[LINK] Jobs not all bad

[Frank O'Connor]

And buying it for other reasons than what you mention:

Reliability. Apple stands behind their hardware unconditionally for 12 months after purchase, and often for years after that for chronic failures in design, components or whatever. If any Apple product proves to be a lemon, they will replace it without question ... most other PC manufacturers and suppliers aren't as accommodating. Other suppliers aren't even half as accommodating (and believe me I've bought heaps of defective product from Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP and the like). Yeah ... the guarantee could be longer (and effectively it probably is if the provisions of the Sale of Goods Act are taken into account) ... but in my experience hardware generally reveals itself to be a lemon in the first three or so months anyway.

Convenience. Buy it online, option it online, they deliver anywhere, they return from anywhere. etc etc.

Ease of use. Show me an easier variant of UNIX or LINUX for the naive user. Plug in an Apple peripheral, phone, pad or whatever and show me something complex happening from the user front end. It all just fits together seamlessly.

An integrated 'ecology'. Nabbing content, software, applications and the like is child's play, done from the desktop, and much cheaper and more convenient than nabbing it physically.

An integrated OS. Any package, application or software installed on Apple hardware just works, in an integrated standardised way. The same can't be said for many Windows and LINUX packages. Hey, to this day the LINUX desktop dichotomy still produces applications and packages that it's impossible to cut, copy and paste between. Many Windows apps work differently between different variants of the OS.

Yes you pay a premium ... but you don't have to buy the OS ( a super stable 64 bit version is always part of the package), subsequent upgrades cost you bugger all and can be done online, you don't have to factor in and purchase security and anti-virus software (for whatever reason), or deal with embedded ad-ware and other intrusive pre-installed software, or spend days ... or even weeks ... re-installing packages and software from legacy machines (its all done as part of the initial OS install via a Migration wizard) ... Apple goes out of the way to make all that relatively painless and aggravation free. 

No Windows or LINUX implementation (even UBUNTU) exhibits the same characteristics.

The other down side is that it isn't as open (especially on the 'i' devices) as its competitors. On the Mac ..yeah you can mess around with UNIX in the Terminal, but 95% of Apple users wouldn't know what to do there if their lives depended on it. Put simply they are ignorant IT consumers rather than geeks ... and don't buy IT product on the basis of its hackability for purpose. They want something that will get the job done with the least aggravation for their good selves.

And Apple sells product that does that very well indeed.

						Regards,
---
On 16/10/2011, at 9:23 PM, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:

> On 16/10/2011 6:49 PM, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>> 
>> On 16/10/2011 2:25 PM, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>>> IMHO, Apple sells useful, very stylish devices, that just happens to
>>> use IT. In the same way that Coca Cola sells lifestyle, that just
>>> happens to use sugared, flavoured water.
>> Apple iPads just "happen to use IT"?  Is this a ironic inversion of the
>> equally preposterous claims that they are a whole new computing paradigm?
>> 
>> If I despised say JK Rowling, I might say she never wrote a novel, she
>> just made a squillion packaging words.
> 
> I hope you are not suggesting that I despise Steve Jobs - if you are, 
> I'd want to know your evidence and reasoning.
> 
> My assertion that Job's style is more important than his technology is 
> just that - a comparison. IMO, people are buying truckloads of Apple 
> products for reasons of style not technology.
> 
> -- 
> 
> Regards
> brd
> 
> Bernard Robertson-Dunn
> Canberra Australia
> email:   brd at iimetro.com.au
> website: www.drbrd.com
> 
> 
> 
> -----
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 2012.0.1831 / Virus Database: 2090/4553 - Release Date: 10/15/11
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link