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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

The Media's Crush on Apple 391

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-their-laptops-are-very-shiny dept.
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports: "It's the first time in my memory that a product announcement by Steve Jobs has caused the AP to send an alert -- especially since this development was fully expected. And it says a lot about the intensity of media attention Apple generates. When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Clearly, the AP's editors determined this news was important enough to warrant such action."
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The Media's Crush on Apple More

The Media's Crush on Apple

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  • Last week? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:01PM (#14456672)
    When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words [...] Bill Gates?

    Last week after the CES keynote, during which he didn't launch any new products at all, and instead talked about the same thing he's talked about for the last three years but still hasn't shipped, and a product that came out last year.

    In contrast, Apple actually announced new product that was a signifigant shift from their previous strategy, and has a business impact beyond the doors of Apple itself.

    Which company gets an unusual amount of coverage?

    • Re:Last week? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:03PM (#14456693)
      Here's a link to that [bostonherald.com] if you're interested...

      • I think this article is a little overblown (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @05:03PM (#14457997)
        I don't think the media has that much of a crush on Apple. For a whole decade, they proclaimed them dead repeatedly. When OS X Tiger came out last April, nearly all the mainstream reviews kept referring to this weird "Windows Longhorn" thing as though it existed for comparison. They were actually comparing a shipping product to a future release that wasn't due out for another two years. It was really odd.

        Last week, Bill Gates was Time Man of the Year, his CES coverage was in the news, and XBox 360 is all over the place, even MTV.

        The media has done a few stories about Windows viruses lately thanks to WMF, but still refers to OS X as having "fewer viruses" instead of correctly pointing out that OS X has, since its inception, had ZERO spyware or viruses. Absolutely none.

        Mostly, the difference with Apple's press coverage is that people actually pay attention to them, because their products kick ass. Nobody will remember Bill Gates' speech at CES '06. But the keynote where Apple actually released Macs that used INTEL x86 CHIPS?! Everyone will remember the MacBook Pro's introduction.

        • Re:I think this article is a little overblown (Score:4, Funny)

          by Skrekkur ( 739061 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @06:32PM (#14458802)
          You are forgetting the OS X honor system virus
          "This OSX virus works on the honor system.
          Please delete random files on your hard disk, then forward this message to everyone you know. Thank you for your cooperation."
          And yeah I heard that there were some macro viruses that worked only in microsoft office on OSX :)


          If the internet is a world without walls or fences, why do we need windows or gates?

    • Re:Last week? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:07PM (#14456741)
      Bill Gates is the Nostradamus of our lifetime.
      In his own words he has eliminated spam, brought speech and handwriting recognition to everyday computing, and has a solid foothold in our livingroom with their useful windows media center PCs.

      Our potential truly is their passion.

      Apple on the other hand just keeps releasing products that we can do nothing else with but use them...
      OS X, Garage Band, iTunes, Spotlight...

      • Re:Last week? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Surt ( 22457 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:35PM (#14457069) Homepage Journal
        I have to thank Bill Gates, since his intervention 2? years back I can gratefully say that my spam rate has dropped to 1/1000th of its previous level. I'm not sure what he did, but whatever it was, it worked great!

      • Re:Last week? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ubergrendle ( 531719 )
        Aside from iTunes, which really is driven by the success of iPods, I didn't recognise anything on your list. OS/X is the latest Mac OS I think, but how many people have used it? 5% of computer users? oh yeah, only 5% of *retail* computer users...

        Yes, I'm being snarky, but a minor move by Bill Gates/Microsoft potentially has much bigger implications than a major move by Apple.

        PS The windows media centre you disparage so heavily has a 'lite' version...its called "X-Box".

    • Re:Last week? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:27PM (#14456987) Homepage
      I have no problem with the media picking this up, but what the heck is up with appledot.org?

