A gathering of the faithful

Somewhere on the far shores of the US of A, the faithful gathered to worship at the altar of Mac. Proceedings were, of course, overseen by His Highness Steve Jobs — rock star, visioneer, high priest. Devotees around the world who could not attend would be glued to any device that could offer them a glimpse of the ritual. For 2 hours, the world stood still. And words came on down from up high. Stark, visionary words. “The telecommunications industry will be reinvented,” the saintly Steve uttered, and around the world heads were bobbing up and down in glee. “I want one of those,” they gasped — salivating at a prototype of a yet-to-be-released product. Steve sez it is good — I want one.

Of course, a couple of dimwits did not get the message, and dared utter profanities: Apple Fails to Reinvent Telecommunications Industry – Too Bad; and a whole nation ignored the holy message: In Japan, barely a ripple. But that is only to be expected: there will always be partypooping heathen around. The faithfuls know better — they can already see how the whole Goddam market will be changed…

But that is a moot point for this rant. I should add this: I have only ever sipped at the Kool-Aid; have only very occasionally used a Mac. It, obviously, did not change me or my life. So, sure, I use Windows — not loving it, but living with it. I also use, eh, Linux and such. Nice, but then again: I don’t invest huge swats of my life in those things. Tools for doing stuff, and if they don’t get in the way, that be cool, too.

One thing though: I don’t really care that a certain subset of the population feel otherwise. But their ranting and raving does get on my last nerve, at times. So, sure, St. Steve is a marketing and product design genius, or at least he is pretty good at that. He probably also realizes that Apple is not, not now, going to cut it being a computer manufacturer, so he quite smartly is moving his ship towards other shores, being more of a gadget-producer-for-the-urban-hip. (Or those who would like to be urban hip.) But the Kool-Aid seems to make the drinker thereof somewhat strange. Never can a Macista mention the genius of Steve without poo-pooing the supposed competitor in Redmond.

They seem to believe that Bill and Steve spend sleepless night pondering Steve’s next move. I don’t think so: other than the Mac runs Office and thus a number of such packages can be sold, it it not like there is anything that threatens Microsoft. It is a sad form of paranoia: you believe that this enemy is always out to get you, but, in reality, the enemy only barely knows you exist. And doesn’t really care.

A more annoying thing to have to listen to (and if Steve has got one thing right, it is turning just about every Mac fanboy/girl into a marketeer for the corporation. Unpaid… and all.) is that the (more or less true) notion that Mac products are nicely designed means that Apple is a good company, and Jobs is a saintly rockstar. And, it follows almost by default, Microsoft sucks as a company, and Bill is pure evil.

Actually, the truth might be slightly different. It seems as if the retention rate of people working close to Jobs is fairly low. There might a reason for this? And talking about Steve and Bill as human beings — well: there is some dissent out there: Does Everybody Really Love Steve Jobs? asks Richard Silverstein, and answers “No” for clearly laid out reasons. Jobs vs. Gates: Who’s the Star? asks Leander Kahney at Wired — and the answer is not what the Macistas would like. Sure, Steve has been getting a little flak vis-a-vis his financial finagling: For Apple Chief, Gadgets’ Glitter Outshines Scandal, Why Steve Jobs should be punished for the options backdating chicanery at Apple. And why he won’t be, Steve Jobs’s Halo. Actually, Steve and Apple should be regarded with a lot of reserve by the market: if Steve really is such a genius, and Apple really is Steve, and Steve really has not groomed a successor — well: I hear alarm bells going off left, right and center. The “market” reacts differently: sending Apple’s price up, and RIMM’s down — as if the (as-yet-to-be-released) iPhone (a product for the urban-hip gadget monger) is an overnight threat to the Blackberry (a device for corporate settings.) I mean duh?

But the faithful, of course, will bed to differ. As in this comment to one of the slightly critical articles about Jobs:

Regulatory safeguards are necessary evils.

BUT we must not over-regulate… over-regulation stifles research and development, it truncates creative energies and creativity.

Apple Inc. its management and employees have over the years, managed to enhance the way lives in the world is lived…. from computing to digital music and sundry multimedia, entertainment etc.

We should be reluctant to over-regulate out of existence, the types of innovations for which Apple Inc have become synonymous.

Sure. My life has been enhanced by Jobs and Apple because I, like, can have sundry multimedia and all. So, of course, I should disregard the slight missteps?

One question, though, about this pre-dating of options: where do the money thus acquired come from? I mean: out of exactly what pocket?