Apple’s (New) Higher Standard
If you want to be perfectly honest, the much-anticipated (ultra-hyped?) launch of Apple’s new operating system, Leopard, has been a mixed success - perhaps a 6 or 7 out of 10.
For all the excitement about 300 features (Time Machine, blah, blah, blah), Leopard is not a mind-blower. It’s a solid upgrade, which has already seen a major bug fix less a month after its release.
What has been most interesting about Leopard is the perception among Apple users that it should be wonderful, it should be completely bug-free, and it should blow Microsoft’s Vista out of the water. After all, this is Apple we’re talking about - the plucky under-dog that has persevered through its dedication to design and function, and, of course, the brilliance of Steve Jobs.
The reality, however, Leopard isn’t perfect but no one should expect perfection when you’re talking about a complex operating system. It’s software, not a chocolate cake.
But - and this is a big but - the Apple/Mac market has changed dramatically in recent years. It’s no longer just a relatively small group of rabid (avid?) Mac users who were more than willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt because it was trying to be better and push the envelope. If things went wrong, the Mac Nation not only carried on but happily pitched in to help.
Today, the Mac community is different. The success of the iPod, iMac and MacBook have pushed Apple into the mainstream. People who would never consider having a Mac now carry on about them during cocktail parties. I mean, my parents have a MacBook, an iMac and an iPod.
The mainstream is good for Apple’s revenue, profits and a higher stock price but it’s demanding. When you’re a mainstream product or service, it just has to work. The mainstream is intolerant of mistakes, screw-ups and flaws.
This explains why the problems with Leopard have started to gain so much attention, including the bug fix. A few years ago, it wouldn’t have garnered that much attention. The Mac Nation might have just rolled with the punches and carried because, at the end of the day, the Mac was better.
This is going to be a major challenge for Apple. While it’s become super-cool and hip, the consumer landscape is different. As much as Apple can rely on cool design, the iPod, Steve Jobs, great marketing and a culture of innovation, the mainstream can be an awfully demanding taskmaster.
(Hat tip to friend and fellow mesh organizer Stuart MacDonald, who articulated this theory about Apple during our initial mesh ‘08 organizing meeting)
More: Poor Robert Scoble’s having Mac woes. Sounds like Jeff Jarvis’ Dell Hell rant. As well, Rob Hyndman has some thoughts about the reaction to a recent post he did on problems installing Leopard. It says a lot about the Mac Nation or, at least, some of them.
Update: Mr. Scoble’s got a new hobby-horse: Apple. The guy sure has a knack of how put himself into the middle of the conversation/spotlight.
Update II: Seth Godin has a post (Dec. 14, 2007) looking at how the growing popularity of MacBooks could be a “problem” because:
When your entire culture is organized about being the other, the outsider, the insurgent, the one that’s better than the masses… (like Starbucks, btw), what do you do when you are the masses? It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Not sure when it happened, but it strikes me that Apple has long since been the underdog. The Apple brand has become ubiquitous and with that, scrutiny follows. Did older Apple products have as many issues or is this a recent phenomenon? Is Apple (or Jobs) feeling the pressure of meeting market/consumer expectations and the race to be ahead of Microsoft, as well as Google?
November 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Sean:
Having been a Mac user for just a year, I don’t have intimate knowledge of what the Mac landscape was like a few years ago when Apple was struggling to remain viable. It does strike me that it was a tight community that stuck together for the common good.
November 16th, 2007 at 11:38 am
[…] Mark Evans explains it here: …Apple/Mac market has changed dramatically in recent years. It’s no longer just a relatively small group of rabid (avid?) Mac users who were more than willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt because it was trying to be better and push the envelope. If things went wrong, the Mac Nation not only carried on but happily pitched in to help. […]
November 16th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Every major bug in Apple’s operating systems always made a big splash among its users. Ten as well as twenty years ago. Because Mac users are more demanding. Simply now there are more of them, so the splash is respectively bigger. But the buzz about errors still is smaller than it could be — because of masses of ‘not-expecting-very-much-from-operating-system’ and ’suffering-in-silence-is-our-normal-life’ Windows users who have joined the Mac camp.
Of course, this particular bug in Leopard was very nasty. Bugs are bad. But updates that kill bugs are not something to be put in bad light, I suppose.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Hard to imagine bugs on Macs being any kind of issue after one deals with the frustrations and pain of being a Microsoft user…
I have used both and the Mac issues pale in comparison.
November 16th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I’m hearing about 2 or 3 really ANNOYING bugs in Leopard– and lots of tiny stuff. On the plus side, it’s not slower than Tiger, by most reports (Whereas Vista IS slower than XP). And Leopard is fully 64 bit (unlike Vista), which opens the way to increased server deployment. As a stockholder, I find the idea of increasing Apple’s tiny market share in servers exciting; it’s been a bad category for them.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
[…] Mark Evans explains it here: …Apple/Mac market has changed dramatically in recent years. It’s no longer just a relatively small group of rabid (avid?) Mac users who were more than willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt because it was trying to be better and push the envelope. If things went wrong, the Mac Nation not only carried on but happily pitched in to help. […]
November 17th, 2007 at 2:37 am
[…] an interesting post today on Appleâ??s (New) Higher StandardHere’s a quick […]
November 17th, 2007 at 8:00 am
[…] tsunami (88 and counting) after writing about his Leopard installation problems, while my post on Apple’s new (higher) expectations generated some healthy traffic. By the way, it looks like Steve Jobs could be getting a […]
November 17th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Tom B.
How is Vista not fully 64bit? Care to explain that one, or are you just blowing smoke out your a$$.
November 18th, 2007 at 1:04 am
[…] I feel these rants are worth thinking about further. A few days ago I read a post by Mark Evans that suggests that perhaps the Apple standard has been set too high - either by fan boys that think Apple can do no wrong, or by Apple themselves. WinExtra considers […]
November 20th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I think what Tom B. means is that Vista has separate 32bit and 64bit versions, and if you try to run 32bit apps on the 64bit version of the OS, you suffer severe compatibility and performance problems.
In contrast, there is only one version of Leopard - the fully 64bit version, but it runs 32bit apps seamlessly without the problems Vista suffers from.
-Mart
December 24th, 2007 at 8:25 am
[…] More: Robert Scoble said Apple has its fault but does lot of other things (e.g. makes wonderful products, operates stores with real customer service, etc.). Scoble also mentions a growing number of anti-Apple rants (such as Winer’s) but I think this has much to do with higher expectations on Apple - something I wrote about last month. […]