Media Loves Apple and Its Army of Fans 356
cgriffin21 writes "Apple is getting more media attention right now than any other technology company, including Google. Microsoft, meanwhile, is languishing in the shadows like Cinderella on the night of the ball. That's the upshot of a study released Monday (PDF) by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that Apple was the focus of 15.1 percent of media coverage between June 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010. Google received 11.4 percent of media coverage during the period, while Microsoft garnered just 3 percent."
A story ... (Score:1, Insightful)
... about how many stories are done about Apple
We're through the looking glass here people.
- Sent from my iPhone
The apple backlash is going to be amazing one day (Score:2, Insightful)
It's about the market's they serve (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, in reality land... (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, in Reality Land... Microsoft continues to hold a dominate position in a mature market, targeting business customers Apple doesn't seem to care about. They have a market cap over $211bn and have started paying out dividends. They're in IBM territory now, but the media loves underdogs and sexy startups, and one thing Microsoft has never been is sexy, even when they were a startup. However, I don't really think they care. Not that I really have terribly much use for any of their products, and my personal situation is in no way tied to their fortunes. But to say that only getting 3% of the media coverage is going to hurt them is just kind of stupid. Its almost like Boeing running commercials -- anyone in a position to be purchasing ANYTHING from Boeing isn't going to make that decision off of a 30-second ad. For some companies, media interest is irrelevant, because they're entrenched in their market.
Uh that's what media is supposed to do (Score:3, Insightful)
People love apple and it's fabuously high quality ineffebly well designed products. Media's write stories about things people are interested in or find fascinating.
The weird thing here is that somehow people think this works in reverse. That the media is supposed to somehow find something people dont' care about and make it fascinating. E.g. Linux. SOny walkmans, corvettes, and basketball got media attention because people got excited about them about them and not the reverse.
Yeah, fashionable people. (Score:1, Insightful)
They use it because it... goes with their shoes. It has nothing to do with the fact that Apple software does the job it was meant to do, for less money, and with a better interface than the alternatives (Windows in the first case, Linux in the second).
Re:MS is hurting (Score:5, Insightful)
In my view, Apple is the only company focusing on the user experience (and the only company focusing on the user) as opposed to feature lists products that will be close to become unusable. As a result, they release more expensive products, sell more of those than the competition, and then get a bigger revenue. This revenue is invested in R&D. In Apple's terminology, R&D means exploring existing technologies and finding how they can be integrated into end user products.
The users we speak of here are not slashdot readers, they are the general public.
As a result of all that, they get good press. And it seems well deserved.
This is my view on Apple, so you may express your view but you may not say I'm wrong because I don't claim to express a fact.
Do the innovation - get the attention. (Score:2, Insightful)
Since the return of Jobs to Apple, they have defined the mass-market consumer computing industry. The iMac redefined how computers can look, introducing the concept of high-design into a buyers decision. The iPod and iTunes defined an easy, safe, legal means for carrying your music around and purchasing it online. The iPod Touch pushed into territory previously occupied by PDAs and showed how applications and music players could co-exist in the same device. The iPhone took the Touch a step further and integrated your cell phone. Finally, the iPad leveraged the phenomenal user interface that Apple engineered for its new portable consumer devices and made the screen large enough to be attractive to use in an armchair at home. And during all this, their computers have made major switches to Intel CPUs and OS X.
Everyone else has been just trying to keep up. It has actually been an incredible accomplishment by Jobs. Say what you will about the man or his methods, but he has completely and authoritatively defined the interaction of humans and their computing devices during his lifetime. Apple deserves the attention.
Really let's look at other industries. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's go right to cars.
I bet if you couldn't up all the coverage about cars you will find that Porsche, Ferrari, and Bugatti get a lot more press than they should based on market share.
That is because people are interested in them more than Chevy's and Kia's.
If you look at models you will see that that there is a lot more coverage of the Mustang than the Focus even though the Focus probably out sells the Mustang 10 to 1.
When you look at computers it is also much the same. You just don't see a lot of coverage on low end Dells and HPs.
It is all interest driven. A lot of it is also we are interested in what we don't have.
I really don't need to read about Windows XP or Windows 7 much. I use them everyday.
I do like reading about Supercomputers, BSD, and VMS because I don't have them to play with.
So no Apple does interesting stuff and do not produce commodity PCs. Apple is more in the BMW range than say Ferrari or Bugatti IMHO but Microsoft is Kia or maybe Honda.
BTW being Kia or Honda isn't a bad thing. It just isn't all that sexy and interesting.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:5, Insightful)
> In my view, Apple is the only company focusing on the user experience
> (and the only company focusing on the user) as opposed to feature lists
> products that will be close to become unusable.
