The Realist

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence
ofthe American public.”

H. L.
Mencken 

From time to time, I receive e-mail from readers, asking my thoughts
about the Macintosh, about the Mac community or about Apple the Company.
The questions that I can answer, I answer. The ones that I scratch my
head over, I try to direct the reader to the appropriate source, be it a
URL, a book, an e-mail address, whatever. But today, I received an
e-mail that disturbed me.

I won’t name the person who wrote the e-mail, because that’s tack
(besides, I didn’t ask the person’s permission). I won’t even say what
the e-mail was about, because it doesn’t matter. But what I will do is
describe the situation, because I’ve seen it happen over and over.

Here’s the situation…

You love the Macintosh. By extension, you love Apple. Still
with me? Good.

Now, since you feel much love for Apple Computer, you come to view Apple
as a friend — a dear friend. As friends are wont to do, you come across
something that you’d like to share with Apple — your friend. Oh, I
don’t know, let’s pretend that you’ve come up with an idea for a product
that you think would be useful to Apple. Just for discussion purposes,
let’s say that you’ve come up with an idea for an Apple-branded PDA,
since this is on people’s minds of late.

You spend days drawing up schematics, diagrams, etc. You print the
documents out. You save the documents to a CD-ROM. You mail the docs to
Apple, Inc.

Then you wait. And wait. And wait.

One day, you receive a response from Apple. It reads:

“Dear Sir:Thank you for your inquiry. At this time, we must ask that you refrain
from sending such items. And in the event that any future Apple product
resembles the items discussed in your missive, it is purely
coincindental and totally unrelated to the information you’ve forwarded
to Apple Computer.

Sincerely,
Apple Legal Affairs”

 

Welcome to the real
world, folks.

To the person to whose e-mail I referred, you have my sincerest
apologies. I do not mean to belittle your situation. I mean to point to
the above, and your, situation to underscore the fact that some times,
we forget that Apple is a company, first and foremost.

I’ve tried to say this at other times, but feel it needs saying again:
Apple is a company.

Many of the things for which we claim to hate Microsoft, those same
things can apply to Apple. Apple is focused on the bottom line, like any
sensible company is. In a way, Apple is like an organism, and as with
every organism, the strongest impulse is that governs an organism’s life
is the impulse of self-preserveration.

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, sure, he said that his job was to create
the world’s best computers, but we all know that his job was to save
Apple. Self-preservation. It had nothing to do with making Mac users
happy. Today, that same rule applies. Apple’s mission is to make the
shareholders happy by giving them a return on their investment, which is
the money they gave Apple in exchange for a share of stock.
Self-preservation.

We can define it any way you want: for example, we could argue that
Apple, in fact, does exist to create the world’s greatest computers.
But, I ask you, is that fact an ends or a means?

This is what I wanted to say to the reader who e-mailed me, but I didn’t
have to guts to do it. Today, I do. And I hope it helps assuage that
readers disillusionment with Apple.

No one loves Apple and the Mac more than I do. Apple may have changed
the logos, but I still bleed six colors. Nevertheless, I understand that
Apple is a company, but it doesn’t disillusion me. It has only made me
view Apple in a more realistic manner. So whenever Apple does something
I don’t agree with, I don’t feel as though a friend has broken my heart;
instead, I view it as a company doing what it must in order to assure
its continued existence.

And don’t we each do the exact same thing day in and day out?

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Rodney O. Lain