Apple Spins 'Real Artists Ship' Into 'Share Your Gifts'

theodp writes: "Have you ever made something wonderful but were too afraid to share it?" asks Apple's heartwarming "Share Your Gifts" 2018 holiday ad, which features a girl who keeps her creations secret, until they're let out into the world by her dog and enjoyed by everyone around her. Arguably deserving writing credit for the ad is the late Steve Jobs, who thirty-five years ago preached a similar "Real Artists Ship" message to the original Mac team as he led them on a holiday "death march" to get their creation out into the world.

Andy Hertzfeld recalls: "The software team worked hard over the Christmas break of 1983. [...] By the first week of January, the software team was working around the clock, testing and fixing problems that were found. [...] Randy Wigginton brought in a gigantic bag of chocolate covered espresso beans, which, along with medicinal quantities of caffeinated beverages, helped us forgo sleep entirely for the last couple of days." Seeing Apple spin "Real Artists Ship" into "Share Your Gifts" -- which Adweek honored as the 9th Best Commercial of 2018 -- would no doubt be appreciated by master of Reality Distortion Jobs.

The worst kind of troll?

[Slartibartfast]

Stupid ones. (Knowingly self-indulgently ironic is only a half-step behind.)

Nice fantasy, what really happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the artist is greeted by a mighty yawn of nothing. The book author especially struggles because who wants to read an unproven author. My proof: when was the last time you read a book you didnâ(TM)t âoehear about âoe

Re:

[Dunbal]

I do it all the time but I tend to pick authors at random and if I like them, I'll look for more/all of their books.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

apple has been the worse thing that has even happened to tech.

Re:

[Dunbal]

No, Oracle has been the worse thing that has ever happened to tech.

Re:

[Dunbal]

Nothing meaningful.

The beneficiaries of Steve Jobs' estate would disagree.

Re:

[cheesybagel]

The original Mac was crap compared to an Apple II GS.

That's really, really reaching.

[Slartibartfast]

I like the commercial. It's nice. I wasn't a huge fan of the no-CLI Mac, though I do recognize several of it's advances. But attempting to link these two and give Jobs accolades for *the commercial*? Really? Yeah, not so much.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed... There's a big difference between rushed product development to meet a deadline and an artist/daydreamer haphazardly expressing their creativity throughout the day in subtle minor ways but never really publishing by intention only to have serendipity reward them.

Re: That's really, really reaching.

[Cmdln Daco]

True. In the end, the Mac interface could have evolved into a little brushed aluminium drool cup. No need for a keyboard or mouse!

Re:

[alvinrod]

Jobs's reality distortion field must still be working beyond the grave because it's clearly managed to get a Slashdot story about an ad.

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[Bobrick]

Why do you keep posting that?

Real Slaves Ship

[Anonymous Coward]

Give Up Your Life

Apple is life

[Anonymous Coward]

Without Apple, my own life would be meaningless. Thank you Apple for everything you do.

Re:

[Dunbal]

Your life is still meaningless. Only now you're slaving to pay off all the Apple stuff you put on your credit cards.

Wow. Hyperbole much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny to see this call out Jobs as the "master of Reality Distortion" with such a heavy handed and distorted summary/article.

Is this the kind of thing Slashdot needs to get by since it has long lost its status as a tech site? CmdrTaco was once considered a real shaker and mover in tech reporting, his creation is now like the looper.com of the nerd world. And I use the word nerd loosely.

He was a gifted designer...

[argStyopa]

...but also a sadistic sociopathic fuck in pursuit of his own success.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The upside is that now more people know he was a sadistic sociopathic fuck. How do you not know the difference between an asshole and a sadist/sociopath? He was the CEO of the largest company on the planet and built it from the ground up and we are discussing him and Apple. How are we "hell bent" on anything? We are just commenting on a forum where we are discussing Jobs and we mentioned that he was a sadistic sociopath fuck. There is your "insight". Sorry we insulted your hero snowflake, but there is a big

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[Dunbal]

He was a gifted MARKETER. So good at it that he makes you think "his designs" are "innovative" and "desirable".

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[JaredOfEuropa]

He was a gifted one man focus group. Apple's success has been attributed to the idea that Apple didn't design for focus groups or market segments but for Steve Jobs, a tech aficionado with decent taste and an eye for detail.

I've had my doubts.

[Gravis Zero]

I'll be honest, I've questioned the "real artists ship" idea ever since I did one ship that just wasn't meant to be. [amazonaws.com] #WordplayOrDeath

Real artists buy instagram followers

[psychic_bacon]

I didn't RTFA (or WTFA), but did it include hours and hours of paid promotions, buying instagram followers, needless tweets, networking, posting to other blogs "oh, i love your work, here is my unrelated website with my art" or etc.

How do you get heard when there are literally millions of hours of videos on youtube each day, and hundreds of podcasts, and so forth? Especially when we're slaves to "recommended posts" or "recommended videos" algorithms which make it hard to find related content.

Re: Real artists buy instagram followers

[illiac_1962]

Yeah. Everything is gamed for SEO, social justice sentiment, and Ads these days. Try to find a recipe for bran muffins and you land on some God awful long form prose about bran muffin ingredients and grandma's influence on the author Javascript monster from hell. 125MB, five minutes, and 300 ad networks later and you get down to the recipe. This is what Google has done to the internet.

Dog Was Lucky He Didn't Share an iPhone Prototype

[theodp]

How Apple Lost the iPhone 4 [gizmodo.com]: Until now, Apple's legendary security has always worked perfectly. Perhaps there was a blurry factory photo here, or some last-minute information strategically whispered to some friendly media there. But when it comes to the big stuff, everything is airtight. At their Cupertino campus, any gadget or computer that is worth protecting is behind armored doors, with security locks with codes that change every few minutes. Prototypes are bolted to desks. Hidden in these labs, hardwar

Don't Worry About Sharing

[Cmdln Daco]

"We've taken away local removable storage. You've already shared your gifts with us; any time we decide we want them they're on our server."

Re:

[Dunbal]

You can access them at any time*. For free*. For now.

* Subject to changes in the terms and provisions as outlined in section 374 Paragraph J subparagraph 2 of the EULA you agreed to.

Headline should read,

[Anonymous Coward]

"Corporation commissions and broadcasts advertisement." Why is this news?

Seems different to me

[SuperKendall]

"Real artists ship" is more about pushing through the drive for perfection that stops people from sending out 80-90% completed projects because they are not perfect...

Share your gifts is more a message to those people producing excellent work, probably even finished work, but being too afraid to let others see what they have done.

One is about letting something go, one is about dealing with fear...