Yes. Because no one ever uses "features".
The notion that Apple "focuses on the user experience" quickly seems absurd
as soon as you try to do anything that Apple didn't account for or is actually
trying to prevent.
"plays my movies"
"reads my files"
"installs some random app"
"reads some website"
If another device gains traction, it will be due to the fact that it is good
at doing the things that Apple refuses to do. Being able to ignore Steve's
vision is a great feature for a lot of people.
Apple may have cared for the end user once but now they've jumped the shark.
Re:The apple backlash is going to be amazing one d (Score:3, Insightful)
When all of these "fashionable" people turn against apple
Wow, cool, I've never, in my life, been called "fashionable" before... pragmatic, sure. Focused on actually Getting Things Done, as opposed to fiddling around with inferior solutions, yes. Matured past the need to paint entire groups of people with the same brush in order to make myself feel superior, yes.
But never fashionable.
Re:Yeah, fashionable people. (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple doesn't do anything for less money.
Whether or not it "does the job" is another matter. More than likely, it only "does the job" because the requirements of the job have been restricted to the point where success is a lot less meaningful.
This includes ALL coverage, good and bad (Score:3, Insightful)
That means all the negative Apple articles and Apple bashing will be counted in as well. No wonder Apple got the highest number in the media coverage count, I am pretty sure there are very few companies that are so emotionally charged either way right now, so those articles tend to draw huge reactions either way
Also, the media selected for this survey is a bit odd. Of the 52 news outlets, 12 are websites, six are television channels, but a whopping 10 radio stations? That seems like the wrong ratio to me.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, where would they be?
In order to understand recursion.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And we see another example of this phenomenon, as news outlets rush to report how news outlets cover Apple.
Re:It's about the market's they serve (Score:5, Insightful)
I just want some of Apple's innovations without the drawbacks. That's not hypocritical, and certainly doesn't merit a three paragraph rant about "haters".
Re:Yeah, fashionable people. (Score:3, Insightful)
And how many people buy the boxed version of Microsoft Windows, as opposed to just getting it with a computer? That's the point; how much does a computer with Windows cost compared to a computer with Mac OS?
Re:Uh that's what media is supposed to do (Score:2, Insightful)
Wrong. There's a tiny minority of loudmouths who like Apple. Even the huge success of the iPhone -- the only phone in the world, according to the media -- only has something like 10% market share.
Also, their supposedly ineffably well designed laptops have a worse malfunction rate than Asus, Toshiba and Sony, despite Apple only catering to the midrange and high end. So: no better than others, which means you're fraudulently advertising their quality. Yes, your comment is an advertisement.
Easy answer...wait and one up (Score:2, Insightful)
It is safer to play the "wait and one up" game but the publicity goes to the innovator.
Right now the innovation and engineering is coming out of Cupertino so they garner all of the attention. Everyone else, in the table/mobile market, is playing wait and see whats good and copy/one up.
Re:It's about the market's they serve (Score:3, Insightful)
Android is not an iPhone alternative; it simply doesn't offer the same benefits. No, no, no it doesn't. The social benefits (the app store and its cleanliness) are not equivalent; not even close.
An alternative has to match everything? Sure, Android is not perfect, but offers a lot of alternatives in hardware choice. Want a hardware keyboard for your phone? Nope, the iPhone does not do the job. Shitty AT&T coverage coverage near your home or office? iPhone does not do the job for you.
While I agree that there are irrational haters, there are legitimate reasons to not like Apple too. The reasons being barely any choice in hardware, and the total locking down of the software ecosystem and treating developers like crap on their mobile devices and tablets. The next biggest reason is a profileration of Apple fanbois(who are otherwise very intelligent and geeky) but who absolutely worship anything coming out of Apple, demonize alternatives regardless of merits and try to justify and downplay any shortcomings. They get very touchy about any criticism, and have been known to give out death threats to people who may be seen as exposing Apple's flaws(remember the OS X wireless exploit?).
Is someone a 'hater' because they come to know something like this http://www.businessinsider.com/latest-app-store-rejection-outrage-apple-rejects-app-that-teaches-kids-to-program-2010-4 [businessinsider.com] and decide that iPads are something that don't do the job for them?
Re:MS is hurting (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I'm not an Apple Fanboi.
But Microsoft's illegal practices and the evolution of the market is what allowed them to achieve lock-in. Architecturally, their oil-well-in-the-basement Windows core OS was defective by design, a problem that was partially fixed by demoting user from root in XP SP2. The software QA at Microsoft was abysmal.
