Apple's increasing cultural influence colors "Obama crash"
Apple's increasing visibility on the PC desktop, and in national politics and global culture, has resulted in the Mac's multicolored "beach ball" wait cursor becoming more recognizable to a general audience than the icons used by Windows.
Notably, the national news magazine didn't use either the historical hourglass icon from Windows xp and earlier versions, nor the animated blue circle Microsoft began using with Windows Vista. An entire generation might not recognize the meaning of either one.
Despite maintaining a greater overall share of the PC installed base, Windows doesn't have the same cachet as Apple's Macs, which are now used so broadly that the coy image Businessweek used didn't need to provide further context in order to explain the joke.
"Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it," the president said.
"I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn't," Obama continued. "That's not how we do things in America. We don't actively root for failure."
However, during his presidency Apple has turned from a success story to an unstoppable force, with both a global presence and a distinctly American identity that has gained tremendous popularity throughout the federal government, the armed forces and in regular use by the president himself.
Jobs presented Obama with a pre-release iPad 2, and the president praised Jobs as an example of the 'American Dream,' stating, "something that's always been the greatest strength of America is a thriving, booming middle class, where everybody has got a shot at the American dream. And that should be our goal. That should be what we're focused on: how are we creating opportunity for everybody? So that we celebrate wealth. We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products. We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing. We want that incentive. That's part of the free market."
Conversely, Apple's growing stature has enabled it to initiate significant new investment in the U.S. economy, with billions of dollars worth of retail expansion and infrastructure spending, including massive new green iCloud data centers throughout the country, as well as the production of the high-tech new Mac Pro, the reestablishment of modern manufacturing that Apple first attempted in the 80s, followed by Steve Jobs' efforts to build American NeXT hardware in 1990.
Obama touted Apple's Mac Pro efforts in his State of the Union address in February, stating "Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico. And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again." Obama also invited Apple's chief executive Tim Cook to the event.
Much like Obama's own news nemesis, Strategy Analytics has defined itself as a font of metrics trying to propagate the idea that Apple's iPhone, iPad and other products competing against Samsung are failing in terms of global market share, a meme broadly reported by tech journalists without criticism.
The tech media doesn't question why Apple is making more money than the rest of the phone industry combined, or, conversely why "global market share" is apparently irrelevant to Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other companies who are touted as serious contenders in the mobile market despite having only a tiny fraction of the global market share of Apple's hardware, and none of the profitability in their own mobile offerings.
ObamaS X
The latest cover by Businessweek for its November 3 edition metaphorically portrays U.S. President Obama as "crashed," and in need of a reboot, depicting him as a partially loaded image with the wait beach ball cursor from OS X.Notably, the national news magazine didn't use either the historical hourglass icon from Windows xp and earlier versions, nor the animated blue circle Microsoft began using with Windows Vista. An entire generation might not recognize the meaning of either one.
Despite maintaining a greater overall share of the PC installed base, Windows doesn't have the same cachet as Apple's Macs, which are now used so broadly that the coy image Businessweek used didn't need to provide further context in order to explain the joke.
ObamaPhone
The political commentary is also interesting in that President Obama himself associated the launch problems related to his efforts to reform U.S. health insurance with the launch of new Apple's iOS 7."Consider that just a couple of weeks ago, Apple rolled out a new mobile operating system, and within days, they found a glitch, so they fixed it," the president said.
"I don't remember anybody suggesting Apple should stop selling iPhones or iPads or threatening to shut down the company if they didn't," Obama continued. "That's not how we do things in America. We don't actively root for failure."
President iPad
Apple's increasingly dominant position in technology globally was already well founded in 2009 when Obama was elected, based on years of success with iPod, the blockbuster launch of iPhone and the increasing presence of OS X.However, during his presidency Apple has turned from a success story to an unstoppable force, with both a global presence and a distinctly American identity that has gained tremendous popularity throughout the federal government, the armed forces and in regular use by the president himself.
Jobs presented Obama with a pre-release iPad 2, and the president praised Jobs as an example of the 'American Dream,' stating, "something that's always been the greatest strength of America is a thriving, booming middle class, where everybody has got a shot at the American dream. And that should be our goal. That should be what we're focused on: how are we creating opportunity for everybody? So that we celebrate wealth. We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products. We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing. We want that incentive. That's part of the free market."
Conversely, Apple's growing stature has enabled it to initiate significant new investment in the U.S. economy, with billions of dollars worth of retail expansion and infrastructure spending, including massive new green iCloud data centers throughout the country, as well as the production of the high-tech new Mac Pro, the reestablishment of modern manufacturing that Apple first attempted in the 80s, followed by Steve Jobs' efforts to build American NeXT hardware in 1990.
Obama touted Apple's Mac Pro efforts in his State of the Union address in February, stating "Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs back from Mexico. And this year, Apple will start making Macs in America again." Obama also invited Apple's chief executive Tim Cook to the event.
