Wired: Distinct sea change in people’s perceptions of Apple: Macs will save you money

Apple Store“There’s been a distinct sea change in the way people think about Apple in the last few weeks,” Leander Kahney reports for Wired News.

“Recently, people have been saying the strangest things about Apple and the Mac. Everything is topsy-turvy. Pundits aren’t trotting out the old conventional wisdoms any more. They’re saying odd stuff, like Macs are good for business; Macs can save money; and that Apple’s stock — at $90 a share — is a bargain,” Kahney reports.

Kahney reports, “In fact, there seems to be a widespread re-evaluation of Apple going on, a cultural shift that’s changing the way people think about the company. It’s been building for a while but it has reached a tipping point in the last couple of months. Here’s what people are saying now.”

• Macs will save you money
• Macs are good for business
• Less is more
• Closed is good
• Apple is the darling of Wall Street
• Macs can run more applications

Kahney writes, “The change in perception seems to have been tipped by the iPhone. A lot of people thought Apple got lucky with the iPod: It was a one-hit wonder, a fluke not likely to be repeated. But the iPhone is already starting to look like another industry-changing smash hit, and it’s shining a different light on the company… Apple is very clearly looking like a serial innovator: a company that can successfully trot out one big product after another. This has been generally true since the iMac in 1998, but now the wider public is catching on. What’s changed is not Apple, but people’s perceptions of the company.”

Full article, with explanations of the bullet points above, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Chris M.” for the heads up.]

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30 Comments

  1. You’re right! The iPhone hasn’t even hit the channels yet and already you can see the effects in Sprint’s marketing.

    They’re now now giving Blackberry’s and Razors away with new two-year contracts. In some cases they’re paying you money to take the deal.

    I love the smell of desperation in the dawning.

    Do Sprint or the other Telcos have any idea what the impact of Apple’s iPhone will be on their sales? Yes they do and it’s no longer business as usual.

    Apple has changed the rules of the game and the Telcos will adopt or risk losing market share.

    Should Apple license the technology to the Telcos? They could if they wanted to completely overwhelm the cell/smart phone market. Otherwise, they’ll claim it one tier at a time.

  2. “Closed”?

    Nope. My Mac plays very nicely with Linux & Windows, thank you. It uses open formats like .TIF, .PNG, .PDF, .AAC, .MP3, .JPG, etc., many of which are established by independent consortiums and/or standards organizations, not tied to any single corporation.

    Go ahead, do a Command+Shift+3 for a screenshot. Open the “Picture 1” on your Desktop in Preview. Do a “Save As” Get a load of different formats which you can save the .PNG file.

    None of them say “Apple Picture Format ONLY readable on Mac OS X” do they?

    That’s just a small example. I know another company with 90% market share and they aren’t nearly as open or flexible.

    Apple doesn’t have to use proprietary formats to lock you in.

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