And Apple isn't any saint. Their pseudo-open source way of looking at the software world benefits users through a thoroughly controled "experience". Apple's done much QA to ensure comparatively high reliability and application interactivity consistency. But Apple eschews "corporate" or large enterprise infrastructure. They want the user to control the influence and experience. Their resources for large organizations is horrific on a good day. It's all about the end-user.
Does Apple have similar controlling policies? Hell yes. They're secretive and instill paranoia in their employees. Yet their activities so far have skirted most legal skirmishes for anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior. Still you can't use MacOS legally on other hardware, you risk lots by jailbreaking their devices, and they still are completely clueless about the insanity of binding their products to vendors whose performance is abysmal (AT&T as an example).
Microsoft may be the top dog in terms of deployed OSes, but Apple's market cap now exceeds theirs. It's not a very good pool of vendors to pick from. As open source quality matures, Apple and Microsoft will have to change the ways that they do business. Apple's stock price, like Microsoft's, is their holy grail. Remember that it's supported only so far as they continue to satisfy the demands of the buying public. We vote with money.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>try to do anything that Apple didn't account for
You've been modded troll, but you make a good point (IMHO). I still haven't found a player for my Mac (or Linux laptop) that can run songs/movies at double speed without making everyone sound like chipmunks. Also Mac doesn't have any Bittorrent clients approved by Ipodnova/videoseed, so I can't download their wares to my Mac.
Meanwhile on my Windows IBM PC clone, it's as simple as installing "2xAV". It plays double speed and everyone has a normal tone of voice. And it runs the approved client Utorrent. Apple probably never anticipated people wanting to alter the speed of playback, while maintaining normal voice tone, and so it never got developed as part of their tools.
Aside:
Interestingly, Sony anticipated it. Fast playback (1.4x) is included with my DVD player.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:5, Insightful)
No, what the parent is saying is that the user experience is good as long as you conform to Apple's definition of user behavior. It's not even about including every feature ever, since Apple is notorious for omitting even the most rudimentary industry standard features.
Take copy/paste. Apple allegedly omitted it because for some reason with all their resources they couldn't figure out a way to implement it. I own an iPad, and the implementation they came up with isn't anything special, to be sure. Try selecting a line of text near the top of the screen; the magnifying glass goes over the edge and you can't see what you're doing.
Another example is transferring files from the iPad. This goes beyond the Apple sanctioned usage of the iPad, so they make it really difficult, and it turns out the easiest way to share files is to e-mail them (a function which must be implemented on a per app basis, as the mail application does not allow attachments).
What about downloading a PDF from safari to read in iBooks? You can't do it from safari, you actually have to download it to a computer and transfer it via iTunes (the worst option, as you need the cable due to lack of wireless sync); through e-mail it to yourself (dropbox is a good option too); or download an app like goodreader, copy the link from safari into goodreader, download the PDF, then export it to iBooks. What a great user experience!
Oh, and the calendar app is a dream to use. It can't actually schedule events that repeat on odd schedules, like every Monday and Wednesday. Apple has sanctioned that your events can repeat weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly, or yearly. To solve this I have to create a google calendar, manage my events there, then subscribe to it in the calendar app.
Or what about this slashdot post? typing <p> takes 8 keyboard strokes on the iPad. </p> takes 11.
But yeah I agree, iPad and other Apple products are great if you stay within its narrow Apple sanctioned usage.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:2, Insightful)
Pro tip: Don't use compatibility with a proprietary format as your argument against lock-in as being a factor.
Re:it's like M$ circa 1995 (Score:1, Insightful)
Ummm... I remember that time, too, but I remember it all differently. As I recall, the geeks already had all the hardware they'd need for '95, but they were running NT 3.51 instead. And laughing at Windows 95 as an OS/2 clone, and decrying it for lack of multi-processor support, etc....
Re:MS is hurting (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because parent is trolling. I have a MacBook Pro that just works.
And many millions more people have Windows (or Linux) laptops that "just work".
Re:MS is hurting (Score:3, Insightful)
The adage is that 80% of users use just 20% of an application's features. The point many people miss is that it's not the same 20% for every person. For example in excel, I use the statistical functions, while another person may only be concerned about the financial functions. So if you're concerned about the happiness of 80% of your users, and you only implement the intersection of features they use, 80% of your users will be unhappy, as each one will request a different feature you have chosen not to implement.
Apple for some reason is immune to this, however. Call it loyalism or what you will, But users are willing to look past missing functionality (copy/paste, MMS, 3G, multitasking) as long as the device is shiny. As the owner of an iPad, I can report the device is just riddled with gaps in functionality that affect my work flow, and all I can conclude is that my needs are unique among iPad users (because how could they anticipate that someone would want to download a PDF from safari and e-mail it.)
