On Apple's Superiority Complex...

I will the first to admit that Apple commercials are pretty funny in their sarcastic comments on the PC. However, Apple (in VERY typical Steve Jobs style, if you don't believe me watch "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" or read about Jobs' life) pretty arrogantly implies that their operating system (and implicitly their hardware) are superior, and render all others mostly useless. I say implicitly their hardware because Apple's commercials all refer to specifically Windows (understandably, bc that's their biggest competition that has been dominating them for the past 23 years), but they seem to prey upon the public general ignorance to the fact that a PC could easily be running a much more stable implementation of Linux or Unix...you know, the place where Apple got its ideas and based its OS off of? Yeah...that one (or many). They also do not take into account that they, as a manufacturer have had many of the same issues that most PC manufacturers experience. Example, exploding batteries (MacBook Pro, Sony and more famously Dell also had this issue), batteries that expire LONG before their expected date (iPod, again, Dell in some machines and less known HP had this happen in laptops).
Apple's market share before the release of the "new" Intel-based Macs was somewhere around the 2% marker. Catering mainly to desing and video houses. Then they made a move PCs had been with for...hmmmm...years, many years. Some as early as 1985 in personal computers, http://www.intel.com/museum/online/hist_micro/hof/index.htm. To Apple's credit, as of January 1, 2008 that same market share peaked at 7.31% (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/01/mac-market-share-over-7-in-december/). Now, you can't do this because it doesn't work, but EVEN if you combine the previous market share of the Mac with their current market share, it is STILL under 10%. The reality is that it is significantly less than 10% @ 7.31%. Now, I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know if I'm playing a sport, and I lose (giving them the 0.69% increase) to the competition 92% of the time, I wouldn't be talking trash about them. Apple (and Linux) have been on the rise for the 6 months preceding the article, but I think its a little bit premature to be acting like the "big guy".
So what has Apple done to increase their market share, and does that really make them better? Well, with the introduction of the MacBook Pro (the "new" Macs, 2 years ago) they made two very smart decisions, in my opinion. Decision one was the introduction of Intel-based processors. This meant cross-platforms applications (ones that run on Windows and Mac) could be more easily programmed, using one common codebase. They also introduced the EFI BIOS, which, in short (it could get very technical, but it won't in this post) allows a user to run their operating system(s) of choice. Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, both or all. Briefly, this means Intel Mac users can enjoy both OS X (Mac) and Windows (XP SP2+ or Vista) should they so choose through the use of an application called Boot Camp, which ships with Macs now, or can be downloaded from Apple.com. This effectively eliminates a few reasons to buy a PC. It is notable that the investment is entirely not worth it if one only plans on running windows in my estimation.
Apple also has been aggressively marketing, hence the reason I'm writing this. And their presentation has been typical Steve Jobs style, which seems to basically consist of attacking the competition or pretending they are irrelevant. Either Steve hasn't seen the number in market share (which I can't imagine, as the CEO) or just doesn't like them and prefers not to address them. Last time I checked almost every small or large business was using PCs. Outside the scope of this post though...
I would also like to address the OS itself, advertised as being far more secure and less vulnerable than PCs. Try hacked in under 30 minutes...: http://www.zdnet.com.au/ads/interstitial/interstitial.htm?redirect=/news/security/soa/Mac-OS-X-hacked-under-30-minutes/0,130061744,139241748,00.htm?omnRef=http://www.google.com/search?q=OS%20X%20hacked%20in%2010%20minutes It's not that OS X is "more secure", it more like it's "less attacked", when you have 7% market share that's what happens, people don't waste their time attacking your OS or writing viruses that won't affect lots of people. That's kinda the point of the virus...:) Also, http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207000434
Basically that's where the MacBook Air was hacked in two minutes...nuff said.
I say all this as a proud owner of 5 Macs (3 currently MacPro, MacBook Pro, MacBook, and used to have a G4 laptop, and an old Apple II...yes! haha), and I really like(d) all of them! But even after reformatting (with updates and without), my applications still crash, and the OS still has issues, and they still release service packs (340+ megs (OS X 10.5.2) is not just an "update", thats bigger than the download for XP SP2 or SP3). Just like almost everyone else. Jobs and his crew have made a great, quality product, and certainly have the right, and SHOULD market it in a way beneficial to them. But do they have to do it with so much implicit arrogance, superiority, and "I'm better than you" attitude? Why not just tell people the benefits of their product in a more straightforward manner instead of bashing the competition until the consumer feels stupid and as if they have no choice? Oh yeah...marketing...got it. I'm not entirely sure this post is finished.