4 ms·

People really don't want to believe that we are chemical reactions and that Apple used psychology tricks on us through marketing campaigns. It's a lot easier t

People really don't want to believe that we are chemical reactions and that Apple used psychology tricks on us through marketing campaigns. It's a lot easier to justify buying an Apple product with an excuse than to realize that relentless advertising is what caused people to give Apple money.

onethought 5y ago
I don't buy this. There was something special in that time of having a Unix system with a well considered cohesive UI. Windows was not an option, and 1 click install set-and-forget linux distros weren't (aren't? :P ) really common. There was a clear gap in the market for a unix system that was up and running with minimal fuss, apple capitalised (accidentally happened upon) this.
- fundad 5y ago
  Exactly! Psychology tricks would include supporting Linux commercially which is a wildly successful business (even before counting the likes of AWS which supports an OS as part of hosting). They by definition market their product and win sales. Sales funded Linux and a lot of OSS beyond what hobbyists could possibly have done, an inconvenient truth. People who want to support their own installation of Linux or FreeBSD do so without considering a commercial OS and a few of them constantly shitpost about how anyone could possibly not make the same choice as they do.
  - ficklepoet 5y ago
    > do so without considering a commercial OS You forget that most people are using Linux to replace a commercial OS.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Dell makes hardware that easily rivals Apple and sells it with Linux pre-installed and officially covered by their support services.
  - mthoms 5y ago
    The parent was referring to 2005 (when PG posted this). Did Dell have that option way back then? Colour me impressed if so.
    - slacktide 5y ago
      Pretty close. They started offering Ubuntu preinstalls on 24 May 2007. https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/blog/15994-2/ https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/blog/15994-2/
      - onethought 5y ago
        So that period of Unix based Mac started around 2002ish (maybe earlier), and was as you say unchallenged until 2007 by dell. Then Ubuntu back then would still have problems with printers/external screens etc (Printers back then were more important than they are now too).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deregulateMed 5y ago
  The same people that want a Unix based operating system can't manage to install Linux? I was 14 years old in 2005 and knew nothing about programming, but was able to get Linux installed in a few minutes. There is a real reason, but the part of the brain that makes the decision is different than the speech part of the brain.
  - spiderice 5y ago
    I have also installed and managed many Linux systems. Doesn’t mean I want to on my main driver. I also don’t want a cheap plastic computer with a terrible trackpad (regardless of how great the intervals are) and until recently, that was pretty much all you could find in the non-Mac laptop world.
    - deregulateMed 5y ago
      "cheap plastic" The marketing company won. This is a Major red flag. Speaking of cheap plastic. "Cheap keyboard" ring a bell?
  - linguae 5y ago
    Sometimes users have problems installing Linux, not because of lack of ability, but because of lack of driver support. This is especially true for laptops. I remember installing Linux on my desktop in 2004 as an 11th grader, and I remember having to purchase a $50 serial port modem at Fry's (yes, my parents were still on dial-up at the time) because the modem that shipped with my PC was a "Winmodem," one that had many of its core functionality implemented in software that was only available for Windows. After my freshman year of college ended, in the summer of 2006 I replaced my desktop (which was dual-booting Windows XP and FreeBSD) with a Core Duo MacBook, which was just released two months before. It felt great using a Unix machine where I didn't have to worry about driver support, and where I can run Unix applications and various proprietary software packages such as Microsoft Office without dual-booting, emulation, or virtualization. I've stayed a Mac user since, though lately I'm in the slow transition of switching away; I just replaced my 2013 MacBook Air with a Microsoft Surface Pro 7 running Windows 10 (I love WSL!), and I plan to replace my 2013 Mac Pro with a Ryzen 7 or 9 build sometime in 2022 or 2023, which will most likely run FreeBSD. In the interim I've installed many Linux and FreeBSD systems for work and for play.
- throw2871 5y ago
  I'm not sure about this. Dev's are by far not the mass market of the PC industry - definitely not enough to achieve large adoption. Office users, casual users, students, etc may not even know what a "Unix system" is. For them marketing, being in the "cool crowd", aesthetics, and broad easy compatibility IMO are the things that make them more comfortable making a purchase. Herd behavior is real, and the lines in front of stores, that everyone they know is talking about them, etc just enforce more purchases. It makes users more secure, and inclusive in their purchase of your device. More just an anecdotal opinion but to me the iPad and iPhone (the ecosystem effect) and Apple's marketing are really what gave them the leg up on the personal computing level. I still remember those "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" ads pitching the PC as the uncool choice. That's a powerful message to people and they must of thought it would work otherwise they wouldn't of run that ad - if not to dev's the general public. Individuals were buying them locally as home machines way before companies really allowed them for work because of this marketing and the easy integration to their other consumer devices - at least that's what I saw locally here (not US).
  - onethought 5y ago
    I was specifically responding to the Developer angle of Mac buying. If you want to talk mainstream it was clearly the iMac then the iPod then the iPhone then the iPad that captured society.
    - throw2871 5y ago
      I would argue they aren't that separated. If the Mac hadn't got popular with the consumer market it could be said that Linux distro's could of been the popular choice for that market, as it's free and the Apple laptop ecosystem could of languished. The success on the consumer side fuels the viability of the laptop from the dev side as well. If it never got popular on the consumer end and I couldn't manage my office docs and such on it, while I may use it at home, many workplaces and therefore the mainstream dev may of never adopted the Mac. What I use at "home", is what I want to use when I come into the workplace. There needs to be a critical mass before most workplaces (where many dev's work) to adopt it and therefore develop an ecosystem around it (e.g. your favourite IDE's, tool chains, etc)
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Actually you could buy Sun and Toshiba laptops running Solaris before that accident happenend. This accident also allows for what-ifs, had Apple been successful with Copland or bought BeOS instead, none of which UNIX friendly.

