Apple owns the press
FOR A WHILE NOW I have been noticing how the US print media have been attempting to flog Apple gear through their regular news stories.
It is now officially impossible across the pond to refer to a smart phone with out prefixing it with the phrase 'like the iphone' or an MP3 player without mentioning the word 'Ipod'. Stories where the brand of the laptop is not important, suddenly refer to 'Macbook' however when it is another brand it is just left as 'laptop' or 'notebook'. It gets a disproportionate amount of coverage for a minority hardware maker.
Stories about Iphone applications are getting coverage when the news value of these is flaky at best, unless there is some degree of controversy about them.
This week's award for the most stupid piece of product placement for the Iphone goes to the Business Week hack who worked out how much it would cost if you downloaded all 25,000 iphone applications. The futile yarn worked out that would cost $71,442.
The story is an opportunity to list the price of the software, how easy it is to download and install, and how some of the applications are free. Gosh.
"Based on the App Store's recent performane (sic), the number of applications in the store now nearly doubles every two months... the store only had 15,000 applications in January. If that pace of growth continues, the store will have nearly 300,000 applications by year-end. Assuming the $3 average selling price holds, a consumer would have to spend $900,000 to buy up everything in sight," Business Week enthuses.
There then follows a lot of PR puff about how much dosh the App Store will make by the end of the year and even goes onto how Apple itself made $10 billion in the last quarter.
Why does Apple get such an easy ride?
Historically the print industry has been a big Apple user base and most of the hard-edge desktop publishing gear used software beasts like Quark Xpress which was most popular in their fruit-themed flavours. For many years Apple was popular in education and the 'creative markets' where hardcore computer functions were not needed but interaction via a good GUI was.
This has changed over the years as Wintel graphics have become much more user friendly, but there is still a large Apple base in the print industry - particularly in the Art department.
Apple has been less popular among hacks in Blighty. This is mostly because it cost too much to equip lowly journos with the stuff. Sometimes there are dual-flavoured networks, but it is mostly PC.
If I were an Apple fanboy I would claim that the US press is Apple biased because they use the kit and therefore become fans. The British press don't use Apple software and so they don't know how good it is. Therefore they write nastier stories about the outfit.
Unfortunately the logic also works the other way. The Brit IT press has seen that Microsoft stuff is just as good and are therefore less likely to say nice things about a brand. Neither argument holds much water.
What concerns me is that, through this free and biased advertising, Apple has managed to establish itself as a viable seller in areas where rivals could not go. It used this press power to force its way into the smart phone environment so quickly that it should have been impossible.
If you listened to the US press you might conclude that it is the only seller of smart phones.
Then when things go wrong there is a marked reluctance for the US press to call Apple to account. Stories of deforming laptops, faulty 3G coverage, attempts to get consumer laws changed to shorten warranties and exploding batteries get less coverage.
When the INQ ran its story about a Dell laptop catching fire, it went worldwide in hours. It was by far the most stolen and uncredited story in INQ history. A strikingly similar story about a Macbook, however, was nicked by very few.
My theory is that it comes down to what you buy. There is a psychological need to defend your decision to purchase something, particuarly if it is expensive, against all reason. Hacks should be more cynical. They should hate everyone and everything.
If they own an Apple they should be moaning about it, if they run Windows they should be writing a yarn everytime it crashes. It is what gives the industry balance.
When there is no balance present, someone gets a monopoly. µ
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And you just gave Apple even more free publicity.
I hope you are enjoying the free MacBook they sent you.
Some people do just defend their buying choice but that does not explain the my situation. With 2 PC's and 1 Mac on my desk my buying choice would lead me to read PC/Windoze stories as often as I read Apple/Mac news, but that just isn't the case. I read LOTS of news about Apple even iPhone articles when I don't even own one, yet it is rare that I read anything about PC's. The media is just following their readers interests.
As for me, I find using Mac OSX much more fun than using Windoze, and it is a better quality product. People want to read about things they like and enjoy or wish they owned. It works the same for cars, how many articles are there Ford Escorts vs Ferrari? Many people share my view that Windoze is more of a Ford Escort and Apple and all its (recent) products are more like a Ferrari. Expensive? Hardly, where else can you get a Ferrari for a couple grand?