      Apple: The Media's Crush on Apple
      IT: 'The IT Crowd' UK Sit-com
      Science: Taiwan Breeds Transgenic, Fluorescent Green Pigs
      Apple: Windows on Intel Macs - Yes or No?
      Apple: Apple Responds to iTunes Spying Allegations
      IT: Lawmakers Try to Protect Kids From Spam
      Apple: Sun and Apple Could Have Merged

      Sorry, slashdot.org. Typo.

    • News story != news alert (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:15PM (#14457496)
      The Bill Gates story was an article. AP generated dozens of them from CES alone.

      The Apple piece in question was an alert: a one-sentence "breaking news happening now!" thing that AP passes on to its subscribers. For example, if a UFO lands in Detroit, there will be an immediate alert, followed later by a detailed story.

      Just so you know.

  • When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates?

    Well, I'm not sure when the last time a news alert went out about Gates but he and his wife were kind of given people of the year [slashdot.org] by Time Magazine--perhaps you heard about that. I think that constitutes some affection by the media. Having your fugly mug plastered accross a magazine time and time again surely shows some media recognition.

    Michael Dell has little to do with innovation. He's a brilliant businessma

    • Re:Well, Gates WAS a "Person of the Year" (Score:5, Funny)

      by Avohir ( 889832 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:15PM (#14456843)
      ...His expertise is reliability and customer support ... thank you for praising Dell, please wait while your praise is rerouted to New Delhi...

    • Re:Well, Gates WAS a "Person of the Year" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:17PM (#14456864) Homepage Journal
      Michael Dell has little to do with innovation.

      I beg to differ. Perhaps little innovation in PC development, but in supply-chain management? The man's a god.
      • Not to mention design. Have you seen Dell's square boxes? So square! So boxy! Fantastic!

      • Re:Well, Gates WAS a "Person of the Year" (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:38PM (#14457740)
        Interestingly, Apple is very close to surpassing Dell in market value. Right now it's Apple: $72,301,066,720, Dell: $72,912,111,560. Apple keeps going up, while Dell has been down recently. Imagine the press coverage over Apple surpassing Dell in market value.

      • Re:Well, Gates WAS a "Person of the Year" (Score:4, Interesting)

        by v1 ( 525388 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @09:59PM (#14460287) Homepage Journal
        Dells are very popular at my workplace right now. The PC repair tech just checked in his TWELTH dell in the last three days. I thought he was going to throw the last one he was checking in across the room when I said "duuuude, you're gettin' a DELL!"

        They break early, often, and require significant time to fix. All around, an excellent machine. (for us) They also have this neat little trick of using a custom PS that has the standard items in the back in NONstandard locations, preventing you from installing anything short of a Dell PS in the case. (without the use of tin snips) Not surprising that three of those dozen had bad power supplies.

    • Re:Well, Gates WAS a "Person of the Year" (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ePhil_One ( 634771 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:25PM (#14456960) Journal
      Michael Dell has little to do with innovation. Definitely an important figure head in the sale of computers but not so much the invention side.

      Go to business school, you'll get an earful of Micheal Dell because all of his innovations are in the production process, Just in Time manufacturing, mass customization, no inventory, started from a college dorm room. His invention has been on the business process side, which is a little less obvious to the public (And Bill Gates main invention was the formalization of the license).

      His expertise is reliability and customer support.

      I'm sure you're going to hear a lot of rejection of that hypothesis, and they're right :) They do a good enough job, especially compared to the white box guys, but they are hardly industry leaders. The fact they aren't focused on reliability means they get new technology out the door faster than those who do, which is OK because most of the IT industry has embraced the RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Devices) concept for high availability instead of the much harder AYEOB, All Your Eggs in One Basket, method.

      • Which doesn't dispute the point (Score:4, Interesting)

        by alexhmit01 ( 104757 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:14PM (#14457486)
        Michael Dell is a HUGE figure in B-school, because he turned supply-chain management on its head. He took a business that was becoming a commodity, COMPLETELY commoditized it, and makes money while squeezing everyone else out.

        He gets LOTS of coverage... in the business press.

        Apple is arguably the most innovative company in consumer computer technology. The CORE focus on the mainstream "technology" press is the consumer computer technology. Therefore, Apple gets covered.

