"Everyone has an iPod. For some reason, I would rather find and purchase the 'hidden gem' MP3 player that is less popular," said Miller, a Wilmington, Delaware-based musician. "I don't like the idea that nearly everyone has an iPod. I feel this way about other things, too. I appreciate obscurity." Don't want an iPod?
Continuing on this train of thought, someone at work sent me an interesting picture last week. It was a picture of a very large college classroom. Everyone had a laptop. Almost everyone of them was an Apple.
It could be considered petty, but there is something unseemly about this. When I think about Apple and why I have been a true fan for so, so long, some of it is about technology (I love Objective-C, Cocoa, AppleBasic (from Microsoft actually), ...), but if I am going to be truthful, it is about the being different than everyone else. Not conforming. Being a Steppenwolf.
Being even more truthful, Apple just wants my money and they know exactly how to get it from me. That is something that they have been able to do for a long time (Joel has a great piece on some of this in his recent California post), but for me it was an old //c (below) and the Think Different (below as well) ads.
When I see a room full of Macs or everyone with an iPhone, that feeling goes away for me. Apple won't get any more money of my money unless this changes. Hell, I have been actually considering buy one of the new Zunes.