Yeah. I know. I've given up wondering when you're gonna shut up about them, actually
Do I really want to read a another story about all stories being about apple? Not as if you never mentioned it before:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/717/1049717/new-york-times-slams-rim
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/104/1022104/iphone-popularity-greatly
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/557/1010557/apple-calls-tame-journalists
Typical fanboy comment "Oh I know lots of people that agree with me"
No, you don't. You're a minority product owner and therefore don't by definition know lots of other people with the same opinion. Or do you mean via the smug-fest forums that comprise the Apple world?
Lets start the dissemination:
"As for me, I find using Mac OSX much more fun than using Windoze, and it is a better quality product" & " yet it is rare that I read anything about PC's"
Really? And you know this how hmm? Since you by your own admition read hardly anything about PC's your comment is worthless, not to mention narrow-minded.
Let me spell it out for you. MacOS is not a better product than Windows. It's closed-platform, like Windows, but unlike MS Aplle play their cards even closer to their chest and this is why huuuuge amounts of software do not *just work* like you'd expect it too. Why there is comparatively low take up in the business environment.
As for the comment about Fords/Ferraris, only knob-heads & footballers buy Ferraris. Guess what that makes you. The vlue is you;re not a footballer.
see the "ipod" show (on channel 5 monday 8pm) it is advertised as the gagdet show but im not fooled!!!!!!!!
The article gets the important bits right (esp. about how hacks should be skeptics and cynics about ALL marketing claims), but I'm thinking the "iPod" brand as a generic name is about the same as "Walkman" from the last century. I guess that's not fair, but between Band-Aids and Kleenex (and Coke in Texas), it happens, and is the ultimate marketing coup.
Why Mac user compare their mac with ferrari. Ferrari are useless expensive cars. You can do nothing with it except showing it and looking at it.
You guy's need to change the name of this Site from "the inquire" to the "Apple Sucks Blog". How you can always be upset about a company that only holds less than 10 percent of the market? Your paranoia is obviously getting the best of you...
Why do you feel so threatened? And now it's the "evil media" promoting Apple's world domination agenda. If I didn't know any better I would say you were a division of "Fox News"... Apple has created technology that is now part of the nomenclature, reports use the terminology, Get over it! You're a Tech Blog you use techie terms all the time, so deal with it and keep you paranoid conspiracies to yourself!!
Great post Nick! Amazingly insightful and thoughtful article. Thanks a lot.
"Hacks should be more cynical. They should hate everyone and everything." -- you'll get no disagreement from me there. Unfortunately, most of what we see in the press is opinion and editorialising dressed up as "news".
Apple's popularity in the media isn't entirely surprising: Apple is a design boutique which just happens to apply its skills to computers and entertainment products. There are many art and graphic design people in the media, so good design naturally appeals to them.
Similarly, journalists are trained storytellers, and the "Apple vs. Microsoft" race is no different to "Austin vs. Ford" or "Tiny island nation vs. Rest of Occupied Europe". It's just the "David vs. Goliath" story retold yet again. People never grow tired of this particular trope.
Finally, Apple's design-centric approach applies to their product names. They use easily understood names like "iPhone" and "iMac" instead of, say, "WXU37i" or "E-System 3089".
This is at least one reason why the iPhone has become the de-facto smartphone benchmark. (The other is that Apple don't crank out a new phone every other week, so the iPhone benchmark is fairly stable for most of the year.) It's convenient.
I wish Palm's well with their "Pré" model. Apple *needs* good rivals. It forces all parties involved to raise their game and that's a good thing for us, their customers.
It is defiantly true they flog anything apple. I don't have reasoning of WHY that is, but if you were to believe what you see in the US Media as an accurate representation of the world, Apple laptops would have a 70-90% market share with dell 10-20% and false brands making up the remainder.
It probably does have a lot to do with people in the industry have a near-worship stance on apple and would love to see their computer in there.
But I think it might also have to do with their laptops being very bland looking and to the untrained eye, unobtrusive.
"Why Mac user compare their mac with ferrari. Ferrari are useless expensive cars. You can do nothing with it except showing it and looking at it."
