“The Meanings of Googliness” and “The Meanings of Appleiness“.
The sad thing is not that this is apparently a thing – no, the sad thing is that people actually believe this to be true. If you believe Apple and Google really care about you as a user, you’ve already lost the battle.
http://youtu.be/ZKdB0BBFQWA
I prefer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmgice3ieZ4#t=22
No, really guys..!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhHCcUnm4SI&list=PLG60CR__0a0XmS9dj6…
These articles aren’t about the user, even if they are serious (which I doubt for the Apple article). They’re statements about company culture, which (in my limited experience) is not consistent throughout the company, and does not necessarily concern itself with the user (some companies choose to make that the case).
That said, people do need to be careful with their trust.
Edited 2013-08-13 23:26 UTC
I think you may be thinking about this the wrong way. You may be thinking about this as if a large corporation was a person, as if you can use words like ‘care’ in the same way that you would when speaking about a person, a ‘good’ person cares and ‘bad’ person does not, as if it was a reflection of some sort of moral trait.
What’s really being discussed here is a corporate culture and business models. We all know that companies in similar lines of business can operate in very different ways, one can have appalling customer care and quality control and one can have excellent customer care and quality control. And both strategies can be successful as business strategies, both can make money, and of course the converse is true, both can be failing strategies.
Consider Apple retail. Although almost universally dismissed as it’s inception the Apple retail strategy has proven very successful at deploying a widely accessible point of retail, service and customer care contact to many millions of people. Lots of similar retail chains, including some in the tech sector, also do the same thing. But Apple chose to do it somewhat differently. They decided to go for stylish, roomy welcoming places dedicated to letting customers play with Apple kit with almost no pressure from staff (I have never been approached in an Apple store by any member of staff asking of they could help me), the Apple retail space itself feels pleasant to be in (it looks very good, stuff isn’t crammed in, there’s lots of space, there are free lectures anybody can sit in on), help is available from a real person sitting across a bench and focussed on what you need help with, and Apple seem to go out of their way to take the paperwork and hassle out of replacing or swapping purchases, getting things fixed. None of that is a result of Apple being good or bad, it’s a business strategy, it’s intended to make Apple customers feel good and come back for more. It works spectacularly successfully as a retail operation.
The point of that exposition of the Apple approach to to retail was to demonstrate that a company can choose one approach or another, both are designed to make money, but one can have as part of it’s money making strategy the aim of making me feel really good about interacting with it. That’s real, that’s not some sort of wishy washy stuff about the innate goodness or badness of a company. It’s just that some companies make you feel like shit but succeed because they sell you stuff the cheapest, or are the easiest to buy from, and some aim at a quality customer and product experience.
I think Apple does have a corporate character (a combination of corporate culture and business strategy), just like Microsoft or Samsung have specific and different corporate characters, and I really like how as a customer the Apple character makes me feel. Google has a corporate character but I am not a customer of Google and most people who interact with Google services are not customers of Google, most of Google’s customers buy advertising. Almost none of the interactions anybody has with Google involve interacting with any person, and most people use Google services because they are free and they very convenient or very useful. If you are interested in very useful free stuff, and who isn’t, Google delivers good stuff. But it doesn’t make me feel as good as interacting with Apple and it’s products do.
So to come back to your point Thom, yes I do think that some companies, including Apple, do care about me as their customer, that’s a reflection of their business and product strategy and it is intended to make money in a particular way, but nevertheless I like experiencing that care. I have interacted with other companies who clearly don’t give a shit about me, that’s a different business strategy, and I prefer the Apple way.
People see faces in clouds and cliff faces (that is not Mount Rushmore or the Buddha caves).
Google puts up interviews and talks with authors and scientists and comedians that has nothing to do with the products they sell (apart from the deliberate plugs).
The point being is you can point to anything and make it look like a meaningful interaction. What you claim is Apple’s personal interaction, I see it as people selling you stuff.
