20 April 2016, 08:09





At the risk of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld: “What’s the deal with people who get upset when Apple launches a new product?”

The introduction of the iPhone SE and the new (new) MacBook yesterday has been polarizing. This isn’t that unusual with Apple’s robust approach to design. However, a significant number of people are genuinely offended and hurt that Apple is manufacturing a product they don’t like. Sadly, this isn’t unusual either.

The sour feeling explodes into conversations. Friends fight against friends. Brothers against brothers. Division and strife.

What’s happening in people’s minds when they feel this way? My theories are as follows:

1. Apple’s producing something that’s outside of their personal usage scenario – and this offends them terribly;

or

2. Apple’s producing something not using the hardware choices they would make – and this offends them terribly.

Seriously? You’re claiming to be the platonic, ideal user for whom Apple should design all its hardware?

You’re claiming to know more about design, component choices, and the marketplace than the many experts at Apple?

Apple doesn’t even know you exist. The only thing it knows for sure about you is your credit card number. That’s all it wants to know.

This degree of offense can be used as a measure of brand loyalty, of course, but here it’s more symptomatic of loving an institution. And the trouble with loving an institution is that the institution cannot love you back. You anticipate faithfulness but you’re setting yourself up for repeated, consistent betrayal.

Apple once betrayed the very man who we consider to be its epitome. Steve Jobs was forced out of the company he founded in 1985. If it treats its own founder like that, how is it going to treat you?

Go outside. Get some fresh air. Feel lucky to be alive when even the Apple products you don’t like are being made. Many of us have in our pocket an insanely useful computing device that can do just about everything – from taking amazing photos to letting us destroy scaffolding with birds. And that is positively amazing.



