h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, I'm not setting out to have a go at them, let's get that out of the way.

Now, having said that, on the tram journey this morning there was a lad getting everyone's attention because his music was blaring out through his crappy headphones. Yes, they were white.

This guy very obviously wasn't a music fan. If he was, he'd have bought better headphones. Now, that's a bit of an old dig, but what got me thinking a bit more about it was he was wearing an Addidas track suit, to walk around town in. It was one of those fashionable, heavyweight material ones. You couldn't sensibly attempt any form of exercise in it, it was just not up to the task. Added to this, he had a pair of Nike trainers on. When I took up running a few years ago, one of the first rather painful lessons I learnt was buy a decent pair of running shoes. If they're not designed for running, they're gonna do damage. These he was wearing weren't designed for running.

This stuck with me today, and I think this is what Apple products have become. A brand. They're for those that want to look good, but not necessarily those that want the best. There's nothing wrong with them, but they're like the major brand trainers, good enough to look good, but not what you'd get if you were a professional.

Which would be fine if you didn't pay through the nose for them.

Which is kind of the point of brands as status symbols. If you have expensive brands prominently displayed you are, by the twisted logic of many people in the modern world, winning at life.

I feel exactly the same way when I see folks wearing Harley Davidson branded stuff.

Seriously, HD will put their name on ANYTHING. I can understand the HD branded rain gear or boots (the boots are crap, but the rain gear actually looks well made) but HD brand candles? I'm going to do a quick experiment with google. Let's see what I find.

Aftershave
Beer
Coffee cup
Dartboard cabinet
Earrings, for men and women, natch.
Fedora
Golf carts
Hoodies
Ice chest
Jukebox
Knife
Laptop case
Mailbox
Neon clock
Outdoor thermometer
Perfume
Quilt
Rubber duck
Sandles
Tool box
Underwear
Visa card
Watches
Yahtzee
Zippo lighters.

Yep, that's what I thought.


( it took me a while to do that.)

(BTW: I don't ride a Harley and own nothing branded HD.)

The obsession with brands becomes truly ludicrous with musical instruments. People will spend thousands on something with the right badge on it rather than something that's actually suitable.

I think this is the problem Apple have got themselves in to.

In another thread, and I apologise if I'm repeating myself here, I wrote that I've recently upgraded my desktop. I like to keep my desktop at a good level that'll last me for a fair few years. Usually these days the equivalent of the entry level Mac Pro desktop thing. The equivalent is over £2k. To build a PC to the same spec, taking into account the relative speed of the operating system and software etc, it costs around £1k from scratch. That's a lot of a difference to have a shiney silver case.

But this is it, they *used* to be so much better. They *used* to be the computer that you wanted because you knew a bit about computers and you knew that they were better. Unfortunately they're no longer better. And it seems that rather than innovate or make themselves much better, they've made them shiney and given them a label.

Still, they're making money

As far as their desktops, I'm not sure they were ever actually "better" than PCs, especially when you compare performance vs. price. If they ever were, it was quite a while ago. I've been working in digital imaging for two decades now and I've never thought Macs were better at imaging, and that's an area where this belief thrives. They were different, I'll grant that. They had different ways of handling files and connecting to printers. Color management was a bit different as well. But the same money spent on a PC system was a more powerful workstation, always. I think a lot of this was driven by how Apple really focused on the education market and got their computers to be the ones many graphics people learned on. I will definitely agree that they were more user friendly and had a lower learning curve involved. But when it comes to actually getting things done, I always preferred a PC system. They did tend to crash a bit often back in the day, but they just did more tasks and did them faster. Of course there was a few other options back then, like Sun Sparc Stations and Silicon Graphics which really were demonstrably more powerful machines than anything else, but their costs were prohibitive to say the least.

But as far as Apple goes, even back then people were buying the brand.

A simular misconception seems to exist as for the graphics thing, with audio... All* the courses on audio tech, and all the studeos seem to use the pro-logic (I think that is what its called), audio software and the associated hardware... which is megga megga expensive... Yet it doesn't have any advantage over the cheaper PC alternatives, including those which outperform the Apple stuff hands-down when it comes to pure and simple power and processing speed/power on dealing with audio... Just a pity some of the nice shiney audio interfaces made for Apple systems don't seem to be cross compatible for PCs as they've often got a nice feature array, though probably not enough to warrent their price

My feelings on Apple precisely, Pastey. I don't buy any 'fashion brands'. I don't see why I should pay more for an inferior product just because it says Nike or somesuch on it. I'd rather have a product that works well and is fit for purpose. My Creative products do that for audio for me. My running shoes are made by Brooks. No idea if they are a 'big brand' but I bought them on recommendation of a friend and they are almost certainly the most comfortable footwear I've ever worn. I don't do fashion shoes. I do comfort. I can't actually comprehend why people wear 'stylish shoes' that cripple their feet. Actually, I don't really comprhehend fashion at all.

Fashionably unfashionable