[LINK] Fanatacism [WAS: iPads]

[Ivan Trundle]

I'll bite, David... it's a slow afternoon...

On 01/06/2010, at 3:23 PM, David Boxall wrote:

> The others don't have Apple's years of marketing and fanatic fan base.

I tend to sense a mix of envy, derogation and snideness when anyone mentions 'fanatical fan base', as though there is something implicitly wrong in having devotees - as though making products and tools that people like and want to use is evil. 

However, most companies have many years of marketing under their belt: and some more than Apple. Some have fared spectacularly well (Microsoft, for one), and most do far better than Apple when it comes to market share.

On a head-count alone, there are probably more of the Microsoft fanatics in the world than Apple fanatics. One of them does a much more thorough job of winning hearts and minds, and part of these might be due to market share, but a more significant part is that one does it better.

> Nor do they have hosts of The Faithful, who will set upon any infidel 
> who dares fail to worship at the altar of Apple.

Why are people who buy Apple products so unthinking that they are blinded by the marketing hype, yet oddly other marketing hype hasn't affected people who buy Acer computers, Sony laptops, or Windows software?

As for the iPad: I believe that it is the forerunner of 'appliance computers' which demands little of the end-user and yet delivers enough to be useful - the antithesis of what most computers are marketed as today. Most people I talk to don't want to know how the thing works or how to keep it working, they just want it to work. Most desktop and laptop computers up until now have asked too much of the consumer, and one prophet has seen the light, and is now selling something quite different.

> That said, Apple does usually lead. Anything that so well stirs can't be 
> all bad.

It must warm Jonathan Ive's cockles to see his design language being emulated by so many others after each Apple device release. 

However, it doesn't warm mine, because I believe that we need more than just copycats.

iT