Apple Cider: Random Squeezings from a Mac User
by Tom Iovino, tiovino@atpm.com
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
Yeah, right. Try telling me when I'm stuck in traffic at the local mall, sweating bullets, fretting about what to buy for people on my holiday gift list.
Each year, as the holidays approach, I'm amazed. People become desperate for those perfect gifts. They go in droves to malls to shop, and I do mean droves! There are spaces in mall parking lots where, at any other time of year, you might consider breaking the walk from your car to the mall's entrance into a two-day trek. During this time of year, you'll feel lucky to find these spaces available. Where do all these people come from?
This madhouse environment can certainly add stress to the holidays. My wife and I approach the annual holiday crowds and shopping stress very differently.
I shop for gifts in much the same way lightning strikes. I go into the first store in the mall that catches my eye. Maybe a flashy display in the window grabs my attention. Maybe the store is handing out free holiday cookies at their entrance. That's all it takes. Once inside, the first item that catches my eye becomes the very thing I want to purchase. At home, I'm faced with the challenge of matching this randomly-purchased item with a name on my gift list. This practice has resulted in some interesting reactions on Christmas morning, such as the year my wife opened a beautifully wrapped gift and discovered a pair of oversized thermal underwear. She reminds me of that occasion each year before I start my shopping.
My wife likes to hit the malls only after she gets completely organized. General Eisenhower spent less time planning the invasion of Normandy than my wife spends preparing her shopping list. She marks each name with her own special set of hieroglyphics. Each symbol signifies something unique and important in her filing system. There are separate categories for family members, family members who are too young to buy gifts for us, friends who exchange with us, friends who haven't given us a gift in years but to whom we still feel obligated to give, co-workers we like, co-workers we despise but who can help us politically at work, our bosses..., you get the idea.
Even with all of this organization, there is a second list she carries separately. It's a special one, hastily scribbled onto scrap paper in a scrawl like that of an excited child. Written by me, it's my wish list of holiday gift ideas!
You see, though I despise shopping for holiday gifts, I love to receive them, especially from my wife! They are always beautifully wrapped and she doesn't let me shake them even once before Christmas morning. It's torture waiting until then, but it does add to the excitement of the season.
This year, I think I'm going to be greedy. I have yet to write the wish list my wife drags around the malls, but I think I'm going to make two lists. I'm going to call the second one, "What I want from Apple." I'll write it in rainbow-hued crayons and send it to the lovable elves who work with every Mac user's favorite eccentric relative, Uncle Steve Jobs.
So, Uncle Steve, if you're ready to make me happy this holiday season, here goes:
- I want to see Apple meet all customer demands for hardware in a timely fashion. OK Apple, your wish to have almost all Macintosh hardware production back under one multicolored umbrella has come true. You know that professionals wanting to push the limits of creativity are going to demand newer, faster systems. People accustomed to the blazing speed and innovative designs put forward by clone manufacturers such as Power Computing need to see the same rabid commitment from your hardware folks. They want the same "flat-out, Kick-Axe" systems for which the cloners were known. Let's make sure that you can also deliver the goods on time and in quantity. The promise of competition-crushing machines that never materialize in sufficient numbers makes for very bad press.
- I want to see all the details of the Apple/Microsoft partnership (every last one). Call me a conspiracy theorist, but don't you wonder what little tidbits of this summer's bombshell announcement lie tucked away in a sealed envelope, stuffed into a locked file drawer in Redmond or Cupertino? Sir Isaac Newton once said that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. At first, the news of the Apple/Microsoft deal hit me like a ton of bricks. Microsoft is a big, valuable ally in the computer industry and, after much confusion in the Mac community, we accepted their help. However, in three years when the deal expires, that $150 million which was eagerly handed over to help Apple could prove to be an albatross around the necks of Mac users everywhere. I wonder whether Newton's theory will prove true here as well.
- I want to see a commitment on the part of designers to keep the user-friendliness and character of the Macintosh OS intact. I'm sure the Rhapsody programmers are doing their best to retain the original spirit of the Mac while incorporating the modern features of NeXT into the new OS. Thinking about the promise of the new OS leaves me breathless. Preemptive multitasking. Platform independence. A truly modern OS that capitalizes on the speedy processors developed in the past few years. I just need some reassurance that programmers will listen seriously to the Mac community while they work. Ripping the guts out of the Mac OS just to create NEXT II: Brainchild of Steve Jobs will make me and many other Mac users very unhappy campers.
- I want to see the Think Different ad campaign work really well. I've seen the commercial. I've heard the hype. I have the QuickTime file on my hard drive. I like the message. I really do. However, I worry about the response the campaign has gotten so far. When the 1984 ad ran during Super Bowl XVIII, it was hailed as a watershed advertising event. I studied this commercial in a college advertising class six years after its release. People still talk about 1984 as if it were a pinnacle of creative television advertising. Now, the media reaction to the Think Different ad campaign is merely lukewarm. Some call it too soft a sell. Others wonder how the message applies to computers at all. If TWBA/Chiat's latest effort fails to move people viscerally, then it might not be the right message at the right time.
- I want to see unshakable support of the Mac platform by the software biggies. When the news of the Apple/Microsoft deal broke, I signed on to AOL to gauge the response. One individual characterized the deal as being with the "Dark Side," and felt that, in order to avoid being co-opted into the Microsoft juggernaut, the only remaining option was the Be OS. Another individual coolly noted that the Be OS would be a viable option only after Adobe, Microsoft, Macromedia, Symantec, and their coding brethren wrote applications for that platform. My fear for the Mac is software giants like these may feel that the "big bucks" will be made in the Wintel community and eventually abandon the Mac altogether. With no professional software, today's fast, flashy Mac OS computers will become tomorrow's yard sale rejects. Iron-clad support from the big software companies is essential for keeping Macintosh the platform of choice for creative professionals.
- I want a CEO who can stop the hemorrhaging. Let's face it, anything seems more palatable when it's coated with sugar. However, the reality is that sugar-coated liver and Brussels sprouts are still two of my least favorite foods. Major financial losses every quarter are bad no matter how positive a spin is put forth by the folks in Cupertino. The next CEO needs to figure out — quickly, I might add — how to get control of the company's finances and return Apple to profitability. Though the numbers reveal that Apple has lots of capital on hand and can absorb these major hits quarter after quarter, you have to wonder how much longer the company can go on like this. I know that if I don't add enough money to cover the personal checks I write, I get a call from a very nice person at the bank asking what the problem is and how I intend to correct it.
There, that shouldn't be too long a list for the elves at One Infinite Loop to fill. I certainly hope that they take time to carefully gift wrap each item before giving us Mac users the peace of mind we so desperately need.
Now, if I can only get a chance to shake each package to guess what's inside...
"Apple Cider" is © 1997 by Tom Iovino, <tkiovino@aol.com>.
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