        Note: celebrities get lots of coverage in lifestyle, but not the business section.

        Very few companies play in the consumer tech space, Apple is one of them, Apple gets coverage. Other players, Sony, Symantec, anti-spyware company of the week, etc. Apple is a $6b company, which isn't small. I don't understand how on Slashdot a multi-billion dollar company in the top 200 of the Fortune 500 list gets treated like its a 5 man company in their garage, while treating random $5m tech company like a global dominating force.

        Alex
    • His expertise is reliability and customer support.

      I think his expertise is in getting it right the first time. Unlike the DIY home PC builder who boasts about how he saved $150 and gets 3% better performance than the comparable Dell box, Dell builds tens of thousands of identical computers. While the DIY guy may never figure out why his particular combination of MB, memory, graphics card, and drive freeze every 32 hours and 17 minutes, Dell can afford to spend the time to ensure that everything plays we

    • Re:Well, Gates WAS a "Person of the Year" (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Flammon ( 4726 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:28PM (#14457622) Journal

      Michael Dell has little to do with innovation. He's a brilliant businessman but I do not think his job function entitles him to media attention like Gates or Jobs.

      Hold your horses there big boy. Sounds like your implying that Bill Gates innovates like Steve Jobs. Let me tell you something. Bill Gates packages software like Micheal Dell packages computers. There's no more software innovation happening at Microsoft than their is hardware innovation happening at Dell. Microsoft's business is taking what other people have innovated and marketing it like they're the ones who innovated. I watched a video of some MS guys talking about RSS in Vista a few months ago and I felt like I was watching a 2 year old discovering his toes. You can do alot of cool stuff with RSS today but watch how MS puts a spin on it when Vista is released. It'll be all MS and the average consumer will watch in awe and say "Gee, those MS guys are smart cookies".

    • Dell sells computers, they don't invent them or the software they run. His expertise is reliability and customer support.

      In my mind, I consider what Dell has done to be *revolutionary* customer support when it comes to PC's. PC's are problematic, at the least, and Dell has kept a large fleet of my computers running, and I live way out on the island of Kauai. No other company does that. No, he hardware is common, he innovation in tech are non-existant, but making my life (and many other consumers) way less
    • I think that [Bill & Melinda Gates being named People of the Year] constitutes some affection by the media.

      Only if you believe that old imaginary phrase "As the editors of Time Magazine go, so goes the entire media industry." One story covering the Gateses (and the ensuing stories about the story) don't really carry the same weight of newsworthiness as an Associated Press NewsAlert.

      [Michael Dell's] expertise is reliability and customer support.

      You'd think some of that expertise would rub off on the des
  • Of course not.. the fact that the majority of media workers use apples does NOT make them biased.. of course not...
    • Really, that's kind of an overstatement. Many newsrooms use Macs but most publishing software has ports for PCs. The last newsroom I worked in used all PCs--they'd switched from Macs a year before I got there. Not only that, but there's this thing called "objectivity" that most reporters want to show they have. Apple made a huge shift moving to Intel and has now entered into a strange place in business. They make a Windows-compatible (at least Vista-compatible) PC that runs their own OS. While I doubt
    • Perhaps it's that a LOT of people are tired of how difficult it can be to set up Linux or how impossible it is to manage (keep virus/spyware/exploit-free) Windows...

      OS X hits a sweet spot for a LOT of people, and the reasonably robust hardware makes for an overall solid widget (no pun intended).

      Many might suggest Apple's package is the best computing experience around (right now) and that's what drives the hype.

      Outside from enthusiasts (who are found in ANY niche), who the hell gives a darn what's inside a
    • Of course not.. the fact that the majority of media workers use apples does NOT make them biased.. of course not...

      Well, it cuts both ways. I remember back in the early 90s reading over the shoulder of a sub at PC Format magazine (one of the more entertaining UK titles). He spent a few paragraphs dissing Marathon as a loser game and Bungie as an inept developer for 'something called the Macintosh', which he claimed he had never heard of, despite the fact that he was typing all of this on a Quadra 900.

