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He's obviously never sold PCs to regular people. They care about features as much as techies, maybe more. I did this in the late 90s. People were asking how muc

He's obviously never sold PCs to regular people. They care about features as much as techies, maybe more. I did this in the late 90s. People were asking how much RAM a computer had, how many megahertz the processors were, etc. who didn't have the slightest clue what they meant. The laundry list of tech specs works even on people who don't have the slightest clue what they mean.

rphlx 16y ago
Apple wants to sell iPads even to people who are afraid of PCs. My grandmother got rid of her PC because it intimidated her. I doubt she would even consider using something named 'Android'. Even if it was exactly identical to the iPad. The world of Normals is a world of insecurity and shallow, emotional, surface judgements. Apple is superb at targeting them.
sqrt17 16y ago
Yes... the "geeks/techies" he talks about are the normal people. As opposed to the "if its purpose is something I want, and it's expensive enough, it can't really suck" crowd that Apple is able to tap into. The second group of people would have significant reservations to buy a copycat design if they can afford the original. The first group is concerned about bang for the buck. And they only know how to measure "bang" in terms of numbers - because, among nondescript gray boxes (or small packets of shiny black) that all run similar software, those numbers are all you can easily find out. Care to see how good the camera is? Either take a standardized benchmark to try out in controlled lighting conditions, or ask for the numbers. Do you want to know how well the microphone does? Either take your oscilloscope with you, have very good hearing, or ... well, people are not eagerly asking for numbers, they just assume that the microphone is always good enough for talking and not good enough for serious music recording. Apple can work towards their targeted pricepoint by selecting which features/experiences to include such that the product as a whole is a pleasant experience. (Even though, among the "experience" crowd, no one would go for the quality of earphones that the iPod comes with, if they were to shop for new ones). The "commodity" people have a given feature set (the industry standard) and a pricepoint (or even worse, compete based on price) and all they can do to preserve their margins is squeeze hard.
blasdel 16y ago
"power users" — the affected gits that fancy themselves knowledgable because they aren't afraid to click through dialog boxes and wizards, install inane themes, randomly strip files and kill services as 'optimizations', and copy-paste inept blocks of sudo-ridden shell from linkbait tutorials. Lifehacker readers. Apple managed to almost completely marginalize them with the introduction of the App Store (nobody's writing jailbreak apps), but Google's been courting them aggressively from day one. In decades past they'd have been bickering over their choice of microcomputer platform on BBSes, from the Apple II and C64 to the Amiga and BeOS. Now they have the real-time internet and the companies they partisanly prostitute themselves for are the largest in their sectors with market caps from 80-220 billion dollars.

rphlx 16y ago

Apple wants to sell iPads even to people who are afraid of PCs. My grandmother got rid of her PC because it intimidated her. I doubt she would even consider using something named 'Android'. Even if it was exactly identical to the iPad. The world of Normals is a world of insecurity and shallow, emotional, surface judgements. Apple is superb at targeting them.

sqrt17 16y ago

Yes... the "geeks/techies" he talks about are the normal people. As opposed to the "if its purpose is something I want, and it's expensive enough, it can't really suck" crowd that Apple is able to tap into. The second group of people would have significant reservations to buy a copycat design if they can afford the original. The first group is concerned about bang for the buck. And they only know how to measure "bang" in terms of numbers - because, among nondescript gray boxes (or small packets of shiny black) that all run similar software, those numbers are all you can easily find out. Care to see how good the camera is? Either take a standardized benchmark to try out in controlled lighting conditions, or ask for the numbers. Do you want to know how well the microphone does? Either take your oscilloscope with you, have very good hearing, or ... well, people are not eagerly asking for numbers, they just assume that the microphone is always good enough for talking and not good enough for serious music recording. Apple can work towards their targeted pricepoint by selecting which features/experiences to include such that the product as a whole is a pleasant experience. (Even though, among the "experience" crowd, no one would go for the quality of earphones that the iPod comes with, if they were to shop for new ones). The "commodity" people have a given feature set (the industry standard) and a pricepoint (or even worse, compete based on price) and all they can do to preserve their margins is squeeze hard.

blasdel 16y ago

"power users" — the affected gits that fancy themselves knowledgable because they aren't afraid to click through dialog boxes and wizards, install inane themes, randomly strip files and kill services as 'optimizations', and copy-paste inept blocks of sudo-ridden shell from linkbait tutorials. Lifehacker readers. Apple managed to almost completely marginalize them with the introduction of the App Store (nobody's writing jailbreak apps), but Google's been courting them aggressively from day one. In decades past they'd have been bickering over their choice of microcomputer platform on BBSes, from the Apple II and C64 to the Amiga and BeOS. Now they have the real-time internet and the companies they partisanly prostitute themselves for are the largest in their sectors with market caps from 80-220 billion dollars.