thecopycat

Apple, you hypocrite.

In 1984, Apple launched an advertisement that was nothing short of revolutionary. One, for its concept of breaking the mold, and two, for the fact that it was a one time (two time?) airing. They were saying, “You know how computers can be seen as big-brother-ish and scary and anti-individualism? We’re not going to let that happen. Our computer’s going to be about the individual.”

And for a while, that’s how it was. The PC was about the big company who didn’t give a damn about the individual and forced its will upon you, and the Mac was the rebel.

But I just happened to compare the two the other day. As they are now, not as they were once. I have no idea what they were two decades ago. I’ve just seen the advertisement.

Today, you can configure your PC to your personal specifications. There are a wide range of accessories you can add or remove, to make your PC work your way. Are you a gamer? You can have a gaming intensive PC. Throw in a couple of kick-ass graphic cards, a bucketful of RAM, a quad-core processor, and you’ve got a gaming machine. Similarly, a work user might scale everything down to get something that is cheap and effective. Maybe I can’t afford that damn quad-core processor. And maybe I don’t need kick-ass graphics.

Buying a Mac? Okay, you pay the same as your gaming buddy over there. Well, not exactly the same. I’ll give you a couple of options here and there. But this is no PC, dude. You’re paying to be cool, remember?

Oh yea, and then there’s the iPod. By far, the coolest PMP on the block. But you gotta use iTunes you know. There’s no way you’re getting to put your music on your iPod without iTunes.

Buy Creative instead, and maybe you don’t own the coolest PMP on the block. But, hell, I can use Explorer to put some music on this, and that’s fine by me.

So that’s my problem with Apple. What happened to the individual? You might still consider them the rebel in the market, but with the amount of takers, I still wouldn’t say buying a Mac or an iPod’s rebellious.

They look cool, sure, but I prefer my buttoned Nokia, which hangs as often as your click-wheel iPod might, but all I gotta do is hit the red button a couple of times and I’m good to go.

Is there more than just wanting to look cool? Is there some reason behind it? Or did Apple figure out it’s more profitable to be Big Brother rather than Athletically-dressed Rebel? So they’re turning us into those people in their 1984 commercial, staring at the screen, only we’re saying “Ooh” and “Aah” instead, enamoured by the latest iPod Touch which you can surgically sew into your skin, except you’ll be plugged into iTunes all the time?