Apple removes 'Get a Mac' ads from site, finalizing end of campaign - Page 3

An important part of creating an impression that you are an oracle of inexorable, impending doom is knowing when to stop. You went one post too long.

Yes I did.

Read a good Steve Jobs biography, and you'll discover that although he is unquestionably a genius, it doesn't follow that he always acts logically or rationally. If his resentment of the Mac is rooted in emotion, then Mac revenues and profits and numbers will mean nothing to him - he won't let it get in the way of his headstrong plan to exsanguinate the Mac over time.

And, BTW, if you think Steve Jobs is a 100% different person from his first tenure at Apple, think again. Yes, he's improved and matured A LOT. But some lingering bad personality traits remain to this day - to the detriment of Apple, its customers and shareholders.

Still today, Steve Jobs will have a certain favorite product. He showers it with all kinds of resources and even ups the morale of the product management team with perks and amenities like foosball tables, fresh fruit each morning, soda fountains, etc.

He makes the product in development his "baby" and involves himself in a way that ensures he will receive credit.

Then if the product is an embarrassing flop, he'll pivot on his heels, distance himself from it by miles and point fingers of blame at the product management team.

The G4 Cube was his "baby," and he awarded himself most of the credit in press coverage. Then when it failed, he divorced himself from any perception that he had anything to do with it.

The same exact pattern happened with the "sunflower iMac."

As hard as it is to believe, Jobs will suddenly turn on products and even hate Apple products that exist within the walls at One Infinite Loop more than products from competitors like Microsoft or Google!

He'll treat product managers for products he doesn't like with hostility. Their perks and amenities get pulled. They feel unwelcome at Apple. (Many chose to leave, the hostile environment got so bad.)

"One can often hear that the Mac was Steve Jobs' idea. This is not true. In the beginning, Jobs even tried to kill the Mac project. The real father of the Apple Macintosh is Jef Raskin."

"From Jobs' point of view the Mac was a threat for his baby 'Lisa' (pun inteded, Jobs actually named the computer model after his first daugther Lisa!). "Lisa is going to be incredibly great," Jobs said. "It will sell twelve thousand units in the first six months and fifty thousand in the first year. We're prepared to live with Lisa for the next ten years." But it didn't work out. In total only 60,000 units were sold and Lisa had a live span of only two years. Jobs was furious."

(In typical fashion, Jobs sought total credit for an Apple product until the instant it failed, and then he claimed only limited involvement and would say it was everyone else's fault.)

Instead of showing leadership and minimal humility he addressed the Lisa product management team:

"You guys really fucked up. I'm going to have to lay a lot of you off," he said to the Lisa developers at Apple."

Soon he realized that the Mac project, which he was opposing so far, could indeed become the success he had hoped Lisa would become, so he tried to take over the Mac group. The Mac was basically Jef Raskin's idea who was working with a small group on its design. Jef Raskin remembers: "[Jobs] would try to push himself into everything. No matter what you were doing, he had to have something to do with it. Nobody at Apple wanted him involved with their projects. I had started the Macintosh team and we didn't want him either. The standard way [Jobs] operated was picking your brain. He would immediately poo-poo the idea, then a week later, he'd come back and say, 'Hey, I've got a great idea!' The idea that he gave back to you was your own. We called him the Reality Distortion Field."

"The product name "Macintosh" was invented by Raskin. He intentionally misspelled the name of his favorite Apple variety, McIntosh."

Citation: <http://www.markusehrenfried.de/mac/applehistory.html>

Steve Jobs still doesn't base his decisions as a CFO would, an accountant would, he bases them on whatever all-encompassing world view he happens to hold at any particular time.

Of course he will see to it that as he systematically kills off Apple personal computers because they don't fit in with his latest vision for how people SHOULD work and use and interact with technology, he'll find a way to grow Apple's profits without the Mac - and if he can turn the Mac into a money-loser for Apple, all the more ammunition to discontinue it.

Don't forget: he's consolidated a LOT of power. He is Apple's Chairman, CEO and President. He isn't even willing to relinquish the control necessary to appoint a President. He can pretty much impose his will.

Just as his clear record of unexpectedly turning on a product he once loved, Steve will turn on the personal computer and plot its demise. He has a singular focus to the exclusion of all else, and right now it's on iPhone OS devices. The Mac has become an annoyance to him. And I guarantee you, when the next quarterly results comes out that show Apple sold over 3.1 million Macs and is on track to sell a total of 10 million Macs in 2010, Steve Jobs will be furious.

To quote him directly one more time: "traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."

He's referring to his vision that the end of the personal computer era is underway, and Apple, Inc. will conduct business accordingly, and the Mac just doesn't fit in to his vision.

Viva Mac.

Long answer, but addressed to the wrong person. I am not the one you corrected in your back-and -forth. I am a third party who was commenting from outside the argument. Not touchy at all.

I sure hope you're getting paid by the word...

Now, is this just the usual hyperbole or is it playing the devil's advocate or is it bad-mouthing Apple because mad-mouthing anything just feels so good?

Or write any apps on? Only Xcode can produce apps for the iPhone OS. And Xcode only runs on Macs.