  • Uh.... no (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 )
    Clearly, the AP's editors determined this news was important enough to warrant such action."

    Clearly the news media is dominated by people who use Apple computers. This is a well-known fact, and I actually recall reading an article a while back about the fact that Apple gets a disproportionate amount of computer press when the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple, much less actually owns one.

    • Re:Uh.... no (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:14PM (#14456834)
      That would be lovely, but they don't get a disproportionate amount of press... Just a disporportionate amount of press that people notice. There are dozens of times as many of stories about Bill Gates and Microsoft, but they say the same old boring crap all the time, so we've learned to ignore them.

      You didn't see BusinessWeek bitching after the AP issued all sorts of brown nosing crap about Bill last week after CES. In fact, it seems that they didn't even notice all those stories, they just stated in this article that they don't even remember them...

      the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple, much less actually owns one.

      The revenue from 14 million iPods last quarter is giving the revenue from Microsoft's gaming division the finger right now. Care to rethink that statement?
      • The revenue from 14 million iPods last quarter is giving the revenue from Microsoft's gaming division the finger right now. Care to rethink that statement?

        We're not talking about Apple consumer electronics, we're talking about Apple computers. Different beasts. That's like saying because Sony Playstations are popular, people will automatically care about Sony MP3 players.

        • Re:Uh.... no (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ivan256 ( 17499 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:24PM (#14456954)
          We're not talking about Apple consumer electronics, we're talking about Apple computers.

          Really? I thought we were just talking about press coverage of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? Both Vista and Xbox got a boatload of coverage last week as reporters hung on Bill Gates' every word, and Vista doesn't even exist yet.

    • I wish, I wish (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I call bull. Reuters, for example, easily serveral thousand times more important for business people (the ones who buy computers in bulk and not a few here and there) than AP, is strictly Microsoft only. I know this because I work there and we are fscking dying to be able to get rid of IE and install Firefox, but no can do. It's IE or get shot. Bloomberg, also more important than AP in the real world, runs on Windows, too.

      There are, of course, people at work who use Macs at home, just are there people who

    • Maybe elsewhere that's true, but I worked in the newsroom of a major newspaper for 5 years, and outside the Art Department I can count the Macs I saw on one hand.

    • Re:Uh.... no (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:46PM (#14457831)
      "... the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple..."

      Hardly. Former Apple CEO Gil Amelio wrote a book [lowendmac.com] chronicling his experiences in the Bad Old Days of Apple. One important part that stuck with me is when he asked the editor of a major national newspaper (I believe it was the NYT) why they always ran stories about Apple as major, headline news.

      His answer? He had conclusive data that every time an Apple headline ran, sales for that issue spiked by 5%.

  • When (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:03PM (#14456692)
    When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates?

    When was the last time either of those guys released an interesting, innovative product?
    • Maybe I am wrong.

    • Re:When (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 )
      When was the last time either of those guys released an interesting, innovative product?

      What exactly is innovative about an identical looking laptop with a different, somewhat faster processor? That's like putting a different engine in your Ford.

      Or another spin on the iPod? How long until iPod Pico arrives?

      And was anyone actually surprised that they both actually arrived at this show?

      • Re:When (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Daytona955i ( 448665 )
        What exactly is innovative about an identical looking laptop with a different, somewhat faster processor? That's like putting a different engine in your Ford.

        Yes, you're right, if Ford put a Dodge engine in their trucks, it would make a lot of news. You say different like it's nothing. Apple had been praising the powerpc chip over the intel chip for what seems like forever. It's not like the chip is slightly different in that it's cache is arranged in a different way, it would be like George Bush becoming a
  • Are you implying that Arik Hesseldahl [arik.org] (the article's author) want's to get in Steve Job's pants?

    My God, man, is Slashdot no better than high school?
  • This is rather off-topic, but has anyone tried Sour Apple Crush Soda? It's awesome :)

    Anyway, to bring the post on-topic, I'm excited about the new hardware, but I can see how the media coverage of apple over the last little while is quite reminiscient of Slashdot's coverage of Google.

