The Irony of Apple’s ‘Think Different’ Campaign
Image courtesy of Mcbrooklyn
Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign has been one of the main driving forces behind the brand’s image and cult following. However, it’s actually pretty ironic; a lot of Apple product users are, essentially, identical. The above image illustrates this perfectly. Notice how every Apple fan thinks they’re being different, but there are so many Apple fans that this just isn’t the case any longer. It’s actually quite comical to see an image like this.
The irony here being, of course, the fact that it has reached the stage where if somebody truly wanted to ‘think different’, the last thing they’d do is buy an Apple product. The fact that Apple seemingly hasn’t dropped the slogan shows us that the company really does exist in their own parallel universe, with their followers existing there too. It’s not a bad thing by any means, in fact it’s a very powerful marketing tool, but if you take Apple’s attitude that it isn’t “hip to be square” toward their own products, it results in a paradox of cosmic proportions.
Patent Wars Part II: Hypocracy
Apple: “We think competition is healthy but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
Yesterday, Apple won a patent ruling against Android/HTC in the US. I’m not on anyone’s side here; I’ll use a product if I like it, regardless of the brand. I’ll probably be moving to a 13” Macbook Air next year because I believe it’s the superior operating system for a computer, but I’ll continue using an Android phone because I believe that it’s the superior OS for a phone.
The point I’m trying to make here is that an individual’s perception, if you will, of each company in these patent wars is of great influence. I’d say that most people out there who have even a passing interest in technology have a ‘preferred brand’, be it Apple, Android, or even a particular hardware manufacturer such as Samsung or HTC. The quotation that I put at the top of this post pretty much sums Apple up - essentially, they make their fans hear what they want them to hear. HTC steals ideas, just look at some aspects of HTC Sense. However, Apple are just as guilty; iOS5 notification centre anyone? If Apple think that HTC/Android breached the 647 patent (‘a real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data’), then surely taking a drag-down notification bar from Android is just as bad? Sure, it wasn’t patented technology (as far as I know), but it’s just as wrong, morally.
I’m sure Android has breached a heck of a lot of Apple’s patents, and I’m also certain that Apple have breached just as many of Android’s. I’m just saying that every company on Earth steals ideas. Sadly, most of the opinion on the Internet is from the fanboy perspective; Apple fanboys are just as bad as Android fanboys. In short, both Apple and HTC (as well as certain other companies involved in these wars) need to stop acting like five-year-olds and do what they do best. I mean, have you seen Apple innovate much in the past twelve months? Nope. Have you seen HTC innovate much in the past twelve months? Also, a resounding no, in my opinion.
Patent Wars: Samsung, you should be Ashamed
Look at these two phones below; look very carefully, and think to yourself.
In case you’ve been living under a proverbial rock for the past three months, you’ll know that Apple and Samsung are locked in a patent war. Apple accuses Samsung of (to put it briefly) copying the designs of iOS, iPhone, and iPad, and more specifically breaching patent rights. Every company has the right to defend their intellectual property. I’m also no Apple fanboy; in fact, I don’t care for iOS devices - I think Apple are lazy and cocky about iOS innovation and development. This brings me onto the issue I take with Samsung: laziness.
Look at those two phones above again; how much lazier can Samsung get? Look at the style and position of the icons, look at the large home button - it’s almost like they’re making no effort to conceal the fact that they essentially copied the iPhone’s design. Samsung’s Galaxy S lines of phones have been ridiculously popular recently; why is that? Well, I think it’s because they are so similar to the iPhone. Replicating (arguably) the most successful smartphone of all time will almost certainly bump your sales figures.
So instead of creating something new and thinking outside the box, as HTC does, Samsung took the easy route. Look where it’s got them. In my view, copying the design of the most successful device (note: I used ‘most successful’ rather than ‘best’) will always put you in their shadow; creating something from scratch that people like is what will gain you real success.
I’m not advocating Apple’s behaviour; I actually think that they’re being, well, Apple. Samsung have dug themselves into this hole, though; a company like that should know better, and I certainly won’t be buying a Samsung phone any time soon out of principal. I believe that Samsung are the party in the wrong, and that they have everything coming to them. It’s easy to criticise Apple, but the patent wars does give Apple haters/Android fanboys a lot of ammunition. Again, I’m no Apple fanboy, but I’m actually on their side; they had those designs first, and for Samsung to come and essentially steal is totally unacceptable business practise. Quite frankly, they should be ashamed.
No longer the Easy Target: My Apple Hating stops Here
Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO not long ago, and the reaction of most people (myself included) was sadness. I’ve never tried to hide the fact that I don’t like Apple’s business practise. I like companies that are constantly coming up with new things, rather than suing their competitors. However, Steve Jobs brought a consistently high standard of quality to Apple, and that is their major success. The cult following that Apple have is something to be admired (and no, I’m not talking about the fanboys/girls); the fact that people can have so much dedication to a brand is both a powerful tool for that company to utilise, as well as something to be in awe at.
It’s truly heartbreaking to see someone driven to tears by the resignation of Jobs, and I’ve realised that Apple are too much of an easy target, and are criticised rather too much. I know this because I myself am guilty of it. I resent Apple’s attitude toward the rest of the mobile industry; I think they have no respect or consideration for others, but most people out there who buy Apple products are not concerned with the company’s business acumen. After all, isn’t the consumer the most important component? What I saw in that video wasn’t a fangirl, but someone who just loves the brand. I have enormous respect for iJustine simply because she loves the Apple brand yet doesn’t show nor direct any animosity toward those who prefer other companies or platforms. I respect Apple ten times more now than I did yesterday, simply because of some people’s reactions to Jobs’ resignation; it says a lot of good things about how the brand empowers people. People can make a very personal connection to Apple, and Steve Jobs was, and still is, a huge part of that.
