Apple doesn’t do hardware
If you didn’t read Cringely’s article about the iPod and Mac Mini then now is the time. He includes a quote that is about something that I have often said to friends that complained when I sit in front of the PC too long. I am not sitting in front of the PC, as a thing. I am doing things and the PC is the enabler. This is maybe why I like the mac so much, as it keeps the hassle of the hardware and is a more trustworthy enabler. Check this:
> “As for Apple being in the content business, let me offer a comparison. In the 1970s, Motorola used to tell people it sold technology. You talked to any of the SPS engineers, production control managers, marketing people, etc., at their facilities and operations in Phoenix, and they would say that ‘we make and sell technology.’ But between 1978 and 1982 they stopped saying that. They began to say ‘we provide the technology.’ That subtle shift in language reflected a change order of magnitude. Technology migrated from being a product to being the process (an enabler) by which things happened…. It seems to me that Apple is now making that shift. They appear to recognize that digital or electronic technology is no longer a product but a process, an enabler of activities rather than the activity itself. When I bought my first computer, I was buying a computer. Sure I wanted to write programs to do things, and use software that did things, but fundamentally I was buying a product that was about the product.”
> “I recently purchased a Sony Vaio with a tuner built into it. I wasn’t buying a computer, I was buying an entertainment appliance for the kitchen. I wanted an appliance that I could use to watch TV, play games, surf the net, have the kids do homework on and be in a common area. That’s why I think you are right about the Mini. I suspect Apple will add whatever connectivity they need for I/O, be it opto audio or wi-fi audio. But that box is an appliance, not a computer. Or at least it has the true potential to be. And in the digital world, that puts them into the content business, because digital appliances are about content just as kitchen appliances are about food…. And it comes in white.”
All this is why we will not see a G5 Powerbook anytime soon for example. Apple is not playing the Ghz games, they don’t really need to have the highest number there. It’s about the full experience and about building something that gives me what I want. People that guy Apple hardware have understood that it’s not about some numbers (bigger harddrive, more RAM, more Ghz, bigger screen, …), but about finding something that fits best to their wants and needs.
The full article, which includes some other fun stuff, is here.