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The Tao of Steve
I added this to my Nexus blog Saturday, but I think it bears repeating here as it explains my feeling about the whole Cult of Apple/Cult of Jobs thing....Elizabeth Spiers looks into the psychology behind the Apple fanatic's fixation with the company and its leader:I blame Steve Jobs [for]seduced me into buying his sleek machines, even if their delicateorgans seem to fail with alarming regularity, like the beautifulconsumptive heroines in Victorian novels.Steve--we'll call himSteve because he seems like a first-name-basis kind of guy--is thehuman incarnation of the average Apple product: He's good-looking, heoverpromises, and he's notoriously temperamental. He evokes thefeel-good indie populism synonymous with the company's brand andmanages to retain a solid reputation as a creative person whilemanaging a $118 billion business.The image is, of course, a facade. The dollar-a-year salaryman has been rewarded with at least one corporate jet.Weforgive Steve in a way that we won't [Bill] Gates. We do this becauseoutward appearances are important to us, and the products are areflection of how we think of ourselves. Apple products are stylish andinnovative. (We're stylish and innovative!) We love Steve for the samereason. He's creative and he seems appealingly antiestablishment.(We're creative and antiestablishment!)I think this hits it on thehead. What's interesting, of course, is that the bad parts of Mr. Jobs'personality--his prickly defensiveness whenever one suggests that anApple product is lacking in some way, for example--seem to ooze down tothe fanatics as well, as if by osmosis. You can see it in theirvitriolic emails and their rabid and sometimes illogical defenses ofthe company in online forums. As the saying goes, they are a minority,but they are a very loud minority.Anyway. Though I like Apple'sproducts quite a bit in general, one of my regular criticisms is thatSteve--er, ah Apple--always choose style over funct
Paul Thurrott
September 24, 2007
3 Min Read
I added this to my Nexus blog Saturday, but I think it bears repeating here as it explains my feeling about the whole Cult of Apple/Cult of Jobs thing....
Elizabeth Spiers looks into the psychology behind the Apple fanatic's fixation with the company and its leader:
I blame Steve Jobs [for]seduced me into buying his sleek machines, even if their delicateorgans seem to fail with alarming regularity, like the beautifulconsumptive heroines in Victorian novels.
Steve--we'll call himSteve because he seems like a first-name-basis kind of guy--is thehuman incarnation of the average Apple product: He's good-looking, heoverpromises, and he's notoriously temperamental. He evokes thefeel-good indie populism synonymous with the company's brand andmanages to retain a solid reputation as a creative person whilemanaging a $118 billion business.
The image is, of course, a facade. The dollar-a-year salaryman has been rewarded with at least one corporate jet.
Weforgive Steve in a way that we won't [Bill] Gates. We do this becauseoutward appearances are important to us, and the products are areflection of how we think of ourselves. Apple products are stylish andinnovative. (We're stylish and innovative!) We love Steve for the samereason. He's creative and he seems appealingly antiestablishment.(We're creative and antiestablishment!)
I think this hits it on thehead. What's interesting, of course, is that the bad parts of Mr. Jobs'personality--his prickly defensiveness whenever one suggests that anApple product is lacking in some way, for example--seem to ooze down tothe fanatics as well, as if by osmosis. You can see it in theirvitriolic emails and their rabid and sometimes illogical defenses ofthe company in online forums. As the saying goes, they are a minority,but they are a very loud minority.
Anyway. Though I like Apple'sproducts quite a bit in general, one of my regular criticisms is thatSteve--er, ah Apple--always choose style over functionality. You can gotoo far in the other direction, of course (HP anyone?) but I thinkthere needs to be a middle ground. One example: Many MacBook/MacBookPro users would really appreciate and frequently use a multi-formatcard reader built right into their machines. But Jobs will have none ofthat: Such a port would be an ugly gaping hole in the side of thesesculpted masterpieces, and there's already two USB ports, so if youneed such a thing, you can just figure it out yourself. But I wouldpoint to the Lenovo ThinkPad line--specifically the T61 I'm currentlyusing--as the current apex of this compromise between style andsubstance. The T61 has a wonderful built-in media card (or not, yourchoice) and yet manages to be quite stylish. In fact, most people wouldagree that the ThinkPads are the most elegant notebooks around. Becausethey are.
Maybe I'm just a tad too practical to completelyembrace the Apple Way--or the "Tao of Steve," as Spiers accuratelycalls this intriguing lifestyle choice. I would absolutely choosefunctionality over style any time--my Motorola Q beats the iPhone handsdown on this point--but do appreciate elegant form factors. Is there amiddle ground in the PC or electronics industries? Lenovo? Sony? I'mhonestly not sure. But I suppose if there were, few people would befanatical about it. Curious.
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