness. How much money has Apple poured into it'snext generation (more stable, enhanced GUI, etc.) OS over the past six years, and how much have they given to their CEOs during that time?

NeXT was a brilliant company, ten years ahead of its time. The NeXT Cube is the most impressive technology demonstration I�ve seen in the past decade, and pioneered many technologies we are only seeing come into wide acceptance today, like large removable storage, a Postscript-based imaging model, a workable *nix GUI, remarkable styling, etc. The Cube is still the desired programming machine for many serious programmers, because it�s about the best development platform ever built.

Compared to the salaries of CEOs in other industries, Steve gets pennies. I would imagine that, at a minimum, ten times as much money has gone into OS X than Steve�s pockets.

I installed OS X on my Mac, and while I was doing this, I installed 700 megs of mods, models, skins, scripts, etc., into my PC's first person shooter. At the endof the night, do you think I was downloading 32-bit icons or learning to map and bind wavefiles to my keyboard. Point is, with so much software available forthe PC, PC users don't spend as much time in the OS as Mac users. You probably spend more time in your MS browser than in Apple OS anyway. Sure, aphoto-realistic OS is the future, but not without software. OS X is waiting from an announcement from MS, with a ship date on a carbonized Office, and willremain 'under development' until then. Once MS is no longer considered a monoply, it won't have any reason to keep Apple around, and all it has to do is kill thatone piece of software, and Apple tanks.

Strange. Most of my PC friends spend countless hours in the OS, just to get things to work. I�m talking four hours just to get an external CD drive to function, and days to clean up the mess left by an installer. Wintel machines cost IT departments between US$1200 to US$2000 a year more to maintain than Macs, and, for the record, I use Netscape. IE sux.
MS just announced Office will be Carbonized. Expect it around the release date for OS X.

Killing Office wouldn�t do much to the Mac world. Killing Photoshop or Quark would really hurt, but would also kill Quark and Adobe.

The future isn't looking good, over at Apple. The PC market has changed and computers are good enough for everyone except hard-core gamers, who are pushing technologies to the limits. Apple is using a chip that powers cell phones, and nobody needs a 2 gigaflopsidaisical cell phone/hand warmer. Motorola isn'tinterested in helping Apple: "However, he did not detail manufacturing concerns with its processors that had been raised by Apple Computer Inc. In its most recent quarter, the computermaker had blamed a shortage of Motorola. . . like a hammer is a tool to drive in a nail. A good hammer is one that you don't think about while using. How much extra would you pay for a hammerthat looks better? 5x, 10x? What if it only worked with special nails? What if those nails cost more and arrived late? Logic, it seems, doesn't apply to Applepurchases, and emotions are never good for one's wallet.

Didn�t understand a word of this.

The 'Porsche vs. Ford Taurus' debate is over, the winner is...the two car family. It only takes one ride in a car like an NSX to realise why Porsche doesn't raceanymore. I hear that they are hard at work on a mini-van to keep the company profitable, as if prices like seven hundred bucks for a set of six spark plug wiresisn't enough. A Ford Taurus SHO could take a new 911 over 100 mph because it just plain poops out, but does that justify spending 50 grand extra fortwin-turbos and fender flares? Handling grace works only at the racetrack, raw horsepower wins on the street. People will climb over the Porsche and NSX tolook at a Viper, as raw and unpolished as it may be.

The day a SHO beats a Turbo to 100 mph is the day I eat my own foot. A Turbo S will pull 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds and the quarter in 11.5 at about 125 mph, stone cold stock. There will never ever be a Taurus which comes close to that. The new Turbo should do 0 to 60 in 3 seconds or less, which is what an F1 car does. Anyone who says a Turbo �poops out� after 100 has never seen one take off. At 100 mph the turbos are just starting to really spool up. From there you have two or three more gears and the meatiest part of the horsepower curve to go. Thing moves so fast you should need a pilot�s license to drive one. And, by the way, there is a reason the NSX isn�t around anymore - it was ugly, underpowered, and it didn�t sell.
Porsche is currently more profitable then its been in a while. They�re selling every Boxster and 911 they can make.

Porsche has dropped out of racing several times for different reasons. They dropped out in 1971 and 1973 because the FIA changed the rules to make the 917s illegal - no one could beat them. The 917s lost only one race in 1970 and 1971, and that was because of wheel bearing failures. They dropped out in 1987 because the 956/962, despite being the dominant Group C car of the 80s, was getting long in the tooth, and the company didn�t have the resources to develop something new. After a thorough reorganization they have cut costs and increased profits, and dropped out this time to refocus money and engineering resources on the minivan and the new 911. Porsche is a privately held company - the last privately-owned car maker in the world - and doesn�t have the capital someone like Dialmerchrysler or Audi/VW does. They have to be more judicious in their use of resources than say, Ford, which grosses billions a year.

And, besides, you missed the point. The idea was one of the premium people place on image. Owning a Turbo, or any Porsche, in the U.S. is silly. Unless you live in the middle of Montana, you will never, ever come close to stretching that car�s legs. Yet, year after year, the U.S. accounts for over half of Porsche�s production. Most Porsche owners wouldn�t know what to do at 150 mph, and most don�t care. They bought the car because they always wanted one, because owning a Porsche is important. It is an irrational, emotionally-based decision more dependent upon ideas about the products implied value than the actual product. The fact that Porsche�s are damn good cars and will last forever is an aside. It�s the fact that they are Porsches which matters.

This is where the computer industry is headed; non-techies making decisions based on style and perceived content. This is why Nike is so successful, despite the fact that they make shoes no better or worse than Adidas or Saucony or any other maker. They have the image. Apple has the image. It�s the cool, fast machine all the creative types use, the one that comes with movie making software and that amazing looking mouse, the ones that look like they�re going 100 mph standing still.

Steve�s onto something here, and I wonder when the rest of the industry will figure things out.

Don

The PowerBook G4 will be much better looking than the PB G3, so it should command a $4,500.00 price tag for it's heightened sense of style alone.

Something to keep in mind here, I think, is that the U.S. is, on average, a bit stodgy when it comes to visual style. Beige is still very, very big in the midwest. The kind of design Apple is now producing (streamlined, translucent/transparent, highly colored, futuristic forms) is most popular along the two coasts, and (to some extent) in larger inland metropoli like Chicago, and in college towns. So at the moment Apple does not have full "access" to the market precisely because of their flamboyant visual style, and this will definitely limit their growth in the short term. And Apple's not the only one with this "problem" - Ikea furniture, Armani suits, Starbucks coffee, and Porsche roadsters are all similarly afflicted.

So a large portion of the population is just not gonna appreciate Apple's style. Hence the high density of objections/scoffing/flames about Apple products being overpriced, fancy-schmantzy doo-dads. The same people would say the same things about Ikea furniture, Armani suits, Starbucks coffee, and Porsche roadsters. But last time I checked, all of these were thriving business concerns, and in the end, that's all that matters.

Of course, if they become sufficiently popular in their chosen niche, they might at some point want to try to become much "bigger" - by going more aggressively for the lower end of the market, or the more visually conservative - but they don't have to do so in order to survive.
And in fact this is another endemic fallacy in many Wintel/Mac flame wars, that somehow Apple's deepest wish is to take over the whole personal computing world, a Mac on every desktop, and if that doesn't happen it will mean that Apple has failed. This is simply wrong - maybe at one time, back in the '80s, Apple might have harbored such ambitions, but I don't think so anymore. Steve, for one, is older, wiser, and much less
enamored of the ability of computing technology to "change the world".
(See the interview with him from Feb'96 in Wired magazine - http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//4.02/jobs.html)

What will their market share be in 5 years? 10 years? I don't know. But in a sense it really does not matter, as long as the platform remains viable, and that has been essentially guaranteed by the move to the *nix-based OS X. As long as the platform remains viable, Apple can continue to produce cool stuff, and people like me, who like how that stuff looks, feels and behaves, will be quite happy to buy it. And so the cycle of commerce continues.

Finally, one last thing - there is an undercurrent, in a lot of the scoffing I hear/read about Apple's products, a subtext, that the speaker/writer feels that visual design is somehow a trivial thing - not only worthless in the end, but also easy to do, the implication being that one of these days Dell or Gateway will suddenly decide that they too will make some "cool stuff", and when that happens, Apple will be brushed aside like a dried-up leaf in the path of a level 5 tornado.

So why hasn't it happened yet? Because design is hard; talent is thin on the ground, and high-level business executives with the good taste to find it and give it the green light are even thinner. The few iMac clones that dribbled forth from the Wintel world were/are visual embarrassments. They suck eggs. They make me wince in pain to even glance in their general direction.

I'd give pretty good odds that it will be at least 3 years, and possibly 5, before Apple has any competition to speak of in the visual design space. And by that time, the Apple brand, and Apple style, will be healthily entrenched in the public consciousness, and the additional competition will not be life-threatening. (Does the Dodge Viper take a few sales away from Porsche? Yes. Enough to put Porsche under, or even seriously hurt them? No.)

Originally posted by Careful What You Wish For:
The PowerBook G4 will be much better looking than the PB G3, so it should command a $4,500.00 price tag for it's heightened sense of style alone.

Are you serious, or was this supposed to be sarcasm?

A new case design alone will not move the price at all. Count on it. (Especially after the Cube miscalculation.) The premium we're paying for style is already built into the price of the Powerbooks. The current PBs are at least $500 more expensive than Wintel notebooks with similar performance/features.

If it was meant to be sarcasm... well, I guess we can count you in the "I don't give a rat's ass about style" camp, can't we? Fine. Duly noted. So what? It means you're not one of the people the product is aimed at. This is no great tragedy - for you or for Apple. So the sarcasm doesn't have much bite, does it?

[jholmes]

Gee Don, do you have to write 20,000 words to get in on this thread?

Raymond Lowey proved years ago that good design would sell better. It's when style becomes more important than the product that the problems start.
Apple must solve its production problems with Motorola and get back in the "mhz race". Marketing guys all know that there is no truth. There is only perception and Apple has to solve this perceived difference if they are to succeed in the short term to even need a long term strategy.
I think that only when computers become true commodity items will style win out as the consumer's chief purchasing decision. To me that's where your car analogy really fits. If you're looking for a four door sedan you'll see if you like the looks of the Taurus better than the Camry. The style of the Porsche doesn't enter into it since it doesn't fit the category.

Apple's biggest hurdle is that to many consumers they are the Porsche. If they want to win the four door sedan buyers (the Wintel PC crowd) they must be seen as just as utilitarian, with equal or better performance and let style justify the premium price. After all there were a lot of Camry buyers who suddenly found room in their pocket books for a cool Lexus sport sedan.

This situation leads to two long term problems: While the machines may have many similar components internally, the fact that the systems use those componets differently only tends to confuse the buying public. Chiat Day's best and brightest can do really cool takes on telling the world that a 500mhz Mac is as fast as an 800mhz Athlon powered PC - but doesn't play in Peoria. The public won't pay higher prices for lower numbers. And you've really got to be into the research to get into the benchmarks that prove otherwise. So far repositioning the battleground to gigaflops instead of mhz hasn't worked. Apple has to make this a level playing field in the consumer's mind.

Secondly, is the user experience with both hardware and software. Once OSX starts coming on the Cubes and whatever form factor happens to the next generation of iMacs and PowerBooks, Apple may find iteslf in real trouble - a machine that looks and acts ten years ahead of the competition, but that the general buying public doesn't perceive as running as fast or as much software as the biege box Gateway machine they can get for $29 a month with free internet service. They think that way. General Motors sells millions of extremely ordinary cars.

But as far as style goes I'm with you. The Cube is jaw dropping gorgeous. When I saw one live, next to the 15 inch flat screen, my first thought was "Oh, so this is what computers will look like in the 21st century".
I said the same thing about OSX. The look and feel difference between the Apple machines of 2001 and those in the Wintel arena will be as big as when they were pitting System 6 Mac IIcxs against 286s running DOS.

I just hope we can win it this time around.

[This message has been edited by jholmes (edited 10-15-2000).]

[Don Pickett]

You don't hafta write 20,000 words, but it seems to be a topic which brings out the verbosity in folks.

I agree with you that Apple has to have near equal MHz numbers to remain competitive, and I think that we will see Motorola start to ship 700 MHz G4s soon, or they will no longer be Apple's main chip supplier. I said in my first post that I expect Apple to remain one of the technology leaders, and I mean that. I don't think the problem with the Motorola G4s is a long-term one, but more along the lines of the Pentium's that couldn't add. The problem will be rectified.

As for the Taurus/Camry analogy, I think helios hit it on the head when (s)he said that Apple is the Porsche of the market. I think that's right - Apple makes mid- and high-end machines for mid- and high-end use. Yes, there are US$799 iMacs, but the specs are pretty good. I think Apple will remain a viable force in the computing industry, and perhaps the market share will grow some more, but I don't think they'll ever have anything like 30% market share, which is okay. They've made it this far with what they have. I don't expect to see a Mac on every desk, but I have to say that the coming of OS X will probably change the computing landscape in ways we can't imagine.

An aside. Anyone know the breakdown of other companies? I know how Apple comapres to the Wintel world as a whole, but that's like saying that Porsche only won X races last year when every other car manufacturer won more. What is Gateway's market share? Dell's? Compaq's? Could make for some interesting numbers.

Secondly, is the user experience with both hardware and software. Once OSX starts coming on the Cubes and whatever form factor happens to the next generation of iMacs and PowerBooks, Apple may find iteslf in real trouble - a machine that looks and acts ten years ahead of the competition, but that the general buying public doesn't perceive as running as fast or as much software as the biege box Gateway machine they can get for $29 a month with free internet service. They think that way. General Motors sells millions of extremely ordinary cars.

Perhaps. I think it will depend on how good OS X doesn when 1.0 hits the streets. Remember, there is a largely painless Classic layer in there, so everyone will be able to run their old software, just like 680x0 emulation when the PowerPCs first hit. OS X is an interesting gamble for Apple,and there's nothing to do about it until it releases. Personally, I've read too many other people's opinions on it, and I'm not reading another one until I've been running it for a while and have some opinions of my own.

And, helios, good point about the difficulty of good industrial design. There is so much crap out there that the really good stuff - like the Cube - really stands out.

Don

Originally posted by jholmes:
Gee Don, do you have to write 20,000 words to get in on this thread?

Uh... I think part of that dig was directed at moi, so I shall make a concerted effort to be brief this time.

Raymond Lowey proved years ago that good design would sell better. It's when style becomes more important than the product that the problems start.

Yeah, agreed - but Apple is no danger of reaching that state anytime soon, even with the ongoing Motorola nightmare. Steve is a hardware geek as well as a design fanatic. In the Wired interview I linked to above, he talks about the joy he and his family got out of using a certain washing machine - which no doubt was quite attractive visually, but what was really beautiful about the machine was the way it worked, and the way it interfaced with the users. To use a silly analogy: there is outer beauty (visual design) and there is inner beauty (how it works/behaves). I think Steve wants his stuff to be beautiful inside as well as out, so I'm not at all worried that the inner, functional aspects will be forgotten.

Apple's biggest hurdle is that to many consumers they are the Porsche. If they want to win the four door sedan buyers (the Wintel PC crowd) they must be seen as just as utilitarian, with equal or better performance and let style justify the premium price.

Two points: (1) They may not want to win the four-door sedan buyers; and (2) there are a lot of sports car buyers in the Wintel crowd too (the folks who plump for top-of-the-line cpus, 10k-rpm harddrives in a RAID array, 3d cards with 64MB ram, etc). The weird thing about the Wintel performance freaks is that they don't seem to care at all about visual design, at this point in time. I would argue this is unnatural, and is bound to change. True, a lot of people do go for "stealth cars" - high performance vehicles in plain brown wrappers (either heavily modified stock sedans, or, more recently, models which are actually built as stealth cars from the git-go, e.g. the Audi S4), but there are even more folks who like a little visual pizzazz with their performance (Porsche etc). There is, at this point in time, no analog of Porsche in the Wintel hardware world. This will change - but when, I don't know.

Chiat Day's best and brightest can do really cool takes on telling the world that a 500mhz Mac is as fast as an 800mhz Athlon powered PC - but doesn't play in Peoria.

Absolutely right. In some places, style is just a damn hard sell.

... Apple may find iteslf in real trouble - a machine that looks and acts ten years ahead of the competition, but that the general buying public doesn't perceive as running as fast or as much software as the biege box Gateway machine they can get for $29 a month with free internet service. They think that way. General Motors sells millions of extremely ordinary cars.

Well, yeah... but the new VW Beetle has been a phenomenal hit, in spite of costing thousands of dollars more than plainer-looking cars with similar performance/features. Have they sold as many as Honda has sold Civics? No. But that's ok. For toodling around town, the Beetle has plenty of performance, and a surprising number of folks have been willing to fork over the extra few k for its stunning good looks.

I think OS X will actually help sell the hardware - the more the stuff looks like it dropped in from the future, the better it will be able to make a performance shortfall irrelevant - at least for those who like the visual style. Those who don't like the style aren't going to buy it anyway, with or without OS X.

But as far as style goes I'm with you. The Cube is jaw dropping gorgeous. When I saw one live, next to the 15 inch flat screen, my first thought was "Oh, so this is what computers will look like in the 21st century".
I said the same thing about OSX. The look and feel difference between the Apple machines of 2001 and those in the Wintel arena will be as big as when they were pitting System 6 Mac IIcxs against 286s running DOS.

Right! And this is a very good thing.

I just hope we can win it this time around.

But this is not necessarily what Apple is trying to do. We Mac fanatics get a real kick out of mythologizing our struggles in epic terms (Apple is good, Wintel is evil, and it's a battle to the death, winner take all), but I don't think that actually reflects the reality anymore. In 1985, yeah; but now? I don't think it's about one side or the other "winning"; I think it's about Apple carving out a nice, healthy niche for itself in which it can thrive indefinitely. That niche may only have 15% market share, but would that really bother you?

By the way, while we're on the subject of Apple's visual style - I came across a rumor recently (can't remember where) that the British design firm Marc Newson Ltd. has been hired to design Apple's upcoming chain of retail stores - apparently this fact was mentioned/claimed in a recent issue of International Design Magazine. Now I know this is pure rumor, but at least it's on topic. Anyway, check out the Newson site - they do some really cool stuff: http://www.marc-newson.com

Just thought of an impromptu poll: how much do y'all think good design is worth?

In choosing a machine I really like the looks of, over something with equivalent performance which is visually neutral (beige box), here are my responses to various price differentials:

10%: fine, no problem
20%: okay
30%: borderline; a dilemma
40%: too much

I'd be willing to bet that these responses are not far off the "typical" ones, i.e of people whose desire for style and financial means are both "moderate". (My own desire for style is extreme, but this is largely cancelled out by the sad state of my bank account.)

How much is style worth to you - where it counts, in your pocketbook?

[Don Pickett]

Well, yeah... but the new VW Beetle has been a phenomenal hit, in spite of costing thousands of dollars more than plainer-looking cars with similar performance/features.

I LOVE the new Beetle. I am much more likely, in the real world (wherver that may be) to buy a new Beetle than I am a Porsche Turbo. I guess we know which side of the design yes/design no divide I fall on. Must bee the Virgo in my chart.

As for the price differential I'm willing to pay, it isn't quite that simple, because I think the superior design of the Mac makes it work better, which is the whole poing of industrial design - form follows function and both are beautiful.

To answer the question, I'd say that it depends on what I'm buying. If I'm buying something small and simple - let's say a new teapot - then I'm not willing to pay that much more. I will look for good design, but of teapot A looks good and costs US$15, and teapot B looks amazing and costs US$30, I might go for teapot B and spend the extra US$15. If teapot B costs US$75, then forget it. If I'm buying something more expensive, like a stereo, I become even more elastic on price. If stereo A costs US$800 and looks okay, and stereo B costs US$1100, has the same features, and looks amazing, I'll probably go for it. I figure, hey, the thing's gonna be around for a while and I'll have to look at it every day, so why not spend the extra cash. It's not just how much more things cost, it's also how big that differential is and what I will use them for.

I pay attentiont to design - just the way I am. Some people don't. But I think most people do at some level, and we all respond to the idea of "lifestyle" which is bundled witu the products we buy. Back to the Porsche thing - would I ever drive it at its max? No. But it's still a Porsche. . .

Don

Lets put it this way....

When I first saw the iMac, I started saving money.

When they came out in colors, I stopped saving and had 'em up the limit on my credit card. Had to have one.

When I saw the Cube, same thing - "i want i want i want i want" and i started saving. When the cube comes with OS X and a Raedon card, i will max out the credit card again.

So - question: where is apple coming from and going to

Answer: right at me!!!!!

Am i the normal PC buying Camry drivin public ... god i hope not.

Is there a future for apple - I doubt i can keep them in business by myself, but i imagine there are still several million people who "think different" - like style - want the OS to make sense - hate windows - try to be creative - etc, etc, etc - you know who we are.

Don Pickett:
I LOVE the new Beetle.

Same here. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that there is a very high correlation between those who like the Beetle and those who like iMacs and iBooks. Both are clean, curvy, and playful, and both bring to mind "toy" more than "tool". But I know people who hate both - they don't like the fact that they look like toys. In both cars and computers, they want something that looks stern, serious, and functional.

Same thing with Ikea - myself, I love it, but I know others who think it looks cheap, flimsy, and "not serious".

So it's not just style in general that Apple's going for - it's a particular kind of style, and it seems to be a style that polarizes people (you either love it or hate it). I wonder whether this has hurt, or at least limited, Apple's sales more than they intended.