Saturday, July 23, 2005
How are long-time residents of the Macintosh universe going to deal with the tourists?
It seems that as Apple users, we've now entered one huge holding pattern. Which is odd, because if one thing's always been true about Apple in the New Steve Jobs Era, it's been that you never knew what was coming next (unless someone leaked it). But look at the state of Appledom right now:
- We're waiting for the iTunes phone, which was announced more than a year ago, but might be unveiled this week. If you know what the difference between "announced" and "unveiled" is, you're a better PR person than I.
- We're waiting for the new iBook, which we know is coming not because someone leaked it, but simply because it's been so long since the last new iBook.
- We're waiting for Intel-based Macs, which we know are one to two years off, and yet we keep looking at our watch every five minutes anyway.
It's an odd time. There are legitimate reasons for all of the above, as the iBook delay appears to be just an anomaly, the iTunes phone is a great journey into the unknown that had to be announced early to scare other phone companies out of trying to compete with it, and the Intel thing had to be announced way in advance so that developers would have time to start taking things in that direction. So it's not as if there's been a fundamental shift in how Apple handles upcoming products; all you had to do is listen to Tim Cook say the phrase "We don't comment on future unreleased products" fifty or sixty times during the recent analyst conference call, in response to analysts' continual attempts to get him to spill the beans about something they could then blab about. But that's nothing compared to how bad the media has gotten in overfocusing on upcoming Apple products. You need look no further than CNN quoting Think Secret to know that something isn't quite right.
There's been no Mac news, in fact it's been so dead that I've hesitated to bring MacMischief out of hiatus for fear of not being able to find anything to report. And while there's always iPod news of some sort (since the whole word seemingly takes time each day to say or do something iPod-related), it's been slow lately as well, with much of the "news" having less to do with the iPod itself and more to do with the surrounding circus.
So by the looks of things, you would think things sucked right now or something.
But then you remember that Apple currently has the best operating system in history, a stable computer lineup that's growing three times as fast as the industry, a solid and mature slew of software that you can't get on any other platform, music sales through the roof, music player sales coming in higher than anyone had predicted...
Maybe that's it. Maybe things are just too good right now for them to be all that interesting to talk about. To paraphrase Jack Miller of AppleTurns, the disappointment that comes with hearing bad news about Apple is mitigated by the fact that it makes coming up with stuff to write about a lot easier. To that end, it's probably worth noting that during this "nothing's going wrong" period, AppleTurns hasn't been updated in close to a month. Almost as long as I went without updating MacMischief.
So where does this leave us? As Mac users, we're in the perfect spot to be in. But as armchairists, we have to be a bit more creative than usual. There's lots of good news, but none of it really counts as news, and there's almost no bad news. So what are we going to report? Baseball scores? The weather? I really don't know. But rather than just becoming boring and staying boring, here's hoping that the Mac Web finds new ways to be relevant and interesting. I'd tell you what my contribution is going to be in terms of making that happen, but the truth is, I'm still thinking about it.
I mean, it's not as if we're less relevant. There are more Mac users than ever, new Mac users every day. If anything, we should be the welcome wagon for all these new people coming in from other platform(s). That "s" is in parentheses of course because there is only one other platform -- and maybe that has something to do with it. When I encounter a Mac user who has just switched two months ago, I don't even know how to have a Mac-based conversation with them. Everything they talk about is in terms of how this or that compares (favorably) to Windows, and how surprised they are at this or that, and they'll make comments about how "this is better than the way a regular computer works."
As a long-time Mac user who doesn't touch Windows except through incidental contact, how, exactly do you relate to these people in terms of having a Mac-based conversation? You're almost better talking about baseball or the weather. Don't get me wrong, it's easy to help them, to show them stuff and teach them things. But a philosophical discussion about the Macintosh universe? It's like discussing life on Earth with someone who just moved here from Mars two months ago. They're constantly amazed that this planet has water, and yet you wouldn't know how to live without it.
So I can't help but wonder if we're heading into the age of the Odd Couple. Mac websites writing from the viewpoint of someone who's been here forever, and an increasing number of readers having just arrived. They say you can tell the tourists from the locals in New York City by looking at where they're looking. The locals have seen it all before so they're not paying much attention to what they're walking past, but the tourists are always walking around looking upward, trying to take it all in because it's all brand new to them.
Maybe it's time for Mac websites to start acting more like tourists, or perhaps more accurately, tour guides. After all, going forward, tourists are going to make up a larger and larger part of our readership.