Heck, I couldn’t make a personal connection to Google no matter how hard I try.
iPad 2 | Why It Makes The Original iPad Make Sense
Wooo, iPad 2 launch I hear (from the US at least). When the original iPad was released, I became rather (in)famous for bashing the hell out of it. I thought it was overpriced, heavy, and lacked a lot of features that make it a viable alternative to something like a netbook. Now that the second one has been launched, the original iPad now makes perfect sense to me.
The trouble with the state of the iPad at the original launch, for me, stemmed from two things: 1) Lack of multitasking was a disaster, and 2) It was priced out of the netbook alternative range. Recently, multitasking has been brought to the iPad with various releases of iOS 4.x, and even more recently prices of the original iPad have dropped. Prices of the iPad 2 have not changed (starting at around £430 for the basic, non-3G version), but Apple has dropped prices of the original iPad (which is still on sale) by about £100. Essentially, this means that the original, 16GB wifi-only iPad’s price has dropped right into my netbook budget.
I’d been looking at various Dell and Sony netbooks to use as a sort of ‘side bitch’ to my main setup, and all of these start at around £350. So you can see what my dilemma is; a netbook for £350 that runs full Windows 7 (albeit, the Starter edition), or for £20 less an iPad that runs iOS 4.3? Before any of the fanboys play the ‘it has better graphics and two cameras’ card, I won’t be using my iPad/netbook for any serious gaming or for video chatting/photography. While I’m on the subject, I think having a camera on the back of a tablet is stupid; but that’s a different blog post. The iPad’s email application looks outstanding, and for casual on-the-go web browsing and multimedia, it’s perfect. I only plan to use my netbook/iPad for writing documents (Pages for iPad supports .docx, a huge win in my books), emailing, web browsing, and video/music playing.
The main attraction of the original iPad though is its new price. A 16GB wifi-only model is perfect for my needs (I won’t need 3G as my phone has hotspot functionality); it’s also about £30 cheaper than the netbook I’m looking at. I’ll need some time to decide, and I’m going to wait for a friend of mine to pick up an iPad 2 before making any final decision.
Sidebar: If y’all think think these are the justifications of a fanboy, I wrote this post on a computer running Windows 7 and I have an HTC Android phone sitting on my desk.
Gadget Wishlist | 23rd February 2011
I always like to keep a wishlist of tech-related items; it helps me distinguish what I want from what I need. So, in no particular order:
Macbook Air 13”
At the time of writing, there will be a line of new Macbooks launched, but the 13” Air still does it for me. It’s fast, and features such as instant on and its super battery life make it a real winner.
iPod Sales Down 10% | Apple’s Brought it on Themselves
BGR posted that iPod sales were down 10% in January of this year, in the US. I actually find it somewhat ironic that Apple markets the iPhone as an all-in-one device, yet they continue to produce things such as the iPod Classic. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that iPod sales have diminished because people don’t want to carry two devices around with them. If you can make a device that performs well as a phone and well as an iPod, such as the iPhone (insert antenna-related joke here), then you’re onto a winner. You’re also going to subsequently destroy the market for MP3 players. I think this is the situation that Apple has created, and it may result in the demise of the product that started it all for them: the iPod.
In the space of time before owning an iPod Touch and after I started using a smartphone, I used my phone as my portable music player. It functioned just as well as my iPod does now. As a friend of mine pointed out recently, “You haven’t owned an MP3 until you’ve owned an iPod”; when other non-iOS devices, such as Android, start shipping with their own music store and music player, Apple and iTunes might just loose their monopoly. If this happens, will we see devices such as the iPod Nano or Classic die out? Yes, that’s more than likely.
Reputations.
I’ve wanted to write this post for a long time, however a recent increase in workload meant that I only had time to draft a few parts of it. In the past three years the human race has advanced so rapidly in terms of technology that we are, in my opinion, almost at a point where everything is the same. For instance, if you’re a guy walk into a bar holding either a Blackberry, iPhone, or HTC to impress, your average girl isn’t going to know the difference between them and will probably think they are all equally amazing, discuss. A huge majority of smartphone buyers today don’t know about the various fights that Apple and Google have had with each other, or about the controversy surrounding the original television advertisement for the Blackberry Storm, or about how Android is quickly eating away at Apple’s market share, they’ll buy a smartphone because they like the way it looks and the way it functions. Android and iPhone are supposedly the leaders today, but the smartphone you see most frequently is a Blackberry, right?
The mindset of the consumer is, in most cases, to be able to purchase the best product that they think they are getting, at the best possible price. However, in the technology industry, Apple threw a proverbial spanner in the works: people were more than happy to front the extra cash to get an Apple product, such as a Mac or iPod. This is the sole driving force behind Apple’s success of recent; they make a quality product, but so do Blackberry and Microsoft you may argue, but everyone knows that Apple make the best quality products out there. Present a non-techie with some sort of Android device (dare I say it, iPhone ‘rip-off’) or an iPhone and ask them to pick which is best, they’re going to pick the iPhone. This is due to the fact that during their success, Apple has planted a mindset and thought pattern into the minds of customers: think ‘Apple’ and you relate that word to the iPod and iPhone; were those products successful? Even if you’re a non-techie you know that is the case. Apple has consistently produced products without fault; the design of an Apple product has a certain ’wow factor’ that other brands cannot seem to replicate, however hard they try.
An aspect of successful business is building up your brand’s reputation, and as much as there is wrong with Apple, the fact that they have a virtually bulletproof image, and the way in which they have acquired this, are things to be greatly admired.
Sidebar: I use an Android phone, and I typed this on a laptop running Windows 7, lol.
