The real story here about Apple is at the end of the article (that is if you noticed to click through to page 2 of it).
"Still, it seems that many people are going to keep loving Apple no matter what, and getting hurt when the company acts to make money rather than loving them back. And, as it turns out, those rumors about 10.6.2 not working on Atom chips might not be true after all! Fall in love all over again."
Apple's marketing trust isn't a bunch of marketers, rather a bunch of psychologists. No one has ventured to write in-depth about this yet, maybe I'll get around to it one day. Apple accomplished two things with this latest action and I'll quickly explain both below.
This is only ONE example of Apple marketing vs. psychology and I will keep it relevant to the article:
- Steve Jobs has said before that Apple doesn't seek to create markets or chase them.
Point and case regarding netbooks: Steve Jobs said on the quarterly earnings call a little over a year ago that "not a lot of them are getting sold" (which is debatable) BUT then admitted that Apple is going to "wait and see" how the category evolves and "we've got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve."
So, on that note, the psychology behind the OSX update that could have eliminated the popular atom chip support in netbooks, potentially locking out a bunch of netbook owners from updating the OS or face inoperable computers...
It has been a year and netbooks (which is now just a buzzword since they are really a recycle of selling smaller screen laptops that fell out of favor and are now made more lightweight and with hardware that isn't overkill for the general population) are popping up like crazy appear to be selling like hotcakes.
Apple knows that OSX is being installed on these and I'm sure keep an eye on all the posts about how to do it and watch the comments on those posts and other forums. I'm sure just how Google monitors search term popularity, Apple does the same for things they are watching.
So, one year later, how do you test the temperature of the market for OSX on netbooks? Indirectly threaten the entire market by potentially not supporting the processors that run them and watch the reaction.
The second thing accomplished by this was what Apple seems to do that I have not seen any other company pull off so frequently: create controversy and then have people fall in love with you again. I don't need to list all the examples from just the last two years alone, I know you know them. Not only could they test and measure the reaction of possibly shutting netbook users out, but then come back to be the hero and give back what was almost taken away. Reaction goes from angry (without merit in my opinion) to "oh thank God" "whew" "thank you Apple".
Hopefully I'm making sense up there. Just wanted to bring the topic up and hear your thoughts as well.
The Atom "problem" showed up in a developer build which would not give Apple any kind of accurate measure of a potential netbook market (ADC members are not representative of the general public, I think it's safe to say). Measuring public reaction would be useless as well as Apple is aware of how easy it is to generate an absurd amount of misguided outrage. Even ignoring those two points, the problem wasn't even blogged about until the day before the following update which apparently doesn't have the same problem (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/11/04/rumors-of-disabled-intel...).
So, if that was their plan it was a horrible idea with bad execution.
To add to your point; the Apple rumor sites spend so much time taking small bits of information (e.g. a developer release is reported to not work on Atom processors) and creating a whole story out of it. This is kinda insane.
Look, Apple likes the profit margin. They are very fiscal minded (witness that Apple rumor sites report on GAAP changes). Netbooks do not make the money laptops make and Apple is still selling a lot of laptops.
I actually don't think they care that much about individual power users creating netbook hackintoshes. Remember how everyone freaked about the TPM chips in the original Intel Macs? That "threat" never materialized.
Over the last year Netbooks have grown, but at the expense of laptops. Is Apple the sort of company that would cannibalize their laptop sales in favor of a user experience that people don't like?
And to what end? Their netbook-less laptop lineup is growing faster than netbooks are.
perhaps you refer to the "mac people" as there is at least one of us out here who "likes" the asus netbook he typed this with and uses every day, and LOVES.
But everyone I know that has purchased a netbook and doesn't know an Atom from Adam has been disappointed. (None of them own Macs, btw) I also noted Michael Dell's recent admission that most netbook purchasers are chasing a price point and are disappointed in short order. So I feel it's a fair opinion, not limited to 'mac people'.
I'd be very interested to see proper customer satisfaction surveys though.
