GoldbergBlog

Steve Jobs Is Weird

I don’t hate Apple.  I hate the Cult of Apple.  Of course, zealotry in all its forms is annoying, but Apple actually weaves it into its marketing and image.  I didn’t know “smugness” could test so well.  Apple competes with PCs, but other competitors–Coke and Pepsi, Marvel and DC, PlayStation and XBox–I don’t see a complete condescension to the consumers who prefer one over the other.  Sure, there was the Pepsi Challenge, but Pepsi didn’t go out, show someone drinking a coke, and then vomiting.  Of course, that’s down to personal preference whereas technology can be scientifically measured and analyzed to achieve objective results.

But Apple marketing isn’t about science.  It’s about making sure its users seem cool. Which is why the iPad is a “magical and revolutionary” device.  While I’ve had no problem making fun of that slogan, I’ve held off on commenting on the machine itself until I actually tried it out.  I played with one a few weeks ago at Best Buy.  My conclusion: it’s a very neat toy.  To call it a giant iPod Touch is pretty much on the money.  And that’s fine.  I’m planning to buy the new model of the iPod Touch whenever it comes out later this year.  But I think Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing put it best when he said of the iPad: “Incumbents make bad revolutionaries.”

Then I saw this e-mail exchange Apple CEO Steve Jobs had with a writer of Valleywag.  Yes, I’ll give a little golf clap for Jobs having the time to personally respond to someone who called him out on his bullshit marketing.  But for a guy who’s worth billions of dollars, his arguments were…baffling.  I’ve highlighted the part I understand, which is about freedom, or rather, how Jobs interprets that word.

Alright, so let’s pause right here before I get to the point where Jobs completely undoes himself.  For starters, I’m fascinated by this world Jobs lives in where every PC is vulnerable to programs that steal your date and trash your battery.  It’s slightly indicative of the Apple mindset: computers are locked systems and if you get a locked system that isn’t ours, you’re screwed.  Except PCs aren’t locked.  There are plenty of smart, computer savvy people out there and they don’t use Macs.  They use PCs…running Linux (or some other OS that isn’t Windows).  I know it’s easier to generalize and say all PC users run a Microsoft operating system and are totally helpless (…without the “freedom” Apple can provide).  And hey, I run Microsoft and I like it.  I’m comfortable with it and if I just exercise a modicum of caution when using the Internet, then I’m going to be okay.

But it’s the “freedom from porn” line that gets me.  Steve Jobs (and by proxy Apple Computers) have declared that you must be protected from pornography.  The Internet has it and it’s gonna get you. You’re just going to be happily browsing along, finding a new recipe for lemon pound cake, and then BAM!  You’ll have a giant dick in your face.  It could happen to YOU.

Except, I’m an adult.  I’m also an adult who, again, knows how to surf smart.  But you know what?  Apparently, this wasn’t for my benefit.  Apple is thinking of the children.

So now we’ve come to a really strange argument: Apple thinks it can raise your children better than you.  You’re too stupid to protect your child from porn, porn that will irrevocably ruin a child’s life, and unless you let Apple provide you “freedom” from porn, you’re a bad parent.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how condescension can become outright creepy.  But this next part is where I wondered how Mr. Jobs became so rich and powerful when he manages to undo his argument about freedom within the span of about an hour:

That about sums it up.  Jobs is right that people don’t have to publish on the iPad.  And he’s also right that if you want to take advantage of a market they provide, you have to compromise and make technological concessions.  But let us not pretend that the iPad or any Apple product is about “freedom”.  It’s about Apple choosing what the right thing is for its users because those users don’t know any better. So Apple will take them by the hand and show them right from wrong.

That’s the attitude I hate.  Just spare me.  You can sell your fun products without pretending that you’re the offspring of Gandalf and Che Guevara, and you will save the world from itself as you dictate the laws of technology from up on high.

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