    All praise, no raze. Or something. Basically, Apple is the Golden Delicious of the consumer tech companies right now. Eventually something will happen to change that, but for the forseeable future it will remain stable as the '

  • Old News (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) * <oculus.habent@gm ... Nom minus author> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:04PM (#14456705) Journal
    JOhn C Dvorak wrote an article in PC Magazine about this back in October [pcmag.com].
  • and his tears cure cancer.

  • RDF Check (Score:5, Funny)

    by lpangelrob ( 714473 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:04PM (#14456711)
    Steve Jobs: What can possibly explain the rapidly growing strength of my Reality Distortion Field?

    Neo: Hmm. Upgrades.

  • I think the bias is warranted... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Digital Vomit ( 891734 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:05PM (#14456716) Homepage Journal
    I think the bias is warranted. I mean, how many OSes do you know that can interface with and take down an alien ship's computer using a virus?

  • Well, (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thermostat42 ( 112272 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:06PM (#14456722) Homepage
    Can't the slashdot editors answer this one? Why do you have half of the front page filled with apple stories?

  • It comes down to Jobs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Moby Cock ( 771358 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:08PM (#14456746) Homepage
    Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs has cultivated a media persona that is the envy of many CEOs. He is the master of manipulating the media for his companies benefit. He is effectively the head saleman at Apple. He sets the tone for all the marketing that is done. Neither Gates nor Dell has the charisma to pull that off.

    The Apple brand, while always considered hip and cool, has exploded in over all popularity due to the iPod. That is why this years Macworld has dominated the headlines. Jobs has been very careful to maintain that hip and cool vibe with respect to Apple. It has served them well in the past, and is paying off nicely now.

    • Re:It comes down to Jobs (Score:2, Interesting)

      by IAAP ( 937607 )
      When I was growing up, I wanted to be just like Steve J. He created an industry with Wozniak all by themselves. Yeah, there was the Altair, but it was the Apple gang who made an industry and a mass market for the things.

      I still have this fascination for the man to this day, probably because he has this image as someone who does it his way, breaks the rules, and makes a shit load of money doing it.

  • Wait a minute... (Score:4, Funny)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:09PM (#14456765)

    I thought it was Linus that floated one inch above the ground.

  • I think I can understand it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:12PM (#14456805) Homepage
    Apple's fascination by the media has to do with 3 things:

    1. Dominance in entertainment (graphic artists, movie makers, etc). So when most journalists who interact with their geeky movie making counterparts, odds are they're going to see a Mac, no matter what they may be using. So Apple news has a direct impact on these people.

    2. Steve Jobs has charisma. You look at the interviews with Bill Gates, or Ellison, or McNealy, and I'm sorry, but these guys are just not photogenic. They hardly sound interesting, and they talk about boring stuff. (More on that in a moment.) But at least Jobs - and the drama of his life, the "rags to riches" story, is at least interesting. Even with his mistakes, at least he makes them *big* and bold.

    3. Most technology news is boring. Routers? Boring. Enterprise management? To the usual person, boring. New computer that lets you make movies? Well, that's kind of interesting! Music? That's something people are interested in, not "We can get 10,000 people to use a server to access a database!". My wife gets music - she could care less about using LDAP calls to Active Directory.

    The rest of it - the fascination the tech industry has with Apple - is because usually their the first ones to do things in an interesting way. Not all of the ideas are really unique - like the iPod, or cameras on a computer. But they put it on with a style that few companies save Sony perhaps can match, so it feels like it's innovative - and sometimes, the way that Apple does it, it is.

    As the article mentions, will this translate into bigger sales? MS dominated thanks to their IBM deal and focusing on business, while Jobs focused on the home. Gates won that part of the war. But now the war is moving into the entertainment business, where Microsoft keeps pushing their product but making slow headway while Apple is embraced by the same media who is fascinated with them.