It seems that as Apple users, we've now entered one huge holding pattern. Which is odd, because if one thing's always been true about Apple in the New Steve Jobs Era, it's been that you never knew what was coming next (unless someone leaked it). But look at the state of Appledom right now:
- We're waiting for the iTunes phone, which was announced more than a year ago, but might be unveiled this week. If you know what the difference between "announced" and "unveiled" is, you're a better PR person than I.
- We're waiting for the new iBook, which we know is coming not because someone leaked it, but simply because it's been so long since the last new iBook.
- We're waiting for Intel-based Macs, which we know are one to two years off, and yet we keep looking at our watch every five minutes anyway.
It's an odd time. There are legitimate reasons for all of the above, as the iBook delay appears to be just an anomaly, the iTunes phone is a great journey into the unknown that had to be announced early to scare other phone companies out of trying to compete with it, and the Intel thing had to be announced way in advance so that developers would have time to start taking things in that direction. So it's not as if there's been a fundamental shift in how Apple handles upcoming products; all you had to do is listen to Tim Cook say the phrase "We don't comment on future unreleased products" fifty or sixty times during the recent analyst conference call, in response to analysts' continual attempts to get him to spill the beans about something they could then blab about. But that's nothing compared to how bad the media has gotten in overfocusing on upcoming Apple products. You need look no further than CNN quoting Think Secret to know that something isn't quite right.
There's been no Mac news, in fact it's been so dead that I've hesitated to bring MacMischief out of hiatus for fear of not being able to find anything to report. And while there's always iPod news of some sort (since the whole word seemingly takes time each day to say or do something iPod-related), it's been slow lately as well, with much of the "news" having less to do with the iPod itself and more to do with the surrounding circus.
So by the looks of things, you would think things sucked right now or something.
But then you remember that Apple currently has the best operating system in history, a stable computer lineup that's growing three times as fast as the industry, a solid and mature slew of software that you can't get on any other platform, music sales through the roof, music player sales coming in higher than anyone had predicted...
Maybe that's it. Maybe things are just too good right now for them to be all that interesting to talk about. To paraphrase Jack Miller of AppleTurns, the disappointment that comes with hearing bad news about Apple is mitigated by the fact that it makes coming up with stuff to write about a lot easier. To that end, it's probably worth noting that during this "nothing's going wrong" period, AppleTurns hasn't been updated in close to a month. Almost as long as I went without updating MacMischief.
So where does this leave us? As Mac users, we're in the perfect spot to be in. But as armchairists, we have to be a bit more creative than usual. There's lots of good news, but none of it really counts as news, and there's almost no bad news. So what are we going to report? Baseball scores? The weather? I really don't know. But rather than just becoming boring and staying boring, here's hoping that the Mac Web finds new ways to be relevant and interesting. I'd tell you what my contribution is going to be in terms of making that happen, but the truth is, I'm still thinking about it.
I mean, it's not as if we're less relevant. There are more Mac users than ever, new Mac users every day. If anything, we should be the welcome wagon for all these new people coming in from other platform(s). That "s" is in parentheses of course because there is only one other platform -- and maybe that has something to do with it. When I encounter a Mac user who has just switched two months ago, I don't even know how to have a Mac-based conversation with them. Everything they talk about is in terms of how this or that compares (favorably) to Windows, and how surprised they are at this or that, and they'll make comments about how "this is better than the way a regular computer works."
As a long-time Mac user who doesn't touch Windows except through incidental contact, how, exactly do you relate to these people in terms of having a Mac-based conversation? You're almost better talking about baseball or the weather. Don't get me wrong, it's easy to help them, to show them stuff and teach them things. But a philosophical discussion about the Macintosh universe? It's like discussing life on Earth with someone who just moved here from Mars two months ago. They're constantly amazed that this planet has water, and yet you wouldn't know how to live without it.
So I can't help but wonder if we're heading into the age of the Odd Couple. Mac websites writing from the viewpoint of someone who's been here forever, and an increasing number of readers having just arrived. They say you can tell the tourists from the locals in New York City by looking at where they're looking. The locals have seen it all before so they're not paying much attention to what they're walking past, but the tourists are always walking around looking upward, trying to take it all in because it's all brand new to them.
Maybe it's time for Mac websites to start acting more like tourists, or perhaps more accurately, tour guides. After all, going forward, tourists are going to make up a larger and larger part of our readership.
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