Predicting doom is such a gratifying task since it makes you feel smarter than everybody else and it serves to create fear in others which gives you sensation of being able to control other people's feelings.

Well, since SJ has no "resentment of the Mac", nor a "headstrong plan to exsanguinate" it, I guess your entire latest argument is pretty much a waste of words, just like your previous arguments.

I don't really see it as "doom", it's quite plausible. I don;'t think for a minute macs are going away in the next 5 to 10 years. But lets remember, ipad is out in it's first version, think of the first ipod 5 gig, and fast forward til now...

The ipad and similar products are getting fatser and faster processors, it doesn't seem unreal to me to foresee a 'pro version" in a few years down the road that has a display port...

Most development work I do can be done on a 2 GHz, though would really benifit from a lot more ram. In particular, if most of my development work is targeting mobile.

The point is that some innocent person might read these idiotic troll arguments and believe them if they're not countered. That person might be influential.

If all the anti-Apple lies and hatred are allowed to fill the Internet, it will have an effect - similar to that in the 90's when 'there's no software for Macs' and 'No one uses Macs' and 'Macs are toys' lies actually influenced decision makers.

There's no guarantee that countering the idiots will do any good, but at least there's a chance.


Exactly. No one in their right mind would cancel a multibillion dollar product line that is very successful, growing, and profitable on a whim. It's even more important that the Mac is a key part of the very ecosystem that's making their other products so successful.

Not to mention, of course, the fact that the iPad and iPod Touch are content consumption devices and not meant for heavy content creation. It's just implausible that you'll be able to do everything with a 1.5 pound device that you can do with your 40 pound iMac or 60 pound Mac Pro. While the iPad's capabilities will grow, so will user demand. Throughout computer history, need for power has easily kept pace with computer power. I used to be able to do word processing, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and even AutoCad on my 20 MHz Mac IIsi with 5 MB of RAM. Today, it takes a 1 GHz processor with at least 1 GB of RAM to do the same thing. If the 2015 iPad has the power of today's Mac Pro, desktop software will still require 10 times that power.

Well, I see you have as little idea what you are talking about on this topic as any other. No, it's entirely implausible, it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Sorry, but 2GHz, since you don't specify a processor, is a meaningless number. Are you saying that you think a 2GHz ARM processor (iPhone OS) would give you the equivalent processing power of a 2GHz Core2 Duo (Mac OS)? If so, you are sadly mistaken.

what is your problem...

No, I didn't say any of that. I merely said that the idea that many mac users could move to using an ipad 'like' device for production in 5 to 10 YEARS is plausible.

I said most of my work can be done on a 2 GHz system (desktop...) and given the current race for power on a mobile, you don;t think in 10 years a mobile could have that kind of power? You don;t think iphone OS (or other) wouldn't progress to a usable level for production in 10 years??? It appears you have less faith in apple than I do...

It's difficult to see why this is so hard to understand as a plausible idea...

It's difficult to see why anyone who knew what they were talking about would give this meme any credibility at all.

Your argument is based on the premise that desktop processing power, and desktop software's demand for it will stand still while mobile processors catch up, a premise that is patently absurd, therefore, an argument that is patently absurd.

why doesn't AI with its members voting creat a list of the mac ads and determine the 10 or 5 best

my list

bean counter
supermodel
V-word
don'tknow the name but vista adding a camera by taping it to his head
top of the line
security


what was the very first "get a mac" ad

what's truly absurd is the idea that some anonymous individual announces where the platform will be in a decade.



I have no doubt, that's what we'll see in 10 years. Anyone that thinks apple won't accomplish this really must have very little faith in Apple. Of course, I'm not speaking about mac pros raw power for crunching serious 3d etc. But then it'd be absurd if one thought that I meant that...
LOL

I hope you appreciate the irony of your post.

sure I do. LOL....

OK, just as long as we're all clear that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Why do you keep repeating this and ignoring all the people telling you it's a good idea to kill a campaign before it gets stale?

I'm a loyal fan of Apple computers since buying my first Mac Book. I intend to repair my current Mac Book, sell it, and get an iPad.

I watched the iPad launch several times and found some interesting things. The main one was that I believe Steve Jobs hinted at the demise of the notebook computer. In the presentation he was clearly saying that the iPad was a new category of device between smart phones and laptops. At the end he made the most interesting statement. This is exactly what he said;

"When you feel all this power, and this much fun, and the internet in your hands, you'll never wanna go back."

I suppose the "...go back" phrase could be referring to smart phones and laptops in the context of his presentation. Since he dismissed netbooks as being inferior I don't think he was referring to those devices.

I made my prediction about laptops going away in this forum thread: http://www.123macmini.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26443

I truly believe that the days of the Apple laptop are numbered. I still think there will be a desktop Apple available, just not as many models.

Why was the latest release of the Mac Book Pros so subdued? Where was the media show? There wasn't one. It was just updated and put on the site. I really would prefer to see some videos showing all of the latest features and speed enhancements instead of reading a graph showing the new processors are faster and the RAM is larger.