Forget success, let's actively root for failure
Fueled by the popularity of its high quality products leading satisfaction rankings, Apple continues to rake in majority of the global PC and mobile industries' profits despite its competitors' dumping their own offerings on the market in vast volumes at or near their production cost. That includes Samsung, which shipped more than three times as many phones as Apple in the last quarter, but earned far less from all of those sales.Much like Obama's own news nemesis, Strategy Analytics has defined itself as a font of metrics trying to propagate the idea that Apple's iPhone, iPad and other products competing against Samsung are failing in terms of global market share, a meme broadly reported by tech journalists without criticism.
The tech media doesn't question why Apple is making more money than the rest of the phone industry combined, or, conversely why "global market share" is apparently irrelevant to Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other companies who are touted as serious contenders in the mobile market despite having only a tiny fraction of the global market share of Apple's hardware, and none of the profitability in their own mobile offerings.
Comments
Huh. This seems to have been accidentally posted in “Mac OS X” instead of “PoliticalOutsider”.
I think enough people would recognize the BSOD that they could have done this instead:
Huh. This seems to have been accidentally posted in “Mac OS X” instead of “PoliticalOutsider”.
I think enough people would recognize the BSOD that they could have done this instead:
While that's amusing, they used the wrong thing in the first one. The spinning wheel indicates that the OS is waiting on hardware. A kernel panic would be
Your reference was actually correct though. Given that most print publications have any art/production staff on Macs, you would think they could understand the difference. In either case it's usually a hardware problem. Anytime I see a kernel panic, I ask the person if they upgraded ram. If they say yes, my next question is whether they tested each stick. You can probably guess the answer.
But for him to connect his OtramaScare roll-out disaster to anything Apple is quite pathetic and just shows how incompetent he really is.
Family Guy did it five years ago:
It's sad - just noise, spin, whatever you want to call it.
While that's amusing, they used the wrong thing in the first one. The spinning wheel indicates that the OS is waiting on hardware. A kernel panic would be...
The cover photo represents a server crash, not a client crash. Beach ball is appropriate when the client is waiting on the server.
bs. i see the beach ball all the time with no server involved. when an app is waiting on i/o for example, to a local disk. no server involved.
That's for artists, not pundits...
/droll
See lyrics to "President Gas" by psychedelic furs.
Honesty how often do the see the spinning beach ball these day. I hard see it anymore unless I have way too many applications open and it waiting to move memory around. They act like people see the spinning beach ball all the time. I think the blue screen of death is more appropriate.
As person who never shuts down his Mac and had it running for months if not almost a year just going in and out of sleep I can see Mac does not crash all the often, they get a bit slow, but they easily fixed.
Please don't associate anything Apple with the Obama Administration or the stock price will crash worse than the Healthcare.gov website!!
Blogs aren't journalism. The sooner everyone wraps their head around that the better. Enjoy them for what they are, but quit expecting the same standards. If you want real journalism, there are places to get that, but don't confuse the two.
I am willing to say most things you read no matter the medium or delivery method is not journalism it is great story telling.
Imagine if Apple forced everyone to buy a phone, but worse, if you had a phone you liked, like an android or a blackberry, Apple forced you to give up that phone, and buy an iPhone or pay a percentage of your income as a penalty.
That's what Obamacare does, and that's why people are demanding that it be delayed or shut down.
Not because of a "glitch" (of which there have been few in iOS 7, unlike the unmitigated disaster of the obamacare websites.)
These false equivalencies are a way of lying that is popular among politicians, and really are disgusting. That alone shows Obama is evil, and really doesn't give a damn how many people die because he's ended their insurance and forced them onto crappy plans that cover less and cost a lot more.
Huh. This seems to have been accidentally posted in “Mac OS X” instead of “PoliticalOutsider”.
I think enough people would recognize the BSOD that they could have done this instead:
I thought the Apple blue screen didn't have text?
This Obamacare debacle goes far beyond just the website.
You are just to much of an Obama worshiper to see it.
Liberal entitlements (Medicare and social security) have this country with over 100 trillion in unfounded liabilities and now we will sink even deeper.
America. **** yeah!
I thought it was interesting that he was using Apple as an example of a company that fixes problems.
If Obama wanted to tell everyone to accept all the software problems, he would have referenced Windows 8 instead.
The cover photo represents a server crash, not a client crash. Beach ball is appropriate when the client is waiting on the server.
Ahh you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way.
This Obamacare debacle goes far beyond just the website.
You are just to much of an Obama worshiper to see it.
Liberal entitlements (Medicare and social security) have this country with over 100 trillion in unfounded liabilities and now we will sink even deeper.
America. **** yeah!
Oh geez more partisan hackery. Social Security has its problems, yet you seem to be under the impression that it borrows heavily from the general treasury fund, and you even tacked on a cheesy meme. Gold star for political trolling sir.