4 ms·

I'm not sure how large of a timeline you're looking at Apple with, but in my experience, they've always catered to the "wealthy", or those who didn't spend thei

I'm not sure how large of a timeline you're looking at Apple with, but in my experience, they've always catered to the "wealthy", or those who didn't spend their money well. They've always been a company that made beautiful hardware, the kind that serves an aesthetic purpose in addition to it's function. Far cheaper alternatives exist, but that's never been Apple's goal.

mercer 8y ago
Yeah, that's a fair point, but my feeling is mostly that they've become more catering to wealthier over time. Could very well be I'm wrong. I'd say for timeline the Apple Watch (so about three years ago?) is probably when I started feeling this way. This is also around the period they released their weirdly pretentious/impractical cylindrical Mac Pro, and moved to the new, generally-disliked-by-the-pro-audiences MacBook Pro's (to the point where I'm about to buy a 2015 model in the near future). EDIT: actually, the new MacBooks are a great example of why I feel there's been a 'shift' of sorts. The whole things seems to mostly aimed at the affluent than the pro users: thinness at the expense of everything else, a touchbar that looks cool but is the last thing pro users want, and removal of ports which strikes me as exactly the kind of thing that wouldn't bother a fancy executive with a gold iWatch, but cause major trouble for most power users. It's like they decided the original MacBook Air customer is now their primary one, or at least more important than before.
- rubicon33 8y ago
  Ahh, I see your point. While they have generally been marketed as a "premium" product, it's really the rise of these "pretentious/impractical" products + features that indicates their catering to a wealthy / elite class. Interesting. Could be as wealth has become more striated, they've decided to double down on the affluent.
  - mercer 8y ago
    Another less cynical reason why Apple might be 'changing' is that their usual approach to things just doesn't work as well as it used to. The usual approach Apple takes, or so it seems to me, is to first release a 'luxury' iteration of a product and eventually make it accessible to a broader market. I remember the first iPhone felt like a bit of an excess, and few people around me bought it other than die-hard fans and people with more disposable income (often techies). But around the 3GS (I think?) this changed and it became a mass-market thing. The same happened with iPods, and the MacBook Air is an even better example. The first iteration of the latter was clearly just for the fancy few, but eventually its innovations (unibody, thinness) became core to their more affordable range. The iPod and iPhone and MacBook are the kinds of products everyone needs, wants, and is willing to pay a decent chunk of money for. But already with the iPad and Apple TV that seems more difficult. And the latest iPhones also seem to suffer from a lack of proper innovation that has mass-market appeal. A watch or, say, a car strike me as even more difficult to turn into a smash hit. Same goes for smart home stuff. So perhaps it's not so much that Apple is intentionally targeting the affluent, but rather that their later products are stuck in a kind of first-iteration-for-the-fancy-people limbo. I don't know whether this is lack of creativity on their part, or an actual issue. Probably a bit of both, but I have to admit that I also find it difficult to come up with an iPhone style innovation or new product that wouldn't suffer from this problem. I suppose something AR glasses could be a thing someday: start with luxury versions, Apple Watch style, that end up having mass-market appeal in a way the Watch clearly doesn't.

mercer 8y ago

Yeah, that's a fair point, but my feeling is mostly that they've become more catering to wealthier over time. Could very well be I'm wrong. I'd say for timeline the Apple Watch (so about three years ago?) is probably when I started feeling this way. This is also around the period they released their weirdly pretentious/impractical cylindrical Mac Pro, and moved to the new, generally-disliked-by-the-pro-audiences MacBook Pro's (to the point where I'm about to buy a 2015 model in the near future). EDIT: actually, the new MacBooks are a great example of why I feel there's been a 'shift' of sorts. The whole things seems to mostly aimed at the affluent than the pro users: thinness at the expense of everything else, a touchbar that looks cool but is the last thing pro users want, and removal of ports which strikes me as exactly the kind of thing that wouldn't bother a fancy executive with a gold iWatch, but cause major trouble for most power users. It's like they decided the original MacBook Air customer is now their primary one, or at least more important than before.

rubicon33 8y ago
Ahh, I see your point. While they have generally been marketed as a "premium" product, it's really the rise of these "pretentious/impractical" products + features that indicates their catering to a wealthy / elite class. Interesting. Could be as wealth has become more striated, they've decided to double down on the affluent.
- mercer 8y ago
  Another less cynical reason why Apple might be 'changing' is that their usual approach to things just doesn't work as well as it used to. The usual approach Apple takes, or so it seems to me, is to first release a 'luxury' iteration of a product and eventually make it accessible to a broader market. I remember the first iPhone felt like a bit of an excess, and few people around me bought it other than die-hard fans and people with more disposable income (often techies). But around the 3GS (I think?) this changed and it became a mass-market thing. The same happened with iPods, and the MacBook Air is an even better example. The first iteration of the latter was clearly just for the fancy few, but eventually its innovations (unibody, thinness) became core to their more affordable range. The iPod and iPhone and MacBook are the kinds of products everyone needs, wants, and is willing to pay a decent chunk of money for. But already with the iPad and Apple TV that seems more difficult. And the latest iPhones also seem to suffer from a lack of proper innovation that has mass-market appeal. A watch or, say, a car strike me as even more difficult to turn into a smash hit. Same goes for smart home stuff. So perhaps it's not so much that Apple is intentionally targeting the affluent, but rather that their later products are stuck in a kind of first-iteration-for-the-fancy-people limbo. I don't know whether this is lack of creativity on their part, or an actual issue. Probably a bit of both, but I have to admit that I also find it difficult to come up with an iPhone style innovation or new product that wouldn't suffer from this problem. I suppose something AR glasses could be a thing someday: start with luxury versions, Apple Watch style, that end up having mass-market appeal in a way the Watch clearly doesn't.