The Apple software is superior and that is what I like most. They use the same processors as other companies use and the same hard drives. Until the iPad A4 it seemed Apple was just becoming a software company with high end hardware integration. Perhaps they will change their tune and create their own chips again which would make them unique in the computer marketplace.

Apple can't be considered a boutique company anymore. They are gigantic. I wonder who will be the next Apple with the greatest innovations.

No, you're wrong on all counts, that's exactly what he meant, netbooks, which he's well known to consider pieces of crap.

The idea that iPhone OS devices will replace Apple laptops is simply stupid, and anyone who actually believes it demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the technologies involved, as well as a general misunderstanding of technology and Apple.

But then, you're just here to spread FUD, which is equally lame.

careful. You'll be labeled a heretic of some sort for expressing an opinion.

ooops, too late. You don't know what you're talking about either...
LOL.

Methinks apologies are in order.

Because it was NOT stale and not even close to becoming stale.

Yes, the basic format was the same: the human personification of a Mac and the human personification of a Windows PC.

But that's where it ended. After that, the stories and scenarios varied vastly - there was infinite potential. The stories and scenarios were interesting, unquestionably funny, and the message communicated was STRONG and compelling.

Remember this?

Remember this?

Remember this?

Remember this?

Remember this?

Remember this?

Remember this?

And finally, remember the best one of all?

They worked, and were working well when Apple killed them.

Though the outer formula was the same, the infinite variety of funny scenarios, interesting tales and clever visuals had no limits.

This campaign could have continued for years.

And if you're worried about a marketing message getting stale, you should probably write to Maytag urging them to stop using the "Maytag Repairman," the human personification of "dependability."

He's been in use since 1967 or 43 years ago, and counting, as he is still in use today.

When a marketing effort works, don't change it for arbitrary reasons, or because you're bored with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The "Get a Mac" campaign was not broke.

So, Apple decided to change their marketing message. Big deal. Your reading into it that it portends the end of Macs is stupid. Companies change their marketing messages all the time without discontinuing products.

Next new ad,

"Hello, I'm iPhone OS." ..... "And I'm Android."

You'd be right if the "Get a Mac" TV ad campaign was followed by a successor, but there will be no more Mac TV ads.

And you know this for a fact, how? Oh, right, you're just making up "facts" to support your absurd argument.

Not at all. I understood you were not addressing me. Just wanted to clarify. You are a gentleman (or woman).

Watch.

yes just like when 3rd watch ended with no real conclustion

me and my kids would watch all the TV spots in a row
the final few are classics

maybe a BD
bootleg will come out ??

peace

9

i watch some of these fantasy android TV spots and wondered how stupid any one is to think thats the real stuff it can do ??

great sci fi ad thou

and hey my 160 g pod can multi task




9

remeber the boundy lady with the 9 cups of coffee on one sheet of wet boundy ??
how many of us tried that one ??

and the good to the last drop ones ???

hmmmm

peace 9

No, he's right. After the iPad intro, for a long time, the first story link on apple.com/startpage was titled, "Is the iPad a laptop killer?"

Seems like Apple was endorsing the idea, and irrefutably promoting the idea and the story by giving it such prominence as the first link on their "startpage."

The story was about "laptops," not "netbooks."

I might agree that an iPad with a forward-facing still and video (for videoconferencing) camera, and an opposite side camera for stills and video would not just be a netbook killer, but would bury it so deep it would be close to China.

I won't be buying the first iteration of the iPad, but maybe next year...

P.S. I'd like to see a third party come out with a diminutive qwerty keyboard that could be connected to the iPhone or touch or the iPad.

I like my depressable buttons!

I spend over $100 to get a Matias tactilepro keyboard for my Mac because the keys are "full-travel" and "scissor-action." I love it, and I can type MUCH faster with it.

Get screened for ADD. Can you read an entire book?

Also. The creative pro people were the ones keeping Apple in business during the lean years before the iPod. Are they really going to abandon them now? I suppose it is possible but I would hope not.

Speaking only for myself, as a creative pro and two-and-a-half decade long Mac zealot, I have often felt slapped around, unappreciated and dissed by Apple.

During that dark period in the mid-90's where EVERY article about Apple sang from the same hymnal writing that Apple was days away from going out of business or being bought by IBM or Sun (and then dissolved into the company such that you could no longer recognize an "Apple" anymore), we zealots continued to stick by Apple and the Mac even when it had hardware quality control issues, the extension-laden operating system crashed at least once an hour, and Windows PCs had become undeniably faster.

One Mac purchase I made during these years, I had to take the machine back to the store three times because of a hardware defect. Speaking of defect, I had every reason to do so, but didn't.

Were it not for the dollars from us "True Believers" that propped Apple up just enough that it didn't go out of business, Apple would not exist today.

Circa 1997, Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he were CEO for Apple, and he said something like, 'I would shut the company down and give back the money to the shareholders."

How now brown cow?

In market cap, Dell is something like 48th, and Apple, Inc. is #3.

HA!

We already played this game last night. Plain and simple, you have no idea what you are talking about, your "theory" makes no sense at all from a business or technical perspective (as previously pointed out). it's stupid, and you're just on a FUD campaign.

No, it's a completely stupid meme. Pure FUD, pure bullshit.