Four things I didn’t know about Apple
Yesterday Apple Australia kindly flew me up to Sydney for a look around its corporate headquarters and for a very interesting two-hour press presentation from Mr iPod and Mr Hardware. (Mr Software is at WWDC, so I didn’t hear from him.)
In the course of the day, I discovered four new things about Apple that I didn’t know before.
1. The black MacBook is intended to be a 12″ PowerBook replacement
I had the chance to ask Mr Hardware as he was presenting the now complete range of Intel Macs whether anything was coming to replace the 12″ PowerBook.
He told me that Apple has received a lot of feedback from users about the need for a small notebook with a “more professional look”. Apple made a conscious decision to meet that demand with the black MacBook, giving those users the look they wanted at the cost of a slight hit in performance and features. Is that why they cost more?
2. Only 26% of Mac users do backups, 4% use automated solutions.
Of course, you know at one level that the numbers are low, but it is still a shock to see just how low they are.
Those who have watched the keynote will know that Leopard’s Time Machine 
is designed to increase these numbers dramatically.
Will it work? I don’t think so. The current ability to automate backups with Backup 3.0 and the plethora of third-party automated backup options haven’t brought large numbers of users to the party. This won’t either. It’s not the technical ability that’s missing; it’s the personal habit.
Dear reader, for the love of God get yourself into that 4%. Don’t read the other two things I didn’t know about Apple. Go now and check out Dejà Vu or BackityMac or SuperDuper! or, if you have a .Mac account, Apple’s own Backup.
3. iTunes prints really nice CD covers.
I use iTunes a lot, but it never occurred to me to visit its Print menu. Mr iPod demonstrated how easy it is to make jewel case covers in iTunes and how nice the final result looks:
4. Steve Jobs doesn’t trust people who use words as a tool of their trade
At the airport I picked up a copy of Jeffrey Young and William Simon’s iCon: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2005) (Amazon ) to read on the plane.
On the homeward flight I discovered an answer to the mystery about the lack of communication between engineers and development teams at Apple and journalists, bloggers and third-party developers (after all, code is words).
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple and became Interim CEO in 1997, he
…quickly saw things that he didn’t like. His predecessors in the CEO’s office has never figured out how to take the reins in a commanding manner…. He set about changing the culture of Apple. Some of the changes were small (no dogs at work, no smoking), and some where whoppers, such as the absolute ban on talking to anyone outside the company who uses words as a tool of his trade. (The one exception: it was okay as long as you has a public relations dog-watcher sitting at your side and yanking your leash whenever she wanted you to stop talking.)
Similar Posts:
- Steve Jobs shows off NeXTSTEP, NeXTMail
- The strange history of IT company names
- Put Yojimbo on an iPod
- Applescripted backup for Mail and Address Book
- Life2Go 1.6.4: Mail, news, more on your iPod
Tags: Apple, backup, culture change, iPod, iTunes, macbook, not apple mail, steve jobs, thanks Fiona, words
August 9th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
With regards to the backup question, while I agree that you’re right that it’s a question of habit, having switched from Windows I have to admit that the number of solutions that are available for the Mac and EASY TO USE is just staggering compared to the Windows world.
I’m presently using a combination of SuperDuper and Backup 3.0 as my backup solution. SuperDuper creates a complete replica of my system drive every night, and then Backup 3.0 backs up my important “work-in-progress” to my iDisk, as well as making a complete backup of my home folder to another external drive.
I recently had a hard drive crash in my Powerbook while I was away on a two-week business trip, and by “crash” I mean the drive completely and thoroughly died. While I hadn’t brought the SuperDuper backup with me (that drive is less portable and lives on my desk), nor had I thought to make another one, I was able to restore Mac OS X, and using my iDisk backups and .Mac sync info was up and 90% operational within two hours with no work lost (in this case, I just installed OS X onto the external FireWire drive and booted from that). I had all my critical data, and was really only missing software applications that I was (mostly) able to live without.
When I got home, I simply plugged in my external drive (with the SuperDuper backup) and began running from that until I could get my Powerbook in to the Apple Store for a hard drive replacement. If I hadn’t been away, I would have been almost completely unaffected by the crash (ie, I could have just plugged in the external drive, booted from it, and carried on).
The fact is that the ready availability and ease of use of the Mac-based backup solutions makes it a much more simple and transparent process than it ever was in Windows (I almost never had as easy a recovery process when I had a similar crash in Windows, even when I was sitting right at my desk).
August 10th, 2006 at 12:34 am
Regarding Steve Jobs’ edict regarding diccussing Apple business and future products casually with the trade press and “bloggers”, I say bravo!
August 10th, 2006 at 1:24 am
@Will, so that rumour and misinformation can continue unabated?
How can that be good for anyone?
Or perhaps I am just unsettled to find Microsoft leading the way in openness and engagement with its series of staff blogs that foster dialogue with the user community, build goodwill and benefit from the insights and feedback of knowledgeable users, while Apple continues on its merry way with a policy of isolation and silence born of either fear or disrespect (e.g. the recent removal of hosts from the Apple Discussion Boards).