The bottom line is all corporate interactions is about selling you stuff and keeping you buying.
I may be a nerd with no social skills, but even I recognize inauthentic interaction/sincerity.
[q
People see faces in clouds and cliff faces (that is not Mount Rushmore or the Buddha caves).
Google puts up interviews and talks with authors and scientists and comedians that has nothing to do with the products they sell (apart from the deliberate plugs).
The point being is you can point to anything and make it look like a meaningful interaction. What you claim is Apple’s personal interaction, I see it as people selling you stuff.
The bottom line is all corporate interactions is about selling you stuff and keeping you buying.
I may be a nerd with no social skills, but even I recognize inauthentic interaction/sincerity. [/q]
I think I may not have made my point clearly enough. I totally agree that what I see as a pleasant, enabling, supportive, accessible and helpful interaction with staff at an Apple retail outlet is just a system for selling me stuff. So what? I still prefer it to an interaction with a company that is unpleasant, difficult, unhelpful and tedious. Both approaches stem from a company’s overall culture and way of doing business. Sometimes the bits of the character of a company that I interact with are the result of nobody giving a shit in the company, sometimes it’s the result of someone most definitely giving a shit in the company, in the latter case really giving a shit can still lead to unpleasant, difficult, unhelpful and tedious interactions if it flows from that company’s particular and very planned business strategy.
So some companies have a business strategy and deliberately engineered corporate culture that make me feel good interacting with them and using their products, some are the opposite. I prefer the first.
The “so what” is that you say a corporate character exists, but if it’s a facade, then it doesn’t really exist. The character of a person, or a corporation, is about what they are, not what face they put on. If a person/corporation puts up a face that is designed to get stuff from you, then that character is what we call “sociopath”.
Bingo.
You’re basically saying “I know I’m being lied to and paying 40% margins but hey, they’re nice to me so it’s okay!”
Imagine any actual person in your life acting like that. You’d be pissed off, and maybe even distance yourself from him/her, right?
Oh dear Thom, not your rabid bias again. You must get really angry when you go to the supermarket. “No Tesco you’re lying to me and charging me 50% markup! You’re not my friend anymore!”
Apple is not a person. Google is not a person. Why are you so fixated on trying to liken them to people?
Both companies are there to squeeze maximum profit from their customers. Apple does it by charging premium prices for hardware, Google does it by making the hardware the commodity and delivering advertising to you for the life of the product.
Neither of those people should be your friend. Just use the products that you like and stop obsessing.
Edited 2013-08-14 16:23 UTC
Very close. Now connect the dots. From the teaser:
“If you believe Apple and Google really care about you as a user, you’ve already lost the battle.”
It depends whether paying 40% mark-up is important to you? It depends whether them pretending to be nice to you vs actually being nice is important.
I regularly give a 20% tip down a local tapas bar because I like food and the staff are friendly, I am sure it to get my custom again. I give them a nice tip and I get better treatment down there as a well tipping customer. I get what I want nice food and service and they get a little extra on the side.
I know what the deal is, it doesn’t matter.
Edited 2013-08-14 17:46 UTC
Then maybe next time tip 40% extra for Apple sales and devs rather then Carl Icahn?
Oh it an OSNEWS commenter who does the “Lets forget the overall point and concentrate on specifics”.
Comes down to this:
Apple tries to create great stuff and treat you as a person so you would spend money on their products.
Google creates great stuff so you would use it, so they could analyse you and your behavior, and sell “you”. (read: advertisement)
I’m starting to dislike Google more and more to be honest, and have been looking at paid alternatives or setting up services myself. It all started with Google Reader being abandoned, probably because it was too much of a niche target group using it. So they shut down the “great” RSS reader. I switched to Newsblur and gladly pay for it. I know I am the customer. Just like with Apple – they have to keep ME happy if they want me to return. Sure, some lock-ins are attached – intentionally or just because it’s convenient or impossible any other way – but their main goal is keeping me happy, not some advertiser.
