“Apple’s acolytes may not be in heaven just yet, but they are convinced the latest sermon from prophet Steve Jobs means they’re on the road to the promised land of more Macs and fewer PCs,” Ian Grayson and Simon Hayes write for Australian IT in an article that’s illustrated with a photo of Apple CEO Steve Jobs that is captioned, “High priest… Steve Jobs? Is “
“When the Apple Computer chief executive took the pulpit at Macworld in San Francisco last week he told the faithful the company would make its biggest effort yet to entice PC users to the Macintosh platform, with a range of Intel-based machines… Mr Jobs did not announce any new product lines or additions to the successful range of iPod portable music players, but he did reveal their role in Apple’s revenue rise. Apple’s sales leapt 63 per cent in the last quarter of 2005 on the back of iPod sales, Mr Jobs said. It sold more than 14 million iPods in the quarter, up from 4.5 million in 2004’s final quarter. ‘That’s equal to 100 sales every minute, 24 hours a day for the entire quarter,’ he told the gleeful audience of Apple devotees.” Grayson and Hayes write.
“There was a fair bit of glee in Australia too, where Apple resellers have spent the past couple of years looking in vain for the halo effect,” Grayson and Hayes write. ‘In the initial year the halo effect from the iPod was small, and as a reseller I can tell you it was small,” Ben Morgan, operations director of Apple Centre Taylor Square, Sydney said. ‘In year two, the halo got larger. The number of customers buying the Mac is still small, but it’s people who would never have bought one.’ Resellers, some of them less than enthusiastic about Apple’s decision to open up the iPod to Windows, are now starting to see the Mac as an easier sell. Others say an always-strong core of Mac loyalists is being supplemented by a growing band of new recruits.”
Full article here.
Apple’s acolytes. Latest sermon from prophet Steve Jobs. The faithful. Road to the promised land. High priest, Steve Jobs. Etc. Are Grayson and Hayes serious? If they are, what is their intent in characterizing Mac users are religious acolytes, fanatically following a prophet and high priest? Is it designed make Mac users look weird? Is it designed to hide the fact that Mac users have chosen to be Mac users, even as many are forced to use Windows at work? Is it designed to somehow protect and defend the Windows hegemony by making the Mac choice look like the choice of fanatics and crazies, instead of the superior personal computing choice? Choose Windows and you’re “normal,” choose a Mac and you’re a “cultist freak?” Is that what Grayson and Hayes are trying to convey?
Or maybe they’re just trying to be funny? Let’s all ask them both:
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