August 10th, 2006 at 2:01 am
I prefer the “no disclosure until we are able to ship” method Apple has, over the “we say anything we can to get ahead, with no apparent relation to the actual products and/or release dates” method that some other companies get on by.
August 10th, 2006 at 2:06 am
Surely there is a middle way between the two extremes you mention, Uno?
August 10th, 2006 at 2:28 am
I think there definitely does need to be a middle ground between those extremes, but I do lean toward Apple’s approach, since Microsoft frequently spends *so* much time touting new features that they tend to lose sight of what is important.
Also, it does benefit Apple since the actual release of a product creates more impact and therefore generates more sales. By the time Vista gets here I think most folks are going to consider it kind of passe since it’s been hyped so much.
(Not to mention the obvious fact that rumour and speculation creates *more* publicity for Apple).
Further, I respect the fact that Apple generally sticks pretty close to their release dates. Let’s not forget that Windows 95 was supposed to be Windows 93, and that trend has continued ever since….
August 10th, 2006 at 2:28 am
I don’t see why it’s important for a company to have lots of blogs. MS has lots of blogs but that’s just another form of PR to cover for the Vista disaster. Products and action speak much more than words. Apple stands behind their products and that’s fine by me so long as they continue to crank out innovative products.
August 10th, 2006 at 2:49 am
Have you *seen* any of these Microsoft blogs? I went digging around them once before, and was absolutely not impressed. For one, I would guess less than 10% of the blogs have a readership that goes outside MS. All of the blogs also are very general, since they can’t discuss secret MS details just like every other company.
It’s a nice idea, getting user feedback via blogs, but in MS’s case, isn’t working too well. I mean, look at Vista…
August 10th, 2006 at 4:38 am
@Tim: I partly agree, but you have to commend the way Steve Jobs creates media publicity and public interest without saying anything.
Personally I don’t care all that much as long as I get good products, be it software or hardware. I’m an IT admin in a larger Windows environment (I have been a silly Windows user long before I did the eye opening switch thing), and I get daily reminders on how inferior the Windows server and client solutions are. Not to mention the difference when it comes to third party software developers. This is where the Mac community really excels in my opinion (yeah, pun).
And as far as rumours go, well — I won’t use it until I’ve tried it anyway, so as long as it’s not out there it’s really all the same to me. :-)
Oh, on topic: great tip regarding the CD covers! And sorry for the rambling in here. I have an off track mind.
August 10th, 2006 at 7:26 am
@Dan – hehehehe! Fair point :) I have to install the Vista beta on my PC box today for a freelancing assignment. I’m not looking forward to it. Still, the idea of dialogue and feedback is a good one, even if in this particular example, it is poorly implemented.
@Uno – No need to apologise. There is no strong on topic enforcement on Hawk Wings. I’m an academic, so rambling is my natural mode :)
Sure, Jobs’ command of the media and the message is incredible. But it is in no sense a dialogue, and that attitude (it seems) comes to infect the whole company.
I never knew about those CD covers. Neat, eh?
August 10th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Don’t forget that Apple had a serious credibility problem back in 1997. The way to fix that is to say very little until the product is almost ready to ship or is shipping, which is what Jobs is doing.
Also, if you run a small company that wants more attention than its market share would normally warrant, wouldn’t secrecy and surprise be the most effective way of getting that attention? Startups do this all the time; Jobs manages to do it with a multi-billion $ company. Pretty impressive, actually.
August 10th, 2006 at 8:04 am
The iTunes print feature is truly useful – I’ve been using it for a long time now. It’s also good to print the covers to PDF so you can mail them to friends who can then print them at work on nice colour laser printers (and where iTunes can’t be installed).
[Just had to get the Mail hook in there...]
August 10th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
I think that Time Machine will make drastically increase those numbers. For a start, I expect that almost all of those 22% that backup non-automatically will switch to Time Machine. These people, for whatever reason (inability, laziness, etc) aren’t installing software to do it for them, but if it’s right there, why would they not? (Well, if a second HDD is a requirement, then that’s one reason, but perhaps a partition will do, or maybe future Macs will come with a “Time Machine Drive”).
Increasing the 26% is harder, but if Apple makes this more on than off by default (either literally on by default, or popping up a “I see there’s a secondary storage device here – would you like to turn the Time Machine on?”) then surely that will make for a significant increase.
My concern with Time Machine isn’t that people won’t use it – I’m sure they will – it’s how easy it will be to take files completely ‘out of time’ (backup space isn’t unlimited), or to exclude files.
August 11th, 2006 at 7:52 am
[...] Here,,,,s a list of four things you may or may not know about Apple.Here,,,,s a list of four things you may or may not know about Apple. [...]
October 31st, 2006 at 10:44 pm
[...] Given the much-hyped culture of secrecy at Cupertino and much-hyped stories of Steve Job’s view about communication with the outside world, anyone who sticks their head above the parapet (NDA or not) is admirable. [...]