    Eh - so who knows about the future. I know I'll probably pick up a Macbook Pro sometime in the future and try it out, probably put a Windows partition or just use Cedaga for OS X whenever that arises. But I'm sure the fascination with Apple will continue as long as Jobs continues to be interesting.

    Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

  • No "Intel Inside"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IAAP ( 937607 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:13PM (#14456821)
    FTFA: There are no "Intel Inside" logos on the new Macs, save for marks on the outer packaging for which Apple isn't being paid. A slick, new TV ad will promote the new Apple-Intel collaboration. But if Apple is leaving money on the table, wouldn't shareholders want some pointed questions asked about that?

    It's all about branding my boy! Branding! Also, it leaves room for Apple to put AMD chips or anything else they want. They still can do that with the label on, you say. Ah, Apple is Apple. That's the only brand that Jobs wants you to see. And, I think there may be a time in the future where the end consumer will not know what the CPU is. It could be anything. Who cares? You're buying an Apple and that's all that matters. Do you care what the chips are in your monitor, TV, iPod, or your router? I don't. As long as I get something that works.

  • Half the fun in covering Apple is covering the coverage of Apple. The argument has been made that we in the press are a little nuts about Apple. It's a fact. The highs and lows of Jobs & Co. are so dramatic that the erudite prose practically writes itself. And I can't help but think something is wrong with that.

    The other half of the fun is getting the erudite prose to write itself, so in reality this guy doesn't even have to write anything. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

  • Michael Dell (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:19PM (#14456889)
    If Michael Dell wants a high-priority press release, I offer him this one for free:

    Dell announces new systems built using AMD processors. Declares that customers should have a choice of the best systems available at the best prices available with full Dell support.

    • Don't get people started about... "Where is the AMD option?"

      Yes, where?

      Look to HP, they have both AMD 64 and Intel options. Just checked today since I had no clue for x86 prices as a G5 user myself. OK, lets skip this offtopic part.

      The "image game" is so good that you ask to Michael Dell about AMD support while Apple designs new stuff from strach without any word of AMD.

      I bet the monopoly case lawyers of AMD are really following this media frenzy.

      If we give up PPC for common desktop, I wished to have at lea

  • It's the mojo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MillenneumMan ( 932804 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:22PM (#14456921)
    Not only does Steve Jobs have a dynamic personality, but he KNOWS he does and can promote himself and his company accordingly. On top of that, Apple is the true innovator in the industry -- they produce must-have products, and those products almost unfailingly work extremely well.

    By comparison, Bill's personality doesn't have the dynamic, charismatic element that Steve has. Bill certainly has the intellect, the will, and the drive, but he just comes across differently than Steve in a public setting.

    It's like comparing Scorcese to Bruckheimer. Critics love Scorcese more and everyone will agree that Scorcese makes a superior product, but Bruckheimer is the one with the blockbuster hits.

  • Simple... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wandazulu ( 265281 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:24PM (#14456951)
    Rightly or wrongly, most people see the future in Apple products. Microsoft's slogan is (was?) "Where do you want to go today?" and for a lot of people that's "wherever Apple takes us". Apple's the company that *tries* things. And, the Cube notwithstanding, they have been pretty much on the mark. I'm not saying they invent everything, mp3 players were around before the iPod, but they were the ones who made its appeal universal. OSX is clearly standing on the shoulders of giants, but Apple was able to take it just that bit further that I could give my folks a Mac and walk away without worrying about whether they'd be able to use it.

    Compare this to Dell, whose mantra is "as cheap as possible" or Microsoft, whose mantra changes from day to day.

    To be fair, both Dell and Microsoft have problems that Apple would probably love to have (massive volume). But since Apple doesn't have said problems, they're more free to do whatever they want, and what they want is to sell more of their own stuff which looks farther afield from the rest of the industry.

  • ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heatdeath ( 217147 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:26PM (#14456982)
    ...that the 4th apple story in the last 24 hours is entitled The Media's Crush on Apple. =P
  • The alert is probably because most journalists seeing Intel-hardware prices this high would otherwise assume they've drunk themselves into a coma over "lunch" and woken in the 1980's.

