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"Apple, are you serious with this commercial? We’re in trouble." Is anyone else bothered by usage of "we" here? I suppose it's not unlike a sports fan referrin

"Apple, are you serious with this commercial? We’re in trouble." Is anyone else bothered by usage of "we" here? I suppose it's not unlike a sports fan referring to their team as "we". There's just something disturbing about someone saying "we're in trouble" because a corporation they are a fan of produced a slightly less than stellar advertisement.

fratis 14y ago
That's fair. Though I do have an explanation. I was, many years ago, an Apple retail employee. After that, I worked as an Apple Certified Technical Consultant. Referring to Apple as "we" is a old habit that manifested itself in a moment of surprise.
untog 14y ago
I've often thought this. Not specifically to do with Apple, but it is often the case. Apple does not need you to defend them against their detractors on the internet. Neither does Samsung. I can't wrap my head around why people distract themselves with it.
- jessedhillon 14y ago
  Is it really so alien to you that people are invested in the brands they buy? People who buy Apple products need, on some level, for Apple to continue making great products. I have a self-interest in the iPhone and the Mac continuing in their tradition, and not deviating along a path I find less than promising. Samsung buyers are maybe not in the same exact position, since you could buy a very similar phone from .e.g., HTC. Don't construe this as a defense of fanboy-ism though. Buying a Mac or an iPhone is, for me, a decision that accommodates my preferences as a user. It's not an afront to me if someone thinks that Apple sucks as a company, I don't take that to mean my preferences are dumb.
  - iuguy 14y ago
    > Is it really so alien to you that people are invested in the brands they buy? Words cannot express how terrifying that sentence is to me. At the end of the day, we're talking about stuff. Physical things. Things that you buy. If you're investing in a brand, what is the return on that? If you're being loyal to a brand, does that mean that the brand owns you? Before people invest in brands, they should invest in themselves and in each other.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      You have a certain amount of "investment" in anything that you build your workflow/life around. For an extreme example, if you are a long time Mac user and suddenly Apple came out and said "sorry guys, we've changed our mind. There will be no new Macs or versions of OS X after Mountain Lion. We will also be ending all support for current versions of OS X by 2013". That's going to be anything from a minor inconvenience to a serious nightmare for you. I might imagine that long time Mac users are particularly sensitive around this because there was a time when this might have been a real possibility because Apple seemed to be on the road to going bust.
      - iuguy 14y ago
        There was a time when this (computer companies going bust) was a regular occurence. Heck, I used an Amiga 1200 as my primary computer until the late 90s/Early 2000s. I think this concept of investment is perhaps an American or Silicon Valley-specific thing. To me, the concept of investment implies that you should get a return. If you're not getting a financial return, it's not an investment, it's a purchase. You can get other types of return from a purchase, but you can't necessarily exchange those types of return directly for goods and services. The idea of an investment in a brand is something I find horrific. To me it sounds like a nice way of saying that a brand has you by the balls and can extract money from you as and when they want knowing they don't have to try. If people 'invest in coca cola' it means they won't buy pepsi or sprite to me. It means that they no longer even consider what's best for them, instead slavishly sticking to a brand that they self justify by claiming a false return. Apple has my purchasing balls in a vice as far as the iPhone is concerned, it'd take me a lot to move to Android as I've spent a small fortune over the years on various apps. That isn't an investment, that's being owned. If I was able to take the apps I've bought on iPhone and run them (or reacquire them) on Android, they wouldn't have that hold over me. Thankfully I have an iPad so switching phones is feasible for me (although I'd have to buy a whole new set of apps for the things I use on my current phone), but switching phones and tablets means I no longer get any value from the purchases I've made and that's where they have my balls in a vice. From now on, when someone says they're invested in a brand, I think I'm going to use the term 'balls in a vice'. Chuck Palahniuk wrote it best in Fight Club: "The things you own end up owning you".
