Apple has been reaping rewards from the pro market for years. It's been those pro users who have been advocating the platform among friends and family. It's been those pro users who have been the perfect subject for those marketing campaigns showing how awesome new products are. It's been those pro users who write tech blogs and make the noise about Apple. It's been those pro users who made the brand what it is.
I'm not saying that pro users directly bring cash to Apple (they do that too - look at the number of computers IBM is buying and tell me it's not because of those pro users who made mac the ultimate development plaftorm). The point is, Apple was using the pro users as their market driver, creating positive buzz and actually telling people about the alternative (out of US Macs never been that popular). Also, basically any pro user is better for making an ad than normal user - normal users use stuff that's available in the browser everywhere.
Pro market does not have to be the main one for Apple. It has probably never been. The problem is that with pro users you lose a ton of market influence and its going to happen. The proof is in the article - Tim Cook would not bother to comment on the subject unless it was actually important. And it is important. Apple was always about the ecosystem. If they break the ecosystem, they will fail. Right now it does not look to good for them in the long run.
> If you believe pro users have that kind
> of clout, you are delusional.
> The iPod most certainly didn't succeed because
> it was endorsed by pro users, nor did the iPhone.
> In fact the reaction from the pro market to
> those products when they were introduced, was one of
> dismissal
Back to present day, the effect of pro users isn't hard to see. Major publications have started writing articles asking if Apple has gone down-hill, and it's not the occasional think-piece, I see a new one every day (just read one on Bloomberg an hour ago). Heck, I read that Rush Limbaugh was trashing Apple last week. Not exactly a typical pro user. These views make it normal people, and don't make buying Apple products seem attractive.
No, not strange. Simply not true.
Actually the iPod, when it was first released, was not a mass-market product
Who cares what kind of product the iPod "actually" was, when it was first launched? The point is that it went on to become the biggest consumer electronics hit and Apple's most successful product ever. And it had nothing to do with endorsements from pro users.
Major publications have started writing articles asking if Apple has gone down-hill
Are you new on the internet? Big publications have been writing doom and gloom stories about Apple always. That is not a new phenomenon. Meanwhile Apple has enjoyed success like no other company ever.
> endorsements from pro users.
The iPod wasn't just successful because it was a good product. It was also "cool" because it was high tech. We were just coming out of the beige box era, and standalone devices of any kind that connected to a computer were less common. It had particular cache. If pros hadn't considered Apple good technology, it would have spoiled that, and I doubt the iPod would have sold as well as it did.
> Are you new on the internet?
> Big publications have been writing doom and gloom stories about Apple always.
If pros hadn't considered Apple good technology…
Was it a good product because the pros said so, or do you think perhaps that the pros said it was a good product because it actually was?
And why do you think that only pros are capable of judging if a tech product is good? Can't non-techies judge if a product is delightful or frustrating to use? Do they only know if they like it if someone who is an engineer tells them it's ok? In my personal experience, tech people give the worst advice when it comes to gadgets, because they often have bo empathy for the fact, that normal people don't have the time or the inclination to deal with stuff that might ostensibly have great tech, but is difficult to set up and finnicky to use. Non-techies want stuff that easy to use and just works, and don't care about specs or acronyms.
There is a massive difference between the tone of the press this year, and previous years.
Your original point was that pro users' influence was apparent in the fact that the press is writing negatively about Apple. To which I replied that the press always has written negatively about Apple with the implied point that the influence excerted thusfar, does't seem to have hindered Apple's success in the slightest. But you're telling me that because the tone has changed, this time for sure the opinions of the tech press will suddenly become relevant to Apples customers, even though most of them are not interested in tech and don't follow the tech press at all?
It doesn't have much bearing on this discussion. I just think it's interesting, all these years later.
In my parents' case I simply couldn't provide them tech support since I switched to mac. So they switched over.
And then indirectly lots of clients and people in cafes have seen me using a mac, an iphone or an ipad. I'm sure that's contributed. And I doubt that's an unusual amount for the typical pro user.
Except the masses buy Windows 10 laptops that cost $199 or whatever. The Mac has never been "accessible to the masses" because they won't pay Apple's prosumer prices...
Anecdata: I know of several Windows laptops, but only one Mac laptop, which are now effectively desktops.
Also, Apple's market share is much higher now than it was when the masses adopted PCs. That happened under Windows 95 (which nearly drove Apple out of business) and XP.
When Windows brought computing to the masses, Apple's global market share was closer to 2%.
It's true that Macs have never been the cheapest, but many, many ordinary people buy them none the less. Why? Maybe because a lot of people need a computer, but hate using it. So they choose to spend a little more to get one that is a little less user hostile. That doesn't make them feel dumb. Maybe even delights them from time to time by the many small considerations its designers have made for them.
True, but Windows still has around 90% (or more) of the global PC market. Windows actually brought computing to the masses. Apple didn't.
And however you define it, the fact is that Windows did bring computing to the masses and Apple didn't.
The App Store has millions of apps. Who created those apps, if not pro users? Without the App Store, who would buy iPhones, iPads and iPods?
If Apple shit on the pro users they shit on themselves.
[1] I know, I know; the disappearing of the escape key and the function keys affects everyone! Whatever will we all do?
Pro users are at the same time extremely demanding and extremely conservative. Apple has never done much to cater to that market, and the fact that they have so many pro users these days is a happy accident which has more to do with how awful these people used to be treated when they were Windows users, and not a lot to do with anything Apple did specifically for their sake.
Apple doesn't care about pro users, whom they rightly consider demanding and ungrateful. Apple cares about ordinary people, the ones lots of pro users talk about often in the most condescending of manners. Apple's mission has always been to make computing accessible to the masses (remember the slogan: "The computer for the rest of us"?), not to make it better for the elite few who already know how to use one.