Apple Reports Yet Another Stellar Quarter
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 19th Oct 2009 21:43 UTC
Apple It's getting a little bit predictable, but Apple has reported yet another stellar set of quarterly financial results. The company has sold more Macs and iPhones than the same quarter last year, but sales of the iPod were down compared to the same quarter last year. Profits and gross-margins were also up.
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RE[4]: Comment by Tony Swash
by alcibiades on Tue 20th Oct 2009 12:10 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by Tony Swash"
alcibiades
Member since:
2005-10-12

.....One answer I have seen on many occasions, and your comment is an example of it, is that it is essentially all just a marketing trick. That Apple somehow hypnotises enough people into buying stuff they don't really want or need and that there are plenty of superior non-Apple alternatives that if only people weren't hypnotised by the marketing they would be buying instead. My answer to that is that its rubbish....


I don't think that either. I think what people are buying is OSX, and what they are being sold as the price of it, is hardware which is no more integrated than anyone elses, and which is mostly not very well fitted to the users real needs, being mostly rather eccentrically configured systems with too little cooling, too little disk, poor graphics, not a lot of memory, but humongous processors. This is why Hackintoshes are perceived as a threat. They offer just as integrated hardware but in more rational and cost effective configurations. This marketing stance is tied into what I call 'cult marketing', as we are about to see.

..the total experience that people get from using Apple kit. Its to do with the way that Apple kit looks and feels, its to do with the way in which Apple kit is designed and works, its to do with the integration of hardware and software, its to do with the pleasure of the Apple Store retail experience, its to do with all the added value and cleverness of the bundled iLife suit and of the App store. etc etc

The fact of the matter is that lots of techy and non-techy consumers purr with pleasure when exposed to the experience of using Apple kit. It makes them feel good, and clever and creative and safe in a way that Windows/Rim/Nokia/ stuff just doesn't.


Yes, the psychological boost which cult membership gives is enormous. But that is what it is. Scientologists feel the same way. The passage is a good illustration of it. It is feelings directed to a particular company and a set of consumer products it makes which would be more appropriate directed to quite other objects, human or spiritual. I am not trying to be unpleasant about it, though this will probably not be very nice to read. But that is what it looks like from outside.

I used to be on the inside too, and I left. So I know what I'm talking about. It looks very different depending where you are standing. And once you are out, you'll never go back.

Well, to add something. You will still walk down the street feeling good. But it will be because its a nice day, you feel in tune with God, you are in love, you are going sailing, its Christmas, you got a bonus, your child has just hugged you. But it won't be because of the consumer products you own.

Edited 2009-10-20 12:17 UTC

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