Columns Cult of personality

http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/07/08/cult_of_personality/1

Are you sick of all the hype over the iPhone? Why is it that the arrival of so many great products are virtually ignored, when it seems like Cupertino is a PR hotspot? Brett Thomas talks to us about jeans and apples, and how they all tie out to some good thinking.

 

Good article, and I see what you're saying. I'm not so sure I agree that the Iphone is a better product than all the other phones out there. Its just different. I mean, the camera in it is sucky for a start, and there's no video recording whatsoever. My brothers old phone could do simple video recording years ago.

So in some respects the Iphone is almost embaressingly behind. On the other hand, it's not just a phone and it looks totaly different to anything (bar the prada copycat) that's been released up untill now. The iphone looks like the first serious contender for an all-in-one device that would work properly and the way its users would want it to. So in this I think apple may have done something special.

The coverage is annoying as hell though and I look forward to all the macboys climbing back into their glass boxes (I would say caves, but I know no apple fan would ever be seen in one of those) and shutting the hell up for another 6 months (that is, untill the next time steve jobs farts).

 

I have not heard much about it. All I know is that is another phone. I have my £40 LG that makes calls and not intersted in any extra rubish that boosts up the price.

 

I think there was a huge amount of press for Vista, Bill appeared on TV, he BBC was going crazy for it. I've not really seen much about the iPhone in the genera press.

Apple fanboys are like the emo kids of the music world.

 

Good read. I loved the bit about Jobs passing gas. From what I have seen of the iphone, it does look snazzy however I would never get one. Even if I could afford one I still would not. I'm the type of guy that stuffs his phone in his pocket with keys and coins also the features will be wasted on me. I just want something that makes a call.

 

the iphone is a multimedia phone with a futuristic interface that does not have 3G so therefore it does not deserve my attention.

 

Don't apple fanboys admit they're apple fanboys though?

 

Same here. I think it's a VOIP phone made by Linksys. Not sure what all the fanfare is about, it's looking pretty old.

 

while a good article and I agree with you that they have excelent PR; I disagree with the below statement.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING on the iPhone is already on the market, in fact the technology is obsolete. And you better not drop that lil iphone of yours because you know that the glass screen is going to shatter.

the specs of the iPhone are here, i'll compare with sony ericsson phones since i'm most familiar with those.

I'm sure Nokia, Samsung, Motorola etc. have comperable models, i just am not familiar with them


The only thing special about the iPhone is its media-hype.

 

Isn't the Spint Mogul (U.S.) a pretty good comprable phone to the Iphone as well? It also uses sprint's Ev-Do network which gives it a much faster download speed than the iphone does using Edge along with expandable memory (I don't the max capacity it supports).

 

I just need a phone that makes calls, none of this other rubbish, and what I really want from apple is a 6g iPod that has the touchscreen and a 30-40gb HDD, none of this phone crap.

 

I can't speak for the other fronts, but Samsung is already way ahead of the iPhone with their Korean models. They're not available here because the design of the phones is tailored to the Korean masses, and not necessarily the US masses. Believe it or not, both cultures have radically different tastes in phones, ranging from size and dimension to button protrusion. When a phone is imported from another country it is essentially given a facelift by the manufacturer and then the user interface is branded to hell and back by the carrier. It's actually a grueling and rather bureaucratic process.

Apple tends to be the exception here: the iPhone can slip in with it's trendy bourgeois design and Apple branding alone, simply because the American consumer will buy it. Not a surprising revelation, considering that the American culture is centered around this trendy, vanity-based consumerism.

 

You know, I think what's actually going on here is that Apple have invented an entirely new language. The only two words in this language which have any worthwhile translation to English are "iPod" and "iPhone", both of which mean the following:

"Hello. I am a dribbling, easily-led prole. I am so stupid, it's actively infectious. I am so dense, it shows up on those gravitational anomaly charts used by cold-war aircraft for navigation; only through the expedient of having my brain surgically replaced with a mixture of sawdust and finely-ground walnut husks have I been able to innure myself to the otherwise unavoidable suspicion that I'm being viciously fleeced for entirely unremarkable electronic tat the like of which can be had from any one of a dozen alternative vendors, none of which wants evidence in triplicate that my internal soul is in escrow against my future social acceptability."

It should be noted that "iBook" has a similar meaning. These people present the hazard of imminent contagion and should on no account be approached.

Phil

 

Yet another great article, Brett.

You pretty much summed up everything that I dislike about Apple, and yet also everything that I respect them for. Weird that.


Off-topic, but.... Did anyone else think of a Fallout character perk upon seeing the title of the article?

 

of course you could get something like the nokia n800 Internet tablet, a cheap blutooth phone (the Motorola L6 is like £20) and have significantly more functionality then the iphone, for a lot less

Dunno about you but everything i heard about vista (for the 2 years M$ was trying to hype it) just made me dislike it more and more

now that its out, it hasn't disappointed 1 bit, its just as crap as i thought, and with any luck it will be the downfall of M$ - of course most people seem to just plain ignore the problems with it, and shell out £200 for a newer more bloated worse piece of software, its a crazy world

 

Apple products have never been "better" by ways of functionality and features. They win by near-universally praised modernist design, and a smart interface to tie it all together.

 

Their popularity is more of a commentary on the society that buys them and the triumph of style over content. If functionality was what mattered most to people then Apple would be a second rate player instead most people seem to want somthing that makes them "cooler" even, or perhaps especially, if it costs a small fortune and they have no clue how to use most of the features. In short, Apple is this popular because most people are stupid and shallow.

(come on, what did you think i was going to say about it? )

 

Sorry, but I have to disagree... Apple products are accused of being style over substance, but the truth is that they are a triumph of functionality: of form follows function.

Apple products are largely transparent. You don't have to think too hard about how to use them, you just do. The function is, for practical purposes (sic), invisible. What is very visible however is the resulting form, and Apple does like to make its products look polished. So people mistakenly think they are all about style because they can't see the functionality. But then again, they are not supposed to. It is supposed to just be there: subliminal, intuitive, invisible.

We are used to the much less refined generic clone PCs which are a random compilation of verious manufactuers' parts, and phone PDAs which are really several devices not very well integrated by Windows-on-top-of-DOS-on-top-of-BIOS, or Windows Mobile which is really just a derivative Windows Lite rather than an OS specifically designed for small hand-held devices. We are used to our devices having a slightly Heath-Robinson edge to them, and as such we are used to coaxing and tweaking and expanding or modifying them to make them do what we want.

Apple products don't have that; they are the finished product. We could appreciate the seamless intuitive transparency of their functionality, but we're not used to that. We almost feel as if something is missing; as if the devices are limited in some way. But they are not. They are just designed to be what they are, and nothing else. It is like driving automatic when you are used to having to change gears. You just can't help but feeling, at first, that you lack control.

The reason why nobody gets hot and bothered about Windows Mobile devices is because although the technological features may be cutting edge, the concept is old-fashioned. You may argue that they have 3G, and higher res cameras and video and whatnot, but in the end they are still a separate PDA and mobile squeezed into one case, with an OS that thinks that both really should be a desktop PC. Apple products may not always be cutting edge in technology, but they are certainly better thought through as a concept. And that is what people want: a device that does what it is supposed to do well, without having to think too hard about how to use it.

 

I'm used to symbian on my phones. I agree windows mobile phones are crap, but they do tie in relatively well with windows machines.

 

That's simply not true. MOV is just a container format (a fairly decent one). If you were referring to H.264 &c., they are lightyears ahead of DivX, XviD and MPEG-2 in terms of quality.