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Home » Opinion

It’s An Apple Thing

Posted by Zealot on November 8, 2009 – 8:39 am  Share

839742222_2b8be1d2e3 A few days ago I reported that beta builds of the new Mac OS X 10.6.2  could no longer be installed on netbooks running Atom processors, effectively spiking the popular Hackintosh builds. Well, reports came out that a new beta build DID support Atom chips again, so bloggers reported that it must have all been a development error, no worries.

Well, in the newest beta build, Atom support is broken again as the video below using an MSi Wind, that most hackintoshable of netbooks, verifies. It looks like we will be seeing Atom support coming and going from OS X beta builds from now on. Some bloggers are asking, since the Atom situation is beginning to mirror the game Apple has been playing with the iPhone Dev Team and Palm, if Cupertino just enjoys this sort of cat and mouse thing?

Well, they sure don’t hate it….

I would have to say yes, Apple does enjoy these sort of “gotcha” games and they do pursue them intentionally. Why? Well, Steve Jobs has always shown himself to be a master marketer. He has never failed to find ways to get Apple in front of the public eye and to keep the tech community talking about every single move Cupertino has made, will make, and could make.

Consider if you will the latest graphic from Ars Technica illustrating OS market share as of last month…

os_share_1009-thumb-640xauto-9636

Shocked?

Ninety-two percent for Windows….five percent for Mac. In fact, just the market share enjoyed by Windows 7, out all of two weeks, is 2.1 percent, nearly half of the total for all versions of Mac OS. If you consider the amount of coverage Apple gets for it’s Mac OS, and the number of fanboiz who continually shriek that Apple is gaining on Microsoft and now it is is only a matter of time before Redmond disappears completely, the picture seems like it is much different. Ask your average consumer what percentage of computers are made by Apple, they would likely answer closer to 20 percent or higher. Apple casts a giant shadow.

Apple and Steve Jobs are highly adept at such shadow games, making sure that they are always front and center in the popular consciousness, far beyond their market share. Is there any other industry where a company with just 5 percent of the market share enjoys such a degree of consumer awareness? Of course, the popularity of the iPhone helps, but for those of us why can remember BIP (Before iPhone) it was not much different back then. Apple made news.

This game of cat and mouse that Apple enjoys playing with rivals serves the same purpose as the world famous secrecy of Steve Jobs and the occasional juicy product leaks from Cupertino. All of us, even if we don’t much care for Apple products, are ALWAYS aware of what they have released, might release in the near future, and what it means to the computer industry. Apple is on our minds. That is just good marketing and it is accomplished by constantly getting in headlines and blog posts…blog posts like this one.

Steve Jobs knows this, He COUNTS on this. Every time Apple breaks or restores Atom support there will be another flurry of headlines and blog posts about it, not only putting their name before the public again, but making clear their product is sought after, popular, and that they are a very important company. Tens of thousands of advertisements each time, all for free.

Brilliant.

Atom support in Mac OS X, just like Palm support in iTunes and the ability to jailbreak iPhones will continue to come and go, and we will continue to report and rant and discuss such matters as if they REALLY mattered.

Why?

It’s just an Apple thing…

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Zealot (468 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).





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  • Good story in TechCrunch that analyzes why Apple is not as hung up over market share as people think that are, or should be.

    http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/while-riva...
  • Seth
    QUOTE: "If you consider the amount of coverage Apple gets for it’s Mac OS, and the number of fanboiz who continually shriek that Apple is gaining on Microsoft and now it is is only a matter of time before Redmond disappears completely, the picture seems like it is much different."

    I worry that you are undermining your own credibility by making claims like this. It makes you sound like the Windows equivalent of those you are accusing. In fact, I've never seen such a claim by any mainstream journalist providing Apple coverage, and citing cranks dredged up from comments section hardly qualified as a source, nor a statistical sample.
  • If the statement had been made by a mainstream journalist I wouldn't have used the term Fanboiz, I would have said "mainstream journalists". Nor did I say it was a source or a statistical sample...rather a popular perception, and such things are indeed created, fed and nurtured by "cranks" in comments sections....and if you want a non-shrieking, perfectly reasonable version of the same sort of sentiment, see topher's comment below.
  • Of course, the popularity of the iPhone helps, but for those of us why can remember BIP (Before iPhone) it was not much different back then. Apple made news.

    Except that Apple had the lion's share of the Digital Audio Player (DAP) market before the iPhone. Maybe BIP should be "Before iPod" instead. :D

    Steve
  • Good point, even though iPods don't carry the weight with the public that the iPhone does.

    Maybe BIPoIP (Before iPod or iPhone)?
  • The iPod had tons of weight with the public, which is why almost everybody owned one -- and because Apple marketed the crap out of it.

    Also remember that the iPhone was intended to be a combination phone and iPod, so I think "Before the iPod" still works. :D

    Steve
  • topher
    take away the business computers and check that market share stat again
  • Take away government jobs and the unemployment rate goes up, too. So?

    As was reported here earlier, 85% of households that have Macs also have PCs. Add in the households that have PCs and no Macs and I bet that Windows still has 90% of the market.

    Steve
  • Snow1985
    That graph shows why Linux ands Mac don't get viruses. Why attack an Os thats only going to effect a few thousand people.
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