- pdmccormick 14y ago
  I've often wondered about this phenomenon, people empowered by the web and their new found audience, struggling to find the balance between the solo soapbox and tapping into a collective sentiment as authority and sage. I'm not trying to assert any of this as being the case for the author, but when I was in my teens during the early days of the web, entranced by that heady feeling of being on the vanguard of something truly special, with a little fiefdom at my fingertips simply by being there, I too felt an emboldening, a sense of purpose and grandeur and the emotional vitality and certitude to make sweeping statements, to talk of The Community and be a bold spokesperson. To be figuring out the world, positing ideas and learning about where they take you and how to communicate and convince and argue and wax and eulogize, these are valuable things to learn at any age. Let Apple and Samsung tremble before a critique written with passion and determination long before any such fire is quenched, we are always free to be our own filters for taste.
radley 14y ago
A fan? We're not sitting on the sidelines hoping they score. Most of us professionals make a living and have invested of thousands of dollars (if not 10k, 100k, or > 1M) into the platform. It's not that they're turning OSX into a consumer platform. It's that they're doing it so clumsily, with such garish hubris and lack of focus or reality, that it's worrisome.
- taligent 14y ago
  OSX was ALWAYS designed as a consumer platform and has been part of the reason for Apple's growth in the consumer sector. So not sure what you mean ?
  - radley 14y ago
    Adobe kept the ship afloat in the 90s until the iMac appeared. I will concede that I forgot how long ago Apple started going consumer centric. Maybe I just felt iMacs were geared towards young artists.
    - jamesbritt 14y ago
      Maybe I just felt iMacs were geared towards young artists. Young artists become older artists who continue buying hardware and software.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  The problem here isn't Apple's advertisement. The problem is that you have bet the farm on a tightly regulated, centralized, closed platform over which you have no control.
- enjo 14y ago
  What's a "consumer platform" exactly?
  - tsahyt 14y ago
    A very blunt reply would be: A dumbed down one. Really, I think it's hard to dumb down an operating system enough to make it impossible to be productive with it. However, one can try. To my terms a consumer is the exact opposite of a producer. Therefore a consumer platform is obviously a platform for people who consume products, like software, and whatever they've got on iTunes, rather than for those who make it. Now this is a bit awkward, cause you provably can still do productive work on OSX - lots of people do that rather successfully. So it's really hard to put your finger on what exactly is "consumer" about it and since I haven't used OSX more than a couple of hours (didn't like it), I frankly don't really know. Maybe somebody else can elaborate on that?
jamesbritt 14y ago
There's just something disturbing about someone saying "we're in trouble" because a corporation they are a fan of produced a slightly less than stellar advertisement. Not much weirder than the number of people who referred to "Steve" as if Jobs were a personal friend.
- jjtheblunt 14y ago
  And it's weirder when you work at Apple and posers refer to him as "SJ" as if they were on a nickname basis. Just awkward.
tsahyt 14y ago
I find it weird enough to be an actual fan of a corporation. It's a phenomenon that I haven't really witnessed outside of the Apple crowd very often (there are always exceptions but they're rare).

