Apple Users Have A Cult Mindset, Study Shows
 

http://hottipscentral.com/apple-prod...-cults-report/

:lol1:

In other news: sky is blue, water is wet.

Interesting, but linky not working.:(

I have considered this for a while, it is true of any brand loyalty in a sense though. Having said that Jobs had something of the charismatic leader about him, and when he would unveil the latest gadget it had something of a mystical revelation about it, and the gadget took on a power of a totem.

I'm sure it happened with certain brands of eggbeaters and microwaves when they first came out. It happens, and it phases out when newer superior inventions take over with even a single genuinely surpassing quality. It has to be distinctly revolutionary or far superior quality, not something identical or slightly better than the identical one, though. It has to be clearly visible and the experience of it must make others go "WOW!". Like what Mr. Dyson did, with his vacuum cleaner. He sucked Hoover and other brands alive, with no loss of suction. Like Nokia was well ahead in game not so long ago. Look at it now on its @rse. iPhone leads.

Apple's whole marketing strategy is to utilise an in group/out group mentality when promoting their products.

"If you don't have Apple products, then you're not an Apple user"

That was the real genius of Steve Jobs: he made something potentially geeky and innaccessible, simple and sexy and made technology something that people wanted to be a part of and explicitly identify themselves as being a part of! More often than not, there are technically superior products to Apple ones out there, but things like CPU clock speed and megapixels are for geeks in forums to debate; often what matters to the person on the high street is technological gimmicks, design and branding, and that's where Apple are streets ahead!

Ns04

These people just get off on being packaged !

People were the same with Nokia 3310's.

Shame it doesn't ring true with all Apple users.

I've been a Mac-user for the last 20-odd years. I stick with them because for what I do, a Windows machine doesn't offer the package.
Macs have some VERY cool stuff, but also some HIGHLY frustrating and daft things too.

The iPhone, for me, was a desperation buy, and I regretted it very quickly. The iPod however, is truly spectacular, as is the iPad.

But only if the device fits your workflow - Apple's biggest flaw is telling people how to run their lives. Granted, a great deal of mooks out there need this level of intrusion, but there's a lot who don't.

But I do accept that there's a level of arrogance that is inherent in certain users. A blinding faith in the product - NOT just Apple, but most of the big/popular fads in the world.
A "cult"-mind does some them up quite well - but as a user of Apple devices (as opposed to an Apple-user), I'm not one of them! :D

I've seen what iMovie can do and my next lappy will be an apple one when the current windoze one dies.

I have ordered an Ipad 3 in spite of my natural tendency to nausea around Apple Fanboyism, but Android ones are as bad, I think as the Ipad gets more ubiquitous the baggage will lessen and people will just get on with using it and it will lose the image a bit. Mentioned to my boss I had ordered one and he said I should have just ordered it through work as we are all getting them this year anyway, typical !

It's not really a flaw from a sales/marketing point of view; it's genius! Why try and anticipate a need/demand from the consumer (very hit and miss) when you can create one and then make sure your product fills that niche perfectly!

If you make the way that people run their lives contingent around the features of your product, you make your product that much more indispensable and you sell your product as more than a functional box of wires and electrodes, it becomes part of a lifestyle both of which are great ways to ensure brand loyality!

Most of us decide what we need and then choose the best product for those needs.

Apple have become masters in dictating what people need and they got the credibility to do this, not because they made a technically superior product (the Ipod was never particularly good in terms of sound processing and early iterations of Itunes were ****e!) but because they made a product sexy i.e. something that people wanted!

Dunno about that. Apple are the masters of industrial design (minimising number of clicks) and also of integration. In short they are a piece of p1ss to use and devices talk to each other without unecessary complexity. That the external appearance of most Apple devices is cool too is a bonus but not the core appeal for me. Whilst IT nerds want to ass-f*ck and jailbreak everything, the average user doesn't give a monkey's about the latest trick and gimmick that will be really cool once it works properly.