    TWW

    • Re:Reality Alert! (Score:5, Informative)

      by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:00PM (#14457352) Journal
      The alert is probably because most journalists seeing Intel-hardware prices this high would otherwise assume they've drunk themselves into a coma over "lunch" and woken in the 1980's.

      Are you saying this Dell Inspiron [dell.com] is priced too high? Because it looks somewhat comprable to the specs of the MacBook, except that it includes much less software ( nothing at all like iLife, for example ), no Bluetooth, and that $1999 price doesn't give you a DVD-R drive even. I mean, you can quibble about the details, Apple's ATI X1600 vs Dell's Invidia 7800, etc, but... they look like comprable offerings at... the *exact* same price!

      Did I check that right? I can order either a Dell top-of-the-line notebook, or an Apple top-of-the-line notebook, and they cost EXACTLY the same amount ? Damn, now what do I do?!?

  • its marketing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv@nOspam.ivoss.com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:34PM (#14457065) Homepage Journal
    Media Relations, PR, understanding the value of secrecy before a product launch. The reason why Apple releasing a new laptop is news across the country, its because nobody outside of Apple has a good idea as to what they will release. When most manufactures have a new product coming out, the news sites know about it months in advance.

    Even non-apple users are interested in what Apple announces, because their products tend to set industry trends from time to time.

    While it was noteworthy that Apple showed their first Intel power products. Overall, I don't think these new announcements were that impressive. All of the big wintel manufactures announced duo products last week at CES. There are really no unique features with these new items from Apple.

    While Apple is gaining a lot with the Intel switch, it is losing a lot of its uniqueness in terms of hardware. Then again, most people are purchasing Apple products for the software features of OSX, not CPU.

  • >When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates?

    Well as this is an event by Apple that could seriously affect those two, it is rather important, isn't it? This isn't just an new 8GB nano we are talking about here!

  • Actually... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by theheff ( 894014 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:39PM (#14457120)
    Does "the media" entail /. ? Just wondering... because I just saw 5 Apple-related stories on the front page.

  • It's not an Apple story. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RomulusNR ( 29439 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:39PM (#14457121) Homepage
    I mean, I guess it is an Apple story from the perspective that Steve Jobs made the announcement, and it is Apple hardware and software being showcased.

    But the real star of the story is the Intel chip, who has broken through the Apple-Motorola-IBM blue wall of the PowerPC.

    Intel breaking into the Apple market is a bigger story than Apple bowing to Intel market pressure.
  • As long as you keep the buzz alive my stocks are just going to go up and up...

  • I hate to say it...... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SomeOtherGuy ( 179082 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:57PM (#14457320) Journal
    because I am not much of an apple fanboy, and saying this makes me feel dirty -- however, they usually seem to deliver pretty well lately on the hype they are generating. Micro$oft has a tendancy of the "cry wolf" syndrome or vaporware, or delivering less than what was hyped. Apple seems to be able do live up to the hype.

  • Does this guy know his stuff? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ZombieRoboNinja ( 905329 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:12PM (#14457461)
    FTA:
    "Here's another good question: Why is Apple turning down Intel's marketing subsidies that go to other PC manufacturers such as Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and others? There are no "Intel Inside" logos on the new Macs, save for marks on the outer packaging for which Apple isn't being paid. A slick, new TV ad will promote the new Apple-Intel collaboration. But if Apple is leaving money on the table, wouldn't shareholders want some pointed questions asked about that?"

    Here's a good answer: Because Apple is one of few companies that cares enough about the appearance and packaging of its computers that it doesn't want to make them look like stock cars by covering them with the logos of third-party parts manufacturers. And because Apple itself is a more prestigious brand than Intel, and they wouldn't have anything to gain by slapping "Intel Inside" on everything. And, oh yeah, because Intel ITSELF is phasing out the "Intel Inside" logo on the new Yonahs, if I remember correctly.

    Seriously, who is the guy writing this article? This question in particular seems pretty darned obvious, at least to me.

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