“Apple gets a huge amount of positive media coverage. Far more than it deserves. The company is the number one tech story, yet it only accounts for somewhere between 2% and 3% of the PC market,” Bill Bennett writes for New Zealand Reseller News. “Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell are all commercially more important. They have more customers, sell more computers and impact more lives. But collectively they don’t get as much news coverage as Apple. Microsoft gets as much coverage. In a grudging way it also gets the same level of respect. But it doesn’t get reverence.”
“When Apple clamps down on enthusiastic fans leaking details of new products on its website, the media meekly accepts the company is protecting its turf. Microsoft is continually accused of bullying — often with justification, sometimes when there is none. Clearly double standards are operating here,” Bennett writes. “There’s a phrase in tech circles to explain this. People talk about the ‘reality distortion field’ surrounding Steve Jobs.”
Bennett writes, “It has to be said that Apple’s hardware products are better designed and nicer to use than anything made by any rival. The software is streets ahead of its competition. Journalists know this because they are the creative, right-brained customers Apple caters for. Perhaps this explains their interest in the brand… However, as far as its computer products are concerned, these days Apple is little more than just another PC manufacturer churning out Intel systems. Sure, it’s innovative, but it isn’t faultless, it isn’t perfect and it damn well doesn’t offer resellers higher-than-average margins. Apple doesn’t need to be put on a pedestal and worshipped.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “Macaday” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Apple, the visionary industry leader, demands the media’s attention and the derivative peddlers of mediocrity like Microsoft, Dell, HP, [name your box assembler] get far, far more press than more than they deserve. Bennett can’t believe that “Apple is little more than just another PC manufacturer churning out Intel systems.” Nobody’s that stupid; he has to be trolling for hits.
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Related MacDailyNews article:
John C. Dvorak expounds on pro-Mac, anti-Microsoft media bias – October 18, 2005
So what is he saying? Coverage should equal $$?
He lives in the land of Oz…….literally.
Journalism is a dead art nowadays….
“”Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell are all commercially more important.”
This is why those very companies don’t get more positive press. The idea that sheer volume of sales means somehow you are more important is the very thing that keeps them from getting this press.
What the hell has any of these companies done to further the world of technology froma broad perspective? Not much. Apple gets its positive press because they are a vanguard. They are on the leading edge of tehcnology and they are setting the bar and the trends to which all others should try reach.
This guy that wriote this article is clueless.
In other news…
The Wright brothers got far more credit than they deserved. All they did was build a flimsy little airplane!
Hey, Ma, I’m an in-tet-leck-chew-al! Lookit me whiles I argues a con-trar-eon point!! Gaw-shucks!
Microsoft gets far more market than it deserves…
Bennett needs to get the story around the correct way!
Eric,
OZ is the nickname for Australia. He lives in New Zealand.
Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Look at the special coverage he’s giving Apple.
Bennett:
“Another media curiosity is the way Apple’s failures are overlooked. Remember the Apple III, the Newton, the Cube? These harebrained products have been airbrushed out of history in much the same way Stalin’s enemies were removed from Kremlin photographs. And while we’re talking about photographs, wasn’t last year’s iPod Photo also swept neatly under the carpet?”
Who can forget BOB?
Who can forget Windows 1….3.1 err 95 err 98…
Such memorable pieces of crap…
You know Apple is like Ferrari Motors they only build a few hundred cars per year, not like GM or Ford. But what they build is the best.
I wondered if he were really clueless or just trying to stir up viewership, then I read what he thought was interesting news in a previous article. See part below.
Humor is never as funny as real life.
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What’s on the cards for 2006?
Friday, 9 December, 2005
Bill Bennett
THIS time last year, it was fairly easy to predict 2005’s major news themes. The 2004 merger of Ingram Micro and Tech Pacific triggered a foreseeable wave of change.
As Phil Parent points out in his wrap of the year’s main stories, (see ‘2005: Year in Review’ page 15) the past twelve months have been dominated by distributor manoeuvrings. Barely a month went by without a major arrival, departure, merger, takeover or some other market realignment.
We probably haven’t seen the last of this activity. However, it appears two new themes will be added to the news mix in 2006.
Although its immediate impact may not be huge, the arrival of the first major refresh of Microsoft Windows in five years could give a number of market segments a useful shot in the arm.
Vista will be big news, but there’s a strong chance it will be overshadowed by events in the broader New Zealand economy.
— just more of the same really boring, er big news.
