I read a lot of stuff about Apple online. Many, many references are made to the hype that surrounds the company. It is taken for granted that Apple creates all this hype. While not quite denying that, I see it differently.
Exactly what Apple does is plain for all to see. Steve Jobs gives a keynote presentation where he presents the company’s products and then there are some adds in the media. That’s it. All companies do this so what’s the rest of the story?
Let’s start with the keynote. For example, Steve showed off the iPad and said it was “magical”. If I was an Apple shareholder or one of the engineers who designed the machine I would be very happy that he presented it in an enthusiastic manner. The alternatives make no sense. Oh! First I should say, surely no one thinks Steve was suggesting the thing was literally “magical”. Some of the flames on the web had me wondering on that point.
The first alternative would be deadpan – neutral. “Here we have the iPad. A team of engineers have worked hard on this for many months and the company has invested a lot of resources. We hope you like it. Next…” If I was a shareholder I would be downcast. Surely he’s allowed to say it’s nice to use. I have one. They are great to use! Which adjectives are allowed. If he says “It’s great”, is that hype? Or did it only become hype when he used the word “magical”? The second alternative would be to downplay it. “We have this new tablet… not sure whether it’s a laptop or just a bigger Touch. You decide. Next…”
This is madness. He didn’t hype it. He just showed off the machine proudly and said it was great – as you would expect.
Then there’s the ads. Same argument really. The ads say their stuff is great. Duh. If you check the advertising budgets of Apple and Microsoft I don’t think Apple’s comes up as huge.
So where does that leave us? Apple must be very happy about the hype that surrounds all their products but I reckon the bulk of it is created by the interesting physical and technical designs that they produce and the fact that they do not release details of these things before Steve’s keynotes. The rest is done by the folks in the community who are interested to discuss this stuff. This group definitely includes those who disagree with the design decisions made by Apple. Because their equipment often has bold design, the people who buy it become more bound to it then is the case with more “standard” equipment. They often become evangelical and so the buzz becomes even greater.
In short, a lot of the “hype” is not directly created by Apple, but indirectly. They earn any benefit that comes from it by the nature of their products.