Re:Hipster Herpes (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to buying other consumer electronics "made in sweatshops by people paid so little they choose to commit suicide so their family can get the little bit of death benefit cash." That company makes most of the mobile devices on the market, not just the iPhone. Not that I'm defending the situation, but acting like Apple has some kind of monopoly on Chinese sweat shop labor is disingenuous at best. The reality is that the western world wants cheap products and right now countries like China and India are willing to work people to death in order to provide those cheap products. What needs to happen is that we all need to accept that all our gear *should* cost 50-100% more than it does, so the people making it and providing the raw materials can having a living wage. Any takers?
Re:Yeah, fashionable people. (Score:3, Insightful)
That has a 2.4ghz Core Duo, 2GB DDR, 13.3" LED, and a 250GB Hard Drive.
A quick check of Dell reveals the Inspiron 14 for just $725.
That has a 2.5ghz Core Duo (better), 2GB DDR, 14" OLED (better), and a 320GB Hard Drive (better).
Both come with an OS..
Now, you can take your $275 in savings for the better gear, add $25 and also buy a Inspiron Mini 10 for $300 (that ALSO comes with an OS)
Face the facts, fanboy. Macs are way overpriced. If the OS is as cheap as people claim, then why the fuck is there such a disparity in price? Looks to me like the REAL price of OS/X is $275 more than the price of Windows 7.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:3, Insightful)
When "experience" is touted again and again, as the sole selling point, with nothing quantifiable whatsoever to back it up (or when the little there is, is evidently bullshit), as is the case with Apple, then I take "experience" to be marketing.
Also, Apple worshipers tend to disregard everything that sucks when it comes to Apple: iTunes. Finder. The BSD subsystem. Support for non-sanctioned hardware. The fact that their computers are obsolete much faster than any competing platform (OS9 --> OS X PPC --> OS X i686 --> OS X x86_64, and fanboys have complaints with the likes of Adobe for not catching up). You could say that the user experience is utterly shit, and it would be just as true as saying it's brilliant. So, to repeat: it's marketing.
And Apple still has less than 10% of the computing desktop, less than 10% of the mobile phones, so I guess your point has been proven: Apple's brand of "superior experience" has failed.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:MS is hurting (Score:4, Insightful)
Pro tip: Don't use compatibility with a proprietary format as your argument against lock-in as being a factor.
Pro tip: Don't blame compatibility for open software's piss poor track record in usability from a Human Factors standpoint. Especially when I didn't explicitly mention compatibility.
Pro example 2: GIMP. Another bit of software that has LONG been hobbled by poor design from a HMI perspective.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's easy (that's why I haven't tried to help), but don't fall into the trap of blaming someone else (Microsoft) for putting out a product that is easier to use and then act surprised when people prefer Microsoft's product.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:3, Insightful)
On Linux...
> Plays my music ... after I figure out how to download and install, configure DeCSS and fiddle with things for 2 hours
Plays music out of the box.
Also plays movies out of the box.
It does both of these MUCH MUCH better than MacOS does.
I'm still trying to figure out how to get Quicktime to play mpegps files.
The whole "paying to decode MPEG2" in Quicktime thing also seems rather absurd since it can do that for a DVD.
The fact that XBMC and VLC are readily available for MacOS is one of it's key redeeming qualities.
> Reads my Files ... okay that works
> Installs some random app ... first I have to figure out what app does what I
> want, then double check to see if RGXFido* is what it says it is. only to realize
> I also need four other apps that RGXFido needs to do whatever it was that I wanted.
You use the "app store" and everything "just works".
Figuring out what you want is the same exact problem as it would be on MacOS or PhoneOS.
> Reads some website ... unless it has flash or .Net** or whatever, then it is hit or miss.
Flash is in the Linux "app store" too.
> USB that worked
No. Apple forces the issue and leaves you in the lurch. When Apple was trying to force
the issue with USB, all Intel motherboards already came with USB on them. It was built in
and ready to use. It just wasn't forced on anyone.
USB is an example of how Apple was a abusive tyrant, not a visionary.
USB is a great analogy for how Apple only partially implements h264 with mp4 and ignores
everything else. In 5 or 10 years perhaps everything else will have died out and Apple's
support of what standards it does follow will improve.
Re:MS is hurting (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't know about tap-and-slide for shifting? That gets it down to four moves. On a regular physical keyboard it's five moves because the delimiters are symbols accessed by the shift key, which must also be pressed.
