WE ASKED A CULTURAL HISTORIAN: ARE APPLE STORES THE NEW TEMPLES?

Atlas Obscura ^ | 25 SEP 2015 | BY SARAH LASKOW

[Swordmaker]

This is so absurd as to be humorous. . . again raising the idiotic idea that Apple customers are a cult and that Apple stores are temples for the cult. . . because they are well designed for appearance and functionality.

This so-called professor, who claims to know so much, actually demonstrates her cluelessness about Apple, a company which has sold 1.2 BILLION iOS devices, based on the few hundred people who queue to buy devices on a release day at each Apple store that "“And yet it's a cult. Right? It's so obviously a cult.” . . . "Right?" she asks. . . she doesn't know. She IS clueless.

Thanks to Freeper NYer for the heads up. . .

[Swordmaker]

This is one of the most absurd and hilarious articles on Apple I think I have seen, taking the Cult meme and raising it to the heights of ridiculousness. . . as this so-called Professor takes a tour of Apple's store and anything she sees is interpreted as a Religious Trope. . . She would interpret ANYTHING as such. If Apple had a traditional cash register and a line of people queuing to pay, she'd claim they were acolytes waiting to receive the host and holy blood in the wine sacrament and blessing of the priest! Everything in the Apple Stores is there because it is intended to deliberately build the RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE among the CULT LIKE FANS in this idiot's opinion, even the huge doors on the Apple Stores and the religious stairways upward. HILARIOUS! — PING!

All Hail, St. Jobs!
According to this "Professor"
Ping!

The Latest Apple/Mac/iOS Pings can be found by searching Keyword “ApplePingList” on Freerepublic’s Search.

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[freedumb2003]

I will go with cult.

When the rest of technology has passed you by and you wait in line at midnight for catch-up devices at twice the market prices, how can it be anything else than a cult to the brand?

[buffaloguy]

Sarah honey,
I think you need to get out more. A picnic perhaps. Or professional would be good too.

[Rebelbase]

Apple stores are just one of many temples of consumerism.

Every city and town has temple districts. Some are fancier than others.

[Lake Living]

Nah, I personally think banks are still way ahead. After all, you can’t buy without $$$.

[Talisker]

...says Robles-Anderson ... medievalists who think about God’s omnipresence, his connection to certain physical objects, and the meaning of that material culture, would be hired by cloud storage companies. “They’re dealing with the exact same problems,” she says. “Are you files really on your personal device or are they in the cloud in the sky?”

Exact.Same.Problems.

[uncitizen]

That’s really funny!

[House Atreides]

It is a silly article and was, I suspect, written apparently solely as an excuse for showing the beauty of a number of Apple stores.

Perhaps the author can do an article on a Devil Worshippers’ Temple used by Android users who have, as one of their main DV tenets, a belief in the need to hate Apple, Apple products and Apple users. Just kidding, of course.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

In that last pic, is that the hanging apple of Damocles?

[rdb3]

...the Feast of St. Jobs...

LOL!

[dayglored]

This is wonderful. Great, beautiful pics of great, beautiful architecture.

Now you know that I'm nobody's fanboi: I run Windows, Linux, Unix, and OS X; I like Fujitsu, Samsung, and Apple hardware; etc. And you also know that I've worked with Apple gear since the Apple II, with MSDOS/Windows gear since the first IBM-PC, and with Unix gear since 1985.

So please take this gently.

Of course Apple mania has some aspects of a cult -- I don't think that's a bad thing. Excitement over technology is natural, and some percentage of excited people will be passionate to the point of excess. Gearheads will be gearheads, fans will be fans.

Only a small percentage of fans (Apple, Windows, Linux, etc.) are possessed of a "cult mentality", in which their favored thing -- company, product line, operating system, whatever -- can do nothing wrong. Sports fans and automobile fans do exactly the same thing.

SO WHAT?

I see nothing wrong with it. I might giggle and point when it's silly. But in the case of Apple, the end result is some gorgeous architecture that is the modern equivalent of the cathedrals of medieval Europe. Celebrate it! Embrace the extravagance that gives us such beauty.

And, of course, prepare for the inevitable cat-calls from those who are fans of the "other team". Big deal.

[rawcatslyentist]

Forget about your silly whims, it doesn’t fit the plan.

[Swordmaker]

When the rest of technology has passed you by and you wait in line at midnight for catch-up devices at twice the market prices, how can it be anything else than a cult to the brand?

When the Samsung Galaxy 6s came out in April, sellers were offering the Galaxy S6 discounted on Amazon for between $849.99 and $1,139.00 and the Galaxy S6 Edge for between $1,105.00 and $1,335.00. Source.

The Apple iPhone 6s sells for $649 to $849, and the iPhone 6s Plus $749 to $949. Source.

SO MUCH FOR YOUR CLAIM OF TWICE THE MARKET PRICES!

Do you really want to criticize Apple for their prices in light of that information?

As for playing "catch up", no other cellular phone on the market has anything like Touch 3D and the iPhone 6, much less the iPhone 6S, was already FASTER than almost any Android phone on the market and now the iPhone 6S is 90 TIMES faster than than the iPhone 6! In fact, its processor is the equivalent of the processor in a MacBook notebook computer. Good luck with finding that level in your SnapDragons.

So much for the "catch up" meme.

[Swordmaker]

In that last pic, is that the hanging apple of Damocles?

ROTFLMAO. . .

[Swordmaker]

When the rest of technology has passed you by and you wait in line at midnight for catch-up devices at twice the market prices, how can it be anything else than a cult to the brand?

Again, so much for your claims of "catch-up devices". . . why don't you come into the twenty-first century and the best mobile devices in the world:

The iPhone 6S, the fastest cellular phone memory in the world.
Higher is better