Gmail is one of the last things I can’t get rid of. I know Fastmail, but contact and calendar sync is missing, which is my main problem with this service. Yes I use Apple products, but their cloud products are FAR from perfect. I also don’t want to end up in just another vendor lock-in for important things like mail, contacts and calendar, so I tend to skip their “iCloud” mail and contact stuff. I want to be able to switch to something new and better when it comes along. Maybe not now (although I like what MS did on their phones), but maybe in a few years? One can only dream
I don’t think Apple is any better, they’re just better at hiding this stuff.
If you’ve got a spare machine to use as a server you can just set up an ownCloud-server, it supports CalDav and CardDav for syncing contacts and calendar, plus you get cloud storage in addition to those. You’ll still need a separete e-mail account, but that’s easy to solve. I do not know of any good e-mail services that also offer CalDav and CardDav, though; I subscribe to Runbox.com for my e-mail needs and they said they’re planning to introduce CalDav and CardDav at a later date, but they haven’t done that yet and there is no date set for it.
If you don’t want to run a server of your own then I really have no good suggestions to offer :/
Translation: you get the warm-fuzzies from their marketing & customer service, which Apple can easily afford due to their obscene markups. Shit, Apple might as well just start hiring Mormon missionaries to staff their stores – they both rely on the same “flirt & convert” tactic.
Reality check: you are nothing to Apple but a wallet that happens to have some fleshy mass attached – if you think Apple (or any other large corporation) cares about you beyond that, then you’re deluding yourself.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?569624
It quite simple; people buy into Apple’s dream not their products.
Edited 2013-08-14 20:23 UTC
Yep, and Apple was one of the first tech companies to jump on the “lifestyle marketing” bandwagon – “if it works for Anheuser-Busch, why won’t it work for us?”
Edited 2013-08-16 10:40 UTC
For the same reasons religion never appealed to me, neither did fanboyism. Little did I realize at the time that they could serve interchangeably. Creepy.
Excellent point.
Traditionally religion was concerned with questions of the ultimate foundations of reality and of ultimate truth. That being a fanboy is interchangeable with religion is not so much a comment on beliefs about big questions, which are just as pertinent as ever, it is that no one really asks them now.
Religion and fanboy become interchangeable when both become nothing more than ways of announcing an affiliation.
Edited 2013-08-14 18:08 UTC
I’m wishing for bad thing to happen to both companies.
I’m reminded of the Simpsons episode where they are adding Poochy the talking Dog to the Itchy and Scratchy show.
I recognize that “don’t be evil” is literally the lowest possible standard.
Apple: You will PAY for our walled garden!
Google: You can’t pay enough to remove the ads!
Neither company is a charity, then again most charities aren’t either.
These are just two blogs talking about the corporate culture and their supposed core values for employees.
Seriously this is perfectly normal and doesn’t mean the author of these two blog pieces are sheep.
Edited 2013-08-14 08:17 UTC
Yeah. I don’t think you need to create some new idiotic word to describe those properties. Just be nice if you can, that’s all.
Policies in a company that seem obvious decent professional behaviour to me make me think I don’t want to work there.
Way too pro Google. Fun list though. Would be better if it contained at least 1 or 2 negative points for google to give it balance and make it more fun (the fun comes from the surprise shift in tone when the list goes from positive to negative aspect of similar traits).
The real meaning of “googly” is, of course, in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googly
They care about the user about as much as big tobacco cares about their “users”.
Great, two new horribly-obnoxious hipster coinages that demand to be eradicated beyond the power of human memory to recall their existence.
“If you believe Apple and Google really care about you as a user, you’ve already lost the battle.”
And yet people readily align/ally themselves with these companies as if there’s some sort of relationship beyond “you” being a source of income. It’s completely stupid when a person basically pledges allegiance to a for-profit company, and then starts behaving in that companies interest by attacking (in one form or another) their competitors.