Yes, but it's a chick magnet and hot babes will just flock to the Mac, err, I mean the Ferrari.
I think you're being paranoid about Apple media coverage. There's a difference between the mindset of their young post-Thatcherite readers and we whose formative years were the leaner 1970's or 60's.
I like desktop PCs because they are so backward compatible that I don't even have to buy the darn things, I just find them dumped. It doesn't occur to me that they are dull beige boxes -- I'm still excited by computers per se.
But today's twenties are interested in style and cool much more than the technology and they don't mind spending money -- money they haven't actually got, I'd guess. They don't care that the Mac is just another Intel PC but in an aluminium box. They're already paying stupid money to gossip all day on mobiles, and the iPhone is,well, more fun.
Wake up and smell the Starbucks -- at a price per cup that I spend on ground coffee for a month.
Just had to point out that your theory on why Apple gets so much coverage (legacy magazine graphic-art designers control the editorial department!) was ludicrous.
Apple gets disproportionate coverage from the tech media because stories about Apple (whether good, bad, indifferent) get disproportionate traffic compared to stories about any other single company. Ask anyone managing a business or tech web site, and they'll tell you so, as I'm sure your boss is now aware after your trite story probably did more traffic today than you guys did all week.
Thank you Nick Farrell for your eye-opening article on the American media conspiracy to promote Apple products. I had no idea of this appalling travesty of justice until I read your unbiased report here. (And I know that anyone that writes, as you did in another article, "After years of Apple kicking its fanboy base with its autocratic and expensive gizmos..." certainly has no ax to grind and can write professionally and unbiased. Plus, the Inquirer, like the British tabloids, is known for its high standard of professional, unslanted, and non-sensational reporting.)
You know, it’s funny how you don’t see the obvious until it’s brought to your attention... You see, just before reading your fair and unbiased article, I purchased an MP3 album from Amazon.com. (It was, in fact, downloading as I read.) While reading I recalled that I had seen on Amazon’s MP3 music pages where they stated something like: “For iPods and all other MP3 players”. iPods! I didn’t think much about it at the time, but after reading your deeply insightful article I realized that I had just witnessed real evidence of the conspiracy that you are so selflessly defending against. I don’t own an iPod and I just recently bought my daughter a $40.00 Sansa Something-Or-Other®. Does it get mentioned on Amazons site?! Nooooooo! But Apple’s iPod does get mentioned! Specifically! By name! The only one! Now some would say that Amazon does this because iPods represent about 70% off all MP3 players sold in the U.S. while my daughter’s Sansa only represents about .00000001%, or so. But we know the truth, don’t we, Nick? Like the American media, Amazon is just another shill for Apple’s “autocratic and expensive gizmos”, and after reading your article, I’m not going to stand for it! The next MP3 album I purchase is going to be from the iTunes store after they remove their DRM in April. That’ll show Amazon! Their not going to help Apple “get a monopoly” with my money any longer.
I commute to work in the silicon valley. I do tech support for PC's and Apple's. On my way to work I see PC's (mostly Dell's) and Apple's. Company's like Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Cisco are some of the companies that I have talked to people. I find that 60% of the people commuting are using Apple. Is this because it's a bloated over priced product? Is it because people in this area live near Steve Jobs and are forced to buy the product? Is it because the people don't know any better? You make the decision
I don’t hate Macs, I don’t use them. What I hate is how people who have converted to Macs say there gr8 the best thing they have ever used they just brag and brag. But there not, they are comparing their Macs to their old £300 pc. If you spend £1000 even just £600 on a pc it will be way quicker and more customizable the spec of the pc will be way better. Also Macs look gr8 well compared to your old crap dell they do but compare to a Sony Vaio around the same price range I think they look average. Also you can’t open a Mac easily why what don’t they want you to see I can open a laptop in sec's and change the ram put a new battery in ...
Pc's cater for all markets from the free giveaways with your broadband to your £1500 Sony's. That’s what I like about them you have choice to do what you like. If we didn’t have Pc’s allot of the world couldn’t afford an overpriced Mac however if we didn’t have a Mac, ooo well next. Computers are a necessity not a want. Lastly people winged about Pc’s it’s not the pc that the problem it’s the manufactures shoving stuff like Norton and Google desktop to slow the thing down. O and the Iphone you can’t even forward a TX I think the 8 year old Nokia's could do that.
