Former Apple Reseller - the physics of their market place
Across 10 years I sold hundreds of thousands of pounds of Apple equipment to a variety of markets. During that time I never once met with apple in the UK beyond the usual ra ra sessions of hey here's a new product now go out and sell it to your user base and make us all some money.
At the end of 10 years when I eventually met the channel manager for all us authorized reseller I said nearly 10 years and I haven't seen you once.
He replied "I've got over 200 reseller I cant be expected to meet all of them."
I told him "I have over 200 customers and I've carried your box through the door of all of them!"
Now as a reseller we were fundamentally power users, Fanboys with a screw driver! We cried when they dropped Newton like trekkies in tears at the demise of a good character.
For me this is the true physics of the Apple Market Place. A forgiving fan base that colludes with the marketing engine of a company and who like druggies prepared to forgive their dealers anything. I saw this in my customers who bought duff apple product and I see it now in the speeches and excuses of all those faithful iphone users out there.
Apple's strength has never been their product its the people that use and DON'T use them. Its cool to hate Microsoft and love apple.
The market is king not the product, basically iPhone is just another mp3 player with a phone and a camera. The Register is great for waking us up to the weaknesses and strengths of a product but the products are dictated by the users in the marketplace and its us users who need to evolve.
Start an intervention - spread links like these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GanfYUPaXH0&feature=related
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120591679361