Tipped off.
Friday, January 14th, 2005
The hoopla of Tuesday’s Macworld announcements has come and gone, and now we’re left with that interesting interregnum where we wait for the products to be actually available in our malls or in our living rooms (Apple’s saying January 22nd, Bill Ambrose has checked the Atlanta Apple Store and he says more like the actual end of the month.)
And one guy—Paul Nixon—has put together a terrific infographic called Apple’s Tipping Point: Macs for the Masses that analyzes how that clever fruit/computer company places products in the marketplace that overcome the psychological resistance most of us have to price versus the natural attraction many (not most) of us have toward the coolness of the new.
He says “These things do not happen by accident. The graphic [linked above] illustrates extreme patience and foresight from Apple to bring users to the platform by innovating increasingly towards the mass market over time without sacrificing the middle or high-end markets.”
Meanwhile, speaking of tipping, the lawsuit filed against the long-time proprietor of a Mac rumors site is beginning to show signs of being a public relations nightmare for Apple. We’ve learned (out here on the internet) that “Nick de Plume” is in fact a 19 year old Harvard undergrad (!) who has been doing this since he was 13 (!!). He’s positioning himself well to be the David to Jobs and company’s Goliath. Danger, danger. Me, I think sites like this are protected speech, especially against big confidentiality-obsessed corporations, even as I acknowledge that they can take some of “the fun”, whatever that is, out of surprise announcements. So maybe the “hold everything til Steve’s keynote” approach isn’t that great a plan, year-to-year? Jobs himself seemed a bit tired of running through OS X Tiger’s new features (“behold! the Dashboard!”) which are terrific, but are great mostly in a greater context that doesn’t involve surprise. Apple’s greatness now, is revealed more in the sense that it has a roadmap (as Paul Nixon has shown, above.)
And although a 99 dollar iPod is a very neat thing (that I might pick up as an impulse buy), my niece, who has been saving up for a big purchase, is still drawn to the pink iPod Mini, because (need you ask), it’s pink.