Still, the larger point is valid: the standard keyboard is lousy for HTML. (Why this is proof of some evil twisted conspiracy aimed to neuter you and fill Apple's coffers with fanboi cash has I guess been left as an exercise for the reader.) If you can suggest a better arrangement it can be coded into a custom keyboard layout by any programmer or even added to the SDK by Apple.
I feel your frustrations with what in the case of the iPad is a 1.0 product and in iOS' case 4.x. The file sharing is awkward, iTunes is beginning to look as though one wafer-thin mint would make it explode, iCal apparently sets monthly events by counting from the beginning of the week containing the first of the month (so that "second Monday" is actually the first one unless the month begins on Sunday or Monday), and syncing basically requires a wire. Yeah, it could all be lots better, and weigh half a pound less too.
Still, afaik nobody made you buy it at gunpoint. (Which would be proof of a conspiracy, come to think of it, so feel free to inform us if that was the case.) You can resell it for a decent price if it doesn't meet your needs sufficiently, and at the same time teach Apple a lesson through the miracle of the free market when you spend that money on whatever device it is that does. Apple, suitably chastened when informed of your actions (as they surely will be), will resolve through bitter bitter tears to do better next time, and if they don't they'll no doubt be buried by their more-nimble competition, as they should be.
In the meantime you'll be just another one of us bloodied first-adopters, victimized by the finite resources of Apple. How dare they not be above complaint! We were promised magic!
Re:MS is hurting (Score:3, Insightful)
That wasn't because of vendor lockin. That was because no sites worked in any other browser except IE on a Windows computer.
I think you just nicely described the phenomena of vendor lock in by saying it wasn't vendor lock in. Ironic.
And yes, I remember the web "back then". I've been surfing the web with some variant of MacOS since 1989, and the claims of incompatibility are grossly overstated. If it weren't for the web and it's open standards, there'd BE no MacOS, as it only survived the dark years because of the healthy online support community. Can't buy Office for Mac at your local Best Buy? Go online. Can't find a retailer within 100 miles? Buy a Mac online. That web service only works with IE and WinPC? Choose any of the other thousands of sites that will work. Can't play that video codec? Go online and get a converter.
Re:it's like M$ circa 1995 (Score:3, Insightful)
> in a few years smartphones and maybe tablets will
> become something everyone buys like a computer
> or blu ray player and someone else will have the spotlight
iMac -> iBook -> PowerBook G4 -> iPod -> more iMacs ->more iPods -> iPhone -> iPad
My bet is that the next company to have the spotlight will be... Apple.
Re:This is *interesting* ??? (Score:4, Insightful)
iTunes isn't fast at all, and it's about as efficient as the United Nations. We're talking about a ~100MB music player app here. It consumes vast amounts of RAM and disk space, has extremely poor support for formats not officially sanctioned by Apple, and for music players not produced by Apple. For its extreme bloat, it's not very feature rich. Oh, and you have to use it if you want to use Apple's latest gizmos. There's a lot of hatred of iTunes out there, jfgi. I thought it was a Windows only thing, but many Mac users seem to agree. Another thing is that iTunes dominates the Mac platform to such a degree that no one has developed a decent mp3 player for it.
Finder: Just not as good as most of the others. Windows Explorer, Dolphin, Konqueror, possibly even Nautilus. How about doing even the simplest things [lifehacker.com]? Slow, sometimes unresponsive w/spinning beach ball.
The BSD subsystem is just poorly done. There's a reason why many of its userspace utilities are replicated by package collections like Fink: the ones in OS X suck. Is python still compiled without readline support?
Hardware support: Yes, let's stick to buying overpriced crap from Apple only. Like any other cult, Apples don't get to hang with the cool guys.
Obsolescence: Now try running this years software on a five years old Mac. It's obsolete.
I'm a hater, yes, but I hate fanboys, not Apple's products. Many of their products are fine (the laptops especially; I've owned one), I just happen to be fed up with the frauds who advertise them at any opportunity. There are tons of those here on Slashdot, often hovering at +5, insightful just for saying they love Apple products. I'm fed up not with their products, but with how they're supposedly "revolutionary" while doing absolutely nothing new, and few things better.
re: market share, we were talking about Apple's supposedly extreme popularity here, which is effectively debunked by their market share. Their profits are entirely irrelevant. You should ask: who cares about their profits? Their stockholders, and the stockholders only, should be the answer. Customers taking joy from the fact that a big corporation makes a profit on them is absurd, yet you see this all the time ... but only with Apple's customers. Why? Because they're fans, rooting for one corporation as if it were a hockey team. But it's a giant tech corporation, and being a supporter of one of them is simply delusional behaviour.
re: massively overpriced tech stock: the stock market is rarely right when everyone has jumped the same bandwagon.