OK, one more time:
"your" is not the same as "you're".
"there" is not the same as "their" and also not the same as "they're".
They cannot be used interchangeably.
It lends far more credibility to your post if you can spell.
I blame Apple.
@Kev. You are wrong. All of the words you have in quotes are spelled correctly regardless of how they are used. The problem you are stating is not of spelling, but of grammar. While bad spelling and bad grammar are both writing errors, they cannot be used interchangeably. For what it’s worth, it lends far more credibility to your post if you have something pertinent to say to the topic. I blame Microsoft. :)
@Larry
I think you mean Spelt, not Spelled.
:-)
I blame the Americans.
The BBC RSS feed had as one of the top stories in the World the iphone update.
It's unreal, a phone with maybe 14 million out there is really that important?
This isn't to knock the iphone of Macs, they are fine devices but their media attention is out of proportion to their presence.
Surely it is because Apple has fantastic marketing.
But isn't this like the car reviews in newspapers. BMWs, Mercedes and other luxury cars are constantly being reviewed while Opels, Vauxhalls and other more common cars that far more people buy receive less attention.
Look at posts of the users and fans of Apple . Maybe they are attracted to the "i" part of the products ,as in "i"phone , "i"mac , "i"pod....etc. Now if we could develope a product called the "i"ego , I bet they would all snap that one up too and hail it's superiority also.
That is exactly what I love about the Inq: equal hate to every lousy brand and hard, simple, unmasked criticism flying towards all the IT companies. Though sometimes it seems to be biased against the Vole, Nvidia and Fruitzilla; they deserve it anyway and the articles are hilarious.
Screw Le Pomme and its Macolytes.
raskolnikov
@Steve
Isn't Spelt an old-world wheat that's popular with health-food junkies? BTW, my Firefox browser flags the word as misspelled. I blame the Canadians.
MacTards said: "Wes, stop being an ass".
Wes: Sorry can't help it... but that's not the topic here.
MacTards said: "Oh I know lots of people that agree with me"
Wes: Totally missed my point. Now days 'News' is nothing more than entertainment and its also a for profit activity. 'News' outlets cover what people want to read about. Doesn't matter if I agree with the topics they choose or not, thats just the way it is.
I'm afraid your slang reference to "knob-heads & footballers" is lost on me given I'm just a dumb American.
As for you claim that I don't know anything about Microsoft just because I don't read 'news' articles about it... Please don't tell my employers as they pay me for my knowledge of Microsoft not my knowledge of Apple. Also don't tell Microsoft or they may take away the list of certifications they have given me over the years :-O I need to keep up my charade of being knowledgeable about Microsoft as that is how I get my money to buy Apple products :-) Note Microsoft lets me use *all* of their products for free... which will lower the cost of my buying a new macbook as I plan to run windoze on it in addition to OSX.
As to my opinion as to which OS is better... you just let me know when you have been using both for 25 years (yes that's longer than they have had their current product names) Let me know when you have looked thru the source code and made bug fixes to at least one of them, and then we can go have beer and have an intelligent discussion of the subject.
[Now if we were debating Windoze and Mac OS 9 or less, I'd agree with you]
Cheers, Wes
it's the English that don't know how to speak or write English well. They butcher it all the time.
It's color not colour.
It's sk-hed-ule not sched-ule.
It's or-rag-ano not ora-gano.
It's a car trunk not a boot.
It's a cigarette butt not fag.
I kid. I love the English. They gave us two things that I cherish: English language and the British measurement system. Metric is for artards! It's MPG - MPH - foot - inches - miles - gallon. Well even the English caved in our the last thing they have contributed to society and went metric. America will fight to prevent the BMS from falling by the wayside! Oye!!!
Considering how yanks are trained since the crucible in early childhood to have faith instead of placing trust in knowlegde, no wonder that there're lots of Apple fanboys on the other side of the pond who happily accept anything that the Apple spin machine churns out, in fact they're are about as gullible as the birthers of laetly ;)