Newton Poetry

Seth Godin on price in a recession:

Of course, people actually care more about value. They care about value more than they used to because they can’t afford to overpay, they don’t want to make a mistake with their money.

…The thing is, there’s another way to make the value go up. Increase what you give. Increase quality and quantity and the unmeasurable pieces that bring confidence and joy to an interaction.

When all of your competitors are busy increasing value by cutting prices, you can actually increase market share by increasing value and raising benefits.

I’d call iLife, superior build quality, and innovation values, wouldn’t you? And those “unmeasurable pieces” are what Apple specialize in.

In PC makers race to the bottom price-wise, they lose a lot of what makes owning a computer so special: the “confidence and joy” Godin mentions.

I can’t help but feel sorry for any Macintosh computer being sold at my local Best Buy.

Usually, they sit in the back of the computer aisle, alone and untrusted, with no intelligent human being around to give it the love and customer assistance it needs.

Take the above Macbook Air. I found it harnessed against an aisle wall, together with a Sony Vaio, looking very unattractive. For starters, it was off (the Vaio was turned on). Second, that damned harness took away every bit of aesthetic beauty the Air possessed.

I lingered for a minute, picking it up, acting like I was interested in purchasing for, I don’t know, a relative for Christmas. Yet no Best Buy associate came by to help me out. Were they scared? Did they not trust the machine? Was that why it was turned off?

So, for free, I decided to help Apple out with their Macbook Air marketing. I turned the laptop on, got it logged on to that store’s wireless connection, and shrank the OS X 10.5 Leopard dock down to a mortal size. Then, I launched Photo Booth. What better marketing tool than a laptop that will take your picture?

It was a real attention-grabber. Customers would walk by, catch their own image on the screen, and stop to play around with the Mac.

Since Best Buy started selling Macs, I often wonder if they’re getting the attention they so rightfully deserve. The first Mac I ever saw in a Best Buy – a Mac mini, back when it was first released in 2005 – was at least turned on and ready for me to poke around the desktop. This Air, an even lovelier computer, was abandoned like a Packard Bell in some dusty, remote corner of the store. Shame on you, Best Buy.

No need to send a check, Apple. This is the kind of thing your fans will do for you, if only you treat us well once in a while (see: iPhone). Hopefully that Macbook Air finds a good home – before it’s too late.

By some accounts, businesses are snatching up Macs more and more these days. 9 to 5 Mac says the use is quadrupling, while some say the increase isn’t so great. But for the subject to even be noticed, something has to happen.

In fact, something is happening: Apple, whether directly or indirectly, is telling the enterprise market, “we’re not so bad.”

Apple tried this years ago. The Apple III was meant to be a business model PC. So was the Lisa. But their cost or glitches, combined with IBM’s early dominance, relegated Apples to the “creative” and education markets. Hippies love Macs. Suit-and-tie professionals? Not so much. At least that was the perception.

Then Apple created a tool that was tailor-made for business: the Newton Messagepad.

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