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Taking Apple's Disloyalty Personally
When I was a kid, I had a friend who was generally unpopular among the other kids and at school. I really didn’t care. I really liked him and knew him to be one of the best boys I’d ever known. He was cool, but in a quirky way. He was different, kind of like me.
Then, one year, he became popular. Everybody wanted to be his friend. And though I was the one who stuck by him and was there through thick and thin for him, including taking beatings with him, being the butt of jokes, etc., all of a sudden I wasn’t very important to him any more. Popularity changed him in ways I could never have imagined. I learned that my loyalty to him would not be repaid. I’ve never forgotten that.
In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, today is déja vu all over again.
Apple is repaying over two decades of loyalty and devotion on my part with zip. Nada. With the introduction of the iPhone, Apple has a lot of new friends and it doesn’t need people like me anymore.
Since I started being an Apple guy some 25 years ago, I have never wavered. Never gone to the PC world. I’ve had more Apples than Johnny Appleseed.
When I worked at the City of Eugene, I led a fight against an official “No Apple� policy by the IT department. I demonstrated a superior ability to do my job because I used Apple. I brought my own computer to work because they wouldn’t let me have one - in the beginning. That policy got changed, because I wouldn’t back down.
When I worked at the California Center for the Arts, I made having an Apple Computer a part of my working conditions when I was made Executive Vice President. If they wouldn’t let me work on Apple, I wouldn’t take the job. The Center was a part of the City of Escondido, so I found myself right back at the “No Apple� policy. I led the fight to turn that around.
When I went to Arena Stage, it was the same story. When the job offer was made, I insisted on having Apple equipment to do my job. Same story, different place.
Today, I head a small company that is all Apple. We spend a lot more money than we would otherwise if we were PC. Today’s PCs do most of what Apples do - not as well (not nearly as well), but they are a far sight better than they used to be.
Has any of this loyalty mattered? Not recently.
The last time I went to Apple’s #1 Store at Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, I was treated like scum. I had to buy a new laptop and the salesperson could have cared less. They don’t need me anymore. They are the new popular kid. I’m the has-been friend.
I’d love to get an iPhone today and finally - after all these years - have a phone and computer that actually integrate and talk to each other. For me, it’s not about the hipness factor. It’s all about having something that really works. I’ve waited long enough and suffered through bad patches and inferior synch programs with every PDA you can imagine.
Will I be able to get one? Doubtful. I have to work for a living so I can’t go camp out in line. Has Apple set up its sales strategies to ensure that their best, long-term users - the ones most likely to ensure that the product is used right and effectively - get access to the product first? Nope. No way.
You don’t have to do that when your popularity soars. You can choose your new friends because there are so many of them.
In these days where customer loyalty matters perhaps more than any single variable, has Apple tuned in? Not in my eyes.
I’m the guy who was dumb enough to stick with them when they were down. When everybody and their brother predicted that they would go the way of Studebaker. These people told me over and over that “quality doesn’t matter, share matters.�
If I had a nickel for every razzing I took for choosing Apple over PC, I wouldn’t need an iPhone. I could retire.
So, how am I feeling about Apple today? Is it hard to imagine?
If Apple read this blog, I would be characterized as just a whining nobody who wasn’t given special treatment. Is that true? Mostly. I’m clear that I’m whining. I’m clear that I’m not special.
I’m also clear that I’m done with being an Apple champion.
Oh, and by the way, I have a Blackberry Pearl and it kicks ass. It’s a great phone, it’s compact, reliable, gets the job done.
Posted on June 29, 2007 11:36 AM | Permalink
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Comments
I need to put my two cents in here. I had the same experience with numerous breakdowns on my first generation MacBook. And the Pearl is fantastic...I'm a new convert.
I saw you had an iPhone in Denver today, so I'm curious in light of this blog post if you had a good experience buying it. I, too, was driven largely by the desire to flee the unreliability of Missing Sync with my Windows Mobile smartphone. BTW, your seminar was spectacular, much appreciated.