My devices: I have a work iPhone (with private email installed) and at home an Ipod touch, Ipad2 and an Apple tv and numerous docking stations etc. I am not a fan boy, but a rational consumer. Yesterday evening I got a private email which announced itself on my iphone whilst I was sitting on the couch. The mail contained a link to a cracking self-made YouTube vid. I clicked the link and selected to play it via Apple tv. In 10 seconds it was streaming in glorious HD on our flatscreen tv with the sound through our home theatre set for me and 'er indoors to enjoy all without having to leave the sofa. Tada! :)

I thought the iPod was an iPhone without the sim side of things and an iPad a large iPhone

Can you explain why you regretted the iPhone given your comments on the ipod/pad

Im just curious thats all

And do you need your phone to stream video to your HD TV. I think not, but Apple told you that would be cool and suddenly you wonder how you'd made do without it!! :D And I'm not knocking you either, I totally get it - it IS cool! :thumb: BUT there is a cost to all this cool and that is that "integration" has become yet another means of securing brand loyality! Apple devices talk to Apple devices without unnecessary complexity! ;) :D

"Bought a I phone, well if you buy and Apple TV you can sync it with that and that syncs with your I pad and your I mac" .... you can see where they're going with this!! :D

Didn't Pokemon beat them to it though

*Sings*

"Gotta catch (buy) them all, gotta catch (buy) them all"

Genius!! :thumb:

Of course John,

Personally (and wholly IMHO) I found the iphone HIGHLY frustrating. Petty stuff like the inability (at the time - don't know about now) to Bluetooth file exchange without an "app". Even to a Mac.
Using your own text message alerts - you have a choice of 10 iirc and that's it. i only got around this with a Jailbreak.
not being able to use MP3s as ringtones without conversion..... nor drag and drop to the "card".

The STUPIDLY childish-looking text messaging system. This is petty but I didn't like it. Are the text messages time-stamped now?

I hated the auto-correct (although to be fair you can turn it off - however I wanted spell-check).

The fact that to get pics off the phone, you have to go into iPhoto, but the music aspect was on iTunes.

Just didn't like the phone aspect - the ipod aspect was brilliant.
And the same goes for the ipod touch and iPad.

iPad makes even more sense (except for use in the car as an mp3 player - won't really fit in the glove-box! :D )
I love my ipod touch and ipod 60gig that sits in my glove-box. Does exactly what it says on the tin.
My only beef (being picky!) is that AAC encoding isn't to flattering on bass-end (I'm an audio engineer, so am rather picky about this ;) ) - but it works well in the car after all, you're not exactly listening to audiophile or (better) studio-quality audio :)

No doubt this will have the Apple fanboys having a go and justifying why these things work this way or the option's not available.
I don't care - imho, you embrace the tech because you think/hope it will integrate into YOUR life, not YOU integrating into Apple's. In this case, I feel it's the level of "intrusion" into your way of life.

And again, it comes down to workflow - the iphone didn't suit me, but suits a GREAT many people.

Sounds like I'm bashing Apple - not the case. Due to my career I use them extensively and love/require the reliability (and to be fair, the same applies to their portable devices)......
The software basically just works (although we'll skip over Final Cut Pro X ;) ) - the original iMovieHD was brilliant, then they messed a bit too much with it .....

Hope this explains my thinking (typed on my MacBookPro! :D )

Dan

Thanks Dan

Thats a great explanation, I think the first time a long time Apple user has said how it is (and not what they want to tell us ;) )

(this is typed on a Macbook) but I don't like or want an iPhone or iPad etc :)

I've just read his biography. I love his products and they only came about through his unswerving and uncompromising obsession with design, interfaces and his knack for realising what people wanted before they knew it.

As a person he refused to wash, said everything was sh!t, culled people without a thought, refused to back down, stole people's ideas for his own and had loads of crying foot stamping tantrums.

I'm pretty non violent, but I'd have swung for him if I spent more than 5 minutes in his company.

What unrelenting adherence to his vision though ! And thank the lord one person in IT loved design as well as function too! Amazing products.

Pokemon is after my time and not something I ever understood :o

For the record my iPhone is a corporate one and is as such 'free'. Instead of playing the peppa the pig videos for the kids on the laptop I can play them on my tv instead using 'my' phone as a remote, even if I'm in the kitchen cooking. It is pretty handy as I almost always have my phone in my pocket.