fratis 14y ago

That's fair. Though I do have an explanation. I was, many years ago, an Apple retail employee. After that, I worked as an Apple Certified Technical Consultant. Referring to Apple as "we" is a old habit that manifested itself in a moment of surprise.

untog 14y ago

I've often thought this. Not specifically to do with Apple, but it is often the case. Apple does not need you to defend them against their detractors on the internet. Neither does Samsung. I can't wrap my head around why people distract themselves with it.

jessedhillon 14y ago
Is it really so alien to you that people are invested in the brands they buy? People who buy Apple products need, on some level, for Apple to continue making great products. I have a self-interest in the iPhone and the Mac continuing in their tradition, and not deviating along a path I find less than promising. Samsung buyers are maybe not in the same exact position, since you could buy a very similar phone from .e.g., HTC. Don't construe this as a defense of fanboy-ism though. Buying a Mac or an iPhone is, for me, a decision that accommodates my preferences as a user. It's not an afront to me if someone thinks that Apple sucks as a company, I don't take that to mean my preferences are dumb.
- iuguy 14y ago
  > Is it really so alien to you that people are invested in the brands they buy? Words cannot express how terrifying that sentence is to me. At the end of the day, we're talking about stuff. Physical things. Things that you buy. If you're investing in a brand, what is the return on that? If you're being loyal to a brand, does that mean that the brand owns you? Before people invest in brands, they should invest in themselves and in each other.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    You have a certain amount of "investment" in anything that you build your workflow/life around. For an extreme example, if you are a long time Mac user and suddenly Apple came out and said "sorry guys, we've changed our mind. There will be no new Macs or versions of OS X after Mountain Lion. We will also be ending all support for current versions of OS X by 2013". That's going to be anything from a minor inconvenience to a serious nightmare for you. I might imagine that long time Mac users are particularly sensitive around this because there was a time when this might have been a real possibility because Apple seemed to be on the road to going bust.
    - iuguy 14y ago
      There was a time when this (computer companies going bust) was a regular occurence. Heck, I used an Amiga 1200 as my primary computer until the late 90s/Early 2000s. I think this concept of investment is perhaps an American or Silicon Valley-specific thing. To me, the concept of investment implies that you should get a return. If you're not getting a financial return, it's not an investment, it's a purchase. You can get other types of return from a purchase, but you can't necessarily exchange those types of return directly for goods and services. The idea of an investment in a brand is something I find horrific. To me it sounds like a nice way of saying that a brand has you by the balls and can extract money from you as and when they want knowing they don't have to try. If people 'invest in coca cola' it means they won't buy pepsi or sprite to me. It means that they no longer even consider what's best for them, instead slavishly sticking to a brand that they self justify by claiming a false return. Apple has my purchasing balls in a vice as far as the iPhone is concerned, it'd take me a lot to move to Android as I've spent a small fortune over the years on various apps. That isn't an investment, that's being owned. If I was able to take the apps I've bought on iPhone and run them (or reacquire them) on Android, they wouldn't have that hold over me. Thankfully I have an iPad so switching phones is feasible for me (although I'd have to buy a whole new set of apps for the things I use on my current phone), but switching phones and tablets means I no longer get any value from the purchases I've made and that's where they have my balls in a vice. From now on, when someone says they're invested in a brand, I think I'm going to use the term 'balls in a vice'. Chuck Palahniuk wrote it best in Fight Club: "The things you own end up owning you".
pdmccormick 14y ago
I've often wondered about this phenomenon, people empowered by the web and their new found audience, struggling to find the balance between the solo soapbox and tapping into a collective sentiment as authority and sage. I'm not trying to assert any of this as being the case for the author, but when I was in my teens during the early days of the web, entranced by that heady feeling of being on the vanguard of something truly special, with a little fiefdom at my fingertips simply by being there, I too felt an emboldening, a sense of purpose and grandeur and the emotional vitality and certitude to make sweeping statements, to talk of The Community and be a bold spokesperson. To be figuring out the world, positing ideas and learning about where they take you and how to communicate and convince and argue and wax and eulogize, these are valuable things to learn at any age. Let Apple and Samsung tremble before a critique written with passion and determination long before any such fire is quenched, we are always free to be our own filters for taste.

radley 14y ago

A fan? We're not sitting on the sidelines hoping they score. Most of us professionals make a living and have invested of thousands of dollars (if not 10k, 100k, or > 1M) into the platform. It's not that they're turning OSX into a consumer platform. It's that they're doing it so clumsily, with such garish hubris and lack of focus or reality, that it's worrisome.

taligent 14y ago
OSX was ALWAYS designed as a consumer platform and has been part of the reason for Apple's growth in the consumer sector. So not sure what you mean ?
- radley 14y ago
  Adobe kept the ship afloat in the 90s until the iMac appeared. I will concede that I forgot how long ago Apple started going consumer centric. Maybe I just felt iMacs were geared towards young artists.
  - jamesbritt 14y ago
    Maybe I just felt iMacs were geared towards young artists. Young artists become older artists who continue buying hardware and software.
slurgfest 14y ago
The problem here isn't Apple's advertisement. The problem is that you have bet the farm on a tightly regulated, centralized, closed platform over which you have no control.
enjo 14y ago
What's a "consumer platform" exactly?
- tsahyt 14y ago
  A very blunt reply would be: A dumbed down one. Really, I think it's hard to dumb down an operating system enough to make it impossible to be productive with it. However, one can try. To my terms a consumer is the exact opposite of a producer. Therefore a consumer platform is obviously a platform for people who consume products, like software, and whatever they've got on iTunes, rather than for those who make it. Now this is a bit awkward, cause you provably can still do productive work on OSX - lots of people do that rather successfully. So it's really hard to put your finger on what exactly is "consumer" about it and since I haven't used OSX more than a couple of hours (didn't like it), I frankly don't really know. Maybe somebody else can elaborate on that?

jamesbritt 14y ago

There's just something disturbing about someone saying "we're in trouble" because a corporation they are a fan of produced a slightly less than stellar advertisement. Not much weirder than the number of people who referred to "Steve" as if Jobs were a personal friend.

jjtheblunt 14y ago
And it's weirder when you work at Apple and posers refer to him as "SJ" as if they were on a nickname basis. Just awkward.

tsahyt 14y ago

I find it weird enough to be an actual fan of a corporation. It's a phenomenon that I haven't really witnessed outside of the Apple crowd very often (there are always exceptions but they're rare).