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Norm
Yeah, I notice every time that Bono from U2 does something, he is in the news. But, he only sings on something like .0005% of the songs playing on any radio station at any given time. Why does he get so much attention? I mean as far as entertainers go, he is just another guy pumping out rock music. He does not need to be put on a pedestal and worshipped.
Week in, week out, we get some nobody-journo trolling for hits. Don’t fall for this folks, it’s only a trick…
The writer either has a gripe against Apple or just really doesn’t get it.
He confuses volume with importance.
Yes, Apple has a much lower market share than the hardware and software manufactures but Apples impact is much greater than it’s size.
Apple pushes the envelope in development.
Look at how most of Apples innovations drives the rest of the market share leaders.
Why do you think Intel is going after Apple. Apple doesn’t bring the volume (at least not yet) to Intel.
What Intel is looking at (IMHO) is that Apple will push the other manufactures to adopt new technology. Otherwise Intel will be stuck in a commodity business and won’t have any company to make use of their NEW technology.
Once Apple starts using the latest from Intel and gets buzz (and sales) for using it. You can bet the other hardware manufactures will be screaming at MS to have software to take advantage of the new processors. Otherwise they’ll slowly lose their market share.
This is why Apple should get and deserves the outside press they get.
Just my two cents.
Apple gets a huge amount of positive media coverage (or a huge amount of media coverage) because Apple is a company that can generate news; an interesting and fresh story.
Lower-cost computers or another printer bundle with computer purchase isn’t news.
Oops.
Should read:
This is why Apple should get and deserves the outsize press they get.
Not:
This is why Apple should get and deserves the outside press they get.
What, no sheep available today in NZ?
why would anyone report HP, Toshiba or Dell? they aren’t doing anything exciting!
oh wait, dell cancelled its big MP3 player. cover that. Toshiba has a new laptop…again. HP has a new printer…again.
Those aren’t trends like the iPod. They aren’t doing anything innovative, thus the lack of press.
What a moron that reporter is.
Yeah, New Zealand gets far more positive press coverage than they deserve. There are hundreds of larger countries than New Zealand, who deserve far better press coverage than they get. Like Zaire.
Ferrari gets far more press coverage than it deserves. It sells few vehicles compared to other larger manufacturers, such as Russia’s Volga.
Wolfgang Puck gets far more press coverage than he deserves. He provides few meals to patrons compared to McDonald’s.
This is starting to sound like republicans complaining about liberal media..
trolling for hits—don’t give him any
Actually it is GOOGLE that has all the hype in it.
GOOGLE is just another search engine, like infoseek was, like altavista was.
How can it worth 100billion. ( it was at 130billion a week ago )
What does he have against the Newton and the Cube? Just because they didn’t sell well doesn’t mean they were harebrained. I drooled over the cube when I was in college. The only reason I didn’t buy one is because it ran OS9. And the Newton was years ahead of everybody else in the palmtop computing world. Wherever the industry is going, Apple always seems to get there first.
As far as the iPod Photo being “swept under the carpet”, maybe Mr. New Zealand Journalist of the Year missed it when Apple released the thinner, bigger-screened version that also plays full motion video. Why on earth would Apple still be selling an iPod Photo when it is also selling an iPod Video?
“…Journalists know this because they are the creative, right-brained customers Apple caters for.”
Journalists are by and large hack writers whose meager talents don’t afford them more prestigious work. There are notable exceptions, of course, but journalism is mostly style and guesswork – opinion without underlying knowledge that has to be cranked out by a 5pm deadline.
It’s interesting that this one thinks of himself as “right-brained”.
You just don’t hardly see any Macs in New Zealand. I just returned to the US from Auckland and I didn’t see any the whole time I was there.
Truth be told, you don’t see much in the way of name brand PC’s there for a very simple reason, THEY’RE WAY TOO EXPENSIVE.
Everything there is expensive compared to US prices and the exchange rate favors American dollars. BeigeBoxes are the standard PC fare everywhere and every email or internet cafe I went into was Windows based.
It can’t all be explained away by the exchange rate and high tax rate either. A new Boogie guitar amp head that lists for $1795 in the US was priced at over $3500 NZ dollars and the shop owner took serious offense when we questioned the high markup.
A PowerMac Quad is probably over $5000 with a basic video card upgrade and a couple gig of ram. I doubt there are a lot of folks in NZ who’d choose to lay down the heavy cash for that. The 30″ display is probably over $4000 NZ.
So it’s easy for this columnist to babble crap. If his newspaper has any Macs at all they probably got some used iMacs off ebay.