In contrast my Dell Windoze lappy is integrated with pretty much bu66er all. It was once integrated with the NAS attached to our router, but it stopped being able to find the drive automatically ages ago. At least I can still print from it to my HP printer, even though it seems to take an age to spool the job. The lappy needs a reboot if I plan to render / edit a video without frame and sound errors. The round trip is between 5 and 10 minutes and as I've just finished making two ski videos I conclude that life is too short for this nonsense.

If Apple manage to create a standard which doesn't get compromised by virture of the fact that they own and control it AND IT WORKS then as a consumer, I'm quite happy to patronise them. As I said, its an Apple lappy for me next. I'm quite happy to buy old stock and avoid the premium so long as iMovie is included! :)

Actually I'm in the market for a HDMI new amp and found that new Marantz series supports Airplay. Which means I can put the B&W docking station in the study instead!

http://marantz.co.uk/uk/Products/Pag...oductId=NR1602

I agree, he acted like a complete spoilt little brat; crying and stamping feet when he didn't get his way. Parking in disabled spots was also not on. I do wonder if he did have some mental issue where he really did not "get" that he was being a colossal prick and very selfish.

There is certainly a cult of mac, and there are also ***** of mac too; i.e.; the seriously worrying fanboys who really won't let it go. Yeah, I rather like Apple stuff (as with Dan, I've worked with Macs for far, far too long :D) but I also agree that some things are frustrating and could be changed but it would go against Apple's reasoning to change something as they usually totally believe they are right (Sounds just like Steve himself!)

It is interesting to see some of the changes under Tim Cook though. Apple is very much looking at the corporate side of things, and Education is also meant to be getting a little more than just lip service. If I was still in my previous job I would be more concerned these days, as we had a product that was one of the alternatives to Workgroup Manager / At Ease / Multiple Users, and the eye of sauron would now be looking our way (funnily enough, it seems to be doing that in my current job too :D)

As Jeremy Clarkson once said

"Democracy? Pah! Never trust anything invented by the Greeks" :lol1:

Dictatorships can work if the guy behind the helm knows what they're doing. It just so happens, he did! I think he knew that and came back to Apple with a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove and god help anyone who got in his way!

im waiting for the mass-suicide pact of apple users when they go pop. :D

I'd say the Cult of Anti Apple has more members. If I post a thread on here praising Apple at least 20 people will jump on and firstly slag off Apple, then post LOL Cat pictures then slag off me. It's madness.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../SNMadness.jpg

:lol1:

You forgot to slag Apple and me off, but great demo of the LOL cat theory.

And you forgot to read the rest of the posts! It's not a slag off Apple thread! Some very reasoned contributions that acknowledge the real genius of Jobs and the Apple brand, actually!

Hang on....

That's the second time you've cried persecution on such a thread in the space of a week, Jack...

BTW Did you know paranoia is a feature of the cult mindset, as is a lack of sense of humour about the cult. ;) :D

I think you need a little "de-programming" :D
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.
.
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Guess what? There isn't an App for that!! ;) :D

Excellent, you're demonstrating the slagging me off bit "Paranoia"

No, it's not a slag of Apple thread, although suggesting that someone who likes Apple products is part of a cult is pretty close.

I'm sticking with the Cult aspect of the thread by suggesting that the behaviour of the Apple Hater is far more mental.

Sorry mate, read it again; you're seeing things. ;) :D

Or maybe, you're just "thinking different"

*evil laugh*

I'm just pulling your leg. I have an Ipad2 and very good it is too!

Some random Cult of Apple pictures

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w...Apple-Cult.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IIXNwE6sCc...of%2BApple.gif

http://gazedice.com/wp-content/uploa...oped_cult.jpeg

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...e-religion.png

I would say that the original members on here demonstrated some serious cult like behaviour to the all-wonderful subaru. Mention an Evo and all hell would break loose ...

Apple just seem to have pulled off that trick but with millions upon millions of people.

Me? I think the iPhone and iPad are great. I like my MacBook as a piece of asthetic beauty (And the swiping, pinching etc.. is very cool) but it is frustrating when compared to a PC. How about putting folders at the top in a directory listing?

Click on Kind if you need folders at the top, I always sort on Date Modified.