onethought 5y ago

I don't buy this. There was something special in that time of having a Unix system with a well considered cohesive UI. Windows was not an option, and 1 click install set-and-forget linux distros weren't (aren't? :P ) really common. There was a clear gap in the market for a unix system that was up and running with minimal fuss, apple capitalised (accidentally happened upon) this.

fundad 5y ago
Exactly! Psychology tricks would include supporting Linux commercially which is a wildly successful business (even before counting the likes of AWS which supports an OS as part of hosting). They by definition market their product and win sales. Sales funded Linux and a lot of OSS beyond what hobbyists could possibly have done, an inconvenient truth. People who want to support their own installation of Linux or FreeBSD do so without considering a commercial OS and a few of them constantly shitpost about how anyone could possibly not make the same choice as they do.
- ficklepoet 5y ago
  > do so without considering a commercial OS You forget that most people are using Linux to replace a commercial OS.
shkkmo 5y ago
Dell makes hardware that easily rivals Apple and sells it with Linux pre-installed and officially covered by their support services.
- mthoms 5y ago
  The parent was referring to 2005 (when PG posted this). Did Dell have that option way back then? Colour me impressed if so.
  - slacktide 5y ago
    Pretty close. They started offering Ubuntu preinstalls on 24 May 2007. https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/blog/15994-2/ https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/blog/15994-2/
    - onethought 5y ago
      So that period of Unix based Mac started around 2002ish (maybe earlier), and was as you say unchallenged until 2007 by dell. Then Ubuntu back then would still have problems with printers/external screens etc (Printers back then were more important than they are now too).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deregulateMed 5y ago
The same people that want a Unix based operating system can't manage to install Linux? I was 14 years old in 2005 and knew nothing about programming, but was able to get Linux installed in a few minutes. There is a real reason, but the part of the brain that makes the decision is different than the speech part of the brain.
- spiderice 5y ago
  I have also installed and managed many Linux systems. Doesn’t mean I want to on my main driver. I also don’t want a cheap plastic computer with a terrible trackpad (regardless of how great the intervals are) and until recently, that was pretty much all you could find in the non-Mac laptop world.
  - deregulateMed 5y ago
    "cheap plastic" The marketing company won. This is a Major red flag. Speaking of cheap plastic. "Cheap keyboard" ring a bell?
- linguae 5y ago
  Sometimes users have problems installing Linux, not because of lack of ability, but because of lack of driver support. This is especially true for laptops. I remember installing Linux on my desktop in 2004 as an 11th grader, and I remember having to purchase a $50 serial port modem at Fry's (yes, my parents were still on dial-up at the time) because the modem that shipped with my PC was a "Winmodem," one that had many of its core functionality implemented in software that was only available for Windows. After my freshman year of college ended, in the summer of 2006 I replaced my desktop (which was dual-booting Windows XP and FreeBSD) with a Core Duo MacBook, which was just released two months before. It felt great using a Unix machine where I didn't have to worry about driver support, and where I can run Unix applications and various proprietary software packages such as Microsoft Office without dual-booting, emulation, or virtualization. I've stayed a Mac user since, though lately I'm in the slow transition of switching away; I just replaced my 2013 MacBook Air with a Microsoft Surface Pro 7 running Windows 10 (I love WSL!), and I plan to replace my 2013 Mac Pro with a Ryzen 7 or 9 build sometime in 2022 or 2023, which will most likely run FreeBSD. In the interim I've installed many Linux and FreeBSD systems for work and for play.
throw2871 5y ago
I'm not sure about this. Dev's are by far not the mass market of the PC industry - definitely not enough to achieve large adoption. Office users, casual users, students, etc may not even know what a "Unix system" is. For them marketing, being in the "cool crowd", aesthetics, and broad easy compatibility IMO are the things that make them more comfortable making a purchase. Herd behavior is real, and the lines in front of stores, that everyone they know is talking about them, etc just enforce more purchases. It makes users more secure, and inclusive in their purchase of your device. More just an anecdotal opinion but to me the iPad and iPhone (the ecosystem effect) and Apple's marketing are really what gave them the leg up on the personal computing level. I still remember those "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" ads pitching the PC as the uncool choice. That's a powerful message to people and they must of thought it would work otherwise they wouldn't of run that ad - if not to dev's the general public. Individuals were buying them locally as home machines way before companies really allowed them for work because of this marketing and the easy integration to their other consumer devices - at least that's what I saw locally here (not US).
- onethought 5y ago
  I was specifically responding to the Developer angle of Mac buying. If you want to talk mainstream it was clearly the iMac then the iPod then the iPhone then the iPad that captured society.
  - throw2871 5y ago
    I would argue they aren't that separated. If the Mac hadn't got popular with the consumer market it could be said that Linux distro's could of been the popular choice for that market, as it's free and the Apple laptop ecosystem could of languished. The success on the consumer side fuels the viability of the laptop from the dev side as well. If it never got popular on the consumer end and I couldn't manage my office docs and such on it, while I may use it at home, many workplaces and therefore the mainstream dev may of never adopted the Mac. What I use at "home", is what I want to use when I come into the workplace. There needs to be a critical mass before most workplaces (where many dev's work) to adopt it and therefore develop an ecosystem around it (e.g. your favourite IDE's, tool chains, etc)
pjmlp 5y ago
Actually you could buy Sun and Toshiba laptops running Solaris before that accident happenend. This accident also allows for what-ifs, had Apple been successful with Copland or bought BeOS instead, none of which UNIX friendly.