Linkology: The Best of the Internet for 1/27/11
Unabashedly Waxing Poetic on Apple From a User’s Standpoint
I started using Macs when they were powered by the Motorola 68000’s and Berkeley Breathed anthropomorphized one in Bloom County. Even back then, in the miasma of the awakening WinTel juggernaut and whiffs of Amigas and Atari STs, Macs were considered niche machines. I wrote my first dozen short stories on that little Mac, and after upgrading to a Mac SE/30 I went through high school with that little beige box on my desk. The Mac, and the Commodore 64 that preceded it, were my first technology proving grounds.
Later, because I was a hopeless gaming nerd, I migrated to Windows PCs for a stint. I built my own rigs. I spec’ed my own motherboards, hard drives, RAM chips, cases, power supply and garish-colored fans. When GPUs were invented, I pored over every polygon each had the potential to push. I had become a full-on hardware nerd.
My stay on the Windows side of thing lasted longer than I expected, because that happened to be the same time Steve Jobs was exiled from Apple and John Sculley began his seemingly-intentional grounding of the company into any rocky shore he could find. The Windows PC era was in full bloom, and nobody outside really dedicated typesetting/design studios ever thought about Macs again. Everyone thought Apple had been relegated into insignificance; Michael Dell even suggested that Apple should sell the stock back to shareholders and ‘shut the company down’.
In the early 2000’s, as real life became more real and I wasn’t spending my nights fragging strangers in Rocket Arena 3, I was looking for a more elegant computing setup. My giant, power-sucking, room-heating beast of PC was too much, Windows was too boring, and I longed for something new. As it turned out for me, everything old indeed does become new again.
I did something that made everyone laugh at me: I bought an overpriced, shiny, white MacBook. That was back in OSX 10.1 days, when the OS was unquestionably immature and limited to the point of being annoying. It was also during the very beginning of Apple’s real resurgence, a movement that saw the iPod give way to the iPhone, and the introduction of what many argue is the new modern-day portable computer: the iPad. It also heralded a bona fide Mac explosion.
Today, I’m Apple everywhere, for better or worse. I have an iMac, MacBook Air, iPhone 4S, iPad and Apple TV. Everything just works. My days of fiddling with Windows and building my own machines have given way to technology that enables me to do what I want, easily, effortlessly. I know it’s bad form to gush uncontrollably about a tech bias in public, but Apple has done something amazing with itself over the past 12 years, and I’m proud to say I’ve been along for (most of) the ride, through the doldrums as well as the ascent. To me, and from the perspective of the user, Apple is a brave company, one that stands for higher standards and holds a focus on user experience that is in its DNA, as opposed to watery marketing fodder, they do know how to follow the king kong digital marketing agency reviews through every step.
A few days ago, Apple announced a historic quarterly earnings report. Even by the hyperspazzy standards of Wall Street analyst wonks everywhere, Apple absolutely showed that it is winning pretty much every battle its fighting. Scratch that — it’s not just winning, it’s dominating.
Apple announced sales of $46 billion. Think about that. Here’s a $100-billion-plus company growing at a 73% clip, which simply isn’t supposed to happen. Sales in Apple’s past quarter exceeded its entire 2009. And this year, we’re looking at the iPad 3, the iPhone 5, probably an Apple TV reincarnation, and who knows what else. What’s for sure is that this momentum shows no signs of slowing.
Some other interesting trivia in light of Apple’s performance:
Data shows that shows PC shipments waning — except at Apple.
Farhad Manjoo puts things in perspective for anyone who can’t get their head around what Apple just announced: Apple’s profits ($13 billion) exceeded Google’s entire revenue ($10.6 billion).
At Verizon, 55% of all phone sales for 4Q 2011 came from iPhones. That means two iPhone models (the 4 and 4s) outsold every Android device the carrier offers combined.
Finally, here’s the ultimate framework in which to look at Apple’s data: it just posted the second-most-profitable quarter in any company’s history.
Where’s Charlie Sheen when you need him? Oh, he’s right here.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
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More links:
MIPRO Consulting main website.