My netbook is without a doubt the best computing purchase I've made in the last 5 years. It's absolutely perfect for what it's designed to do, be a low power, super portable, ultra-cheap mini-laptop.
I use it in meetings, on the train, in coach seats on the plane (with room for a mouse on those tiny trays), out in the park. It's so stupid small and lightweight I basically just pack into my backpack even if I don't plan to use it. It's never let me down, and done exactly what I've asked of it. I'm not trying to run Crysis on it, but it surfs webpages fine (even Wave runs pretty okay on it), loads all my Office Apps, plays music, let's me compose music if I want. I can even do some lightweight programming on it. Basically all the stuff I want to do in a pinch but never do because carrying a laptop (even a 13") is just too heavy and cumbersome.
The only thing that would make me stop using it is if they came out with a version with a flip screen I could turn into a 9" tablet pc for maybe $50 more.
Plus it fit's into every hotel safe I've ever tried.
You could add to your (self-answering) question "...would cannibalize their laptop sales..." the phrase: "...and that has perhaps 1/3 the profit margin?"
Apple's decision making looks to me more like (as with the MB Air), "can we develop a high-margin product that will draw NEW (ex-Windows) customers (and maybe some wowee press coverage)?"
I don't think there's anything particularly far-fetched about what you're saying. The tactic is so common that there are at least two well-known idioms for it: "trial balloon" and "run it up the flagpole (to see who salutes)".
It would make sense to slip potentially controversial things into ADC releases, knowing that if they are controversial then word will leak out to the bloggerati. Then, when controversy erupts, you have plausible deniability ("it was just a bug") and you can slip another developer release out the door as soon as you sense some backlash.
It would make sense to slip potentially controversial things into ADC releases, knowing that if they are controversial then word will leak out to the bloggerati. Then, when controversy erupts, you have plausible deniability ("it was just a bug") and you can slip another developer release out the door as soon as you sense some backlash.
Never attribute to malice, that which can be adequately explained by indifference.
"Still, it seems that many people are going to keep loving Apple no matter what, and getting hurt when the company acts to make money rather than loving them back. And, as it turns out, those rumors about 10.6.2 not working on Atom chips might not be true after all! Fall in love all over again."
Apple's marketing trust isn't a bunch of marketers, rather a bunch of psychologists. No one has ventured to write in-depth about this yet, maybe I'll get around to it one day. Apple accomplished two things with this latest action and I'll quickly explain both below.
This is only ONE example of Apple marketing vs. psychology and I will keep it relevant to the article: - Steve Jobs has said before that Apple doesn't seek to create markets or chase them. Point and case regarding netbooks: Steve Jobs said on the quarterly earnings call a little over a year ago that "not a lot of them are getting sold" (which is debatable) BUT then admitted that Apple is going to "wait and see" how the category evolves and "we've got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve."
So, on that note, the psychology behind the OSX update that could have eliminated the popular atom chip support in netbooks, potentially locking out a bunch of netbook owners from updating the OS or face inoperable computers...
It has been a year and netbooks (which is now just a buzzword since they are really a recycle of selling smaller screen laptops that fell out of favor and are now made more lightweight and with hardware that isn't overkill for the general population) are popping up like crazy appear to be selling like hotcakes.
Apple knows that OSX is being installed on these and I'm sure keep an eye on all the posts about how to do it and watch the comments on those posts and other forums. I'm sure just how Google monitors search term popularity, Apple does the same for things they are watching.
So, one year later, how do you test the temperature of the market for OSX on netbooks? Indirectly threaten the entire market by potentially not supporting the processors that run them and watch the reaction.
The second thing accomplished by this was what Apple seems to do that I have not seen any other company pull off so frequently: create controversy and then have people fall in love with you again. I don't need to list all the examples from just the last two years alone, I know you know them. Not only could they test and measure the reaction of possibly shutting netbook users out, but then come back to be the hero and give back what was almost taken away. Reaction goes from angry (without merit in my opinion) to "oh thank God" "whew" "thank you Apple".
Hopefully I'm making sense up there. Just wanted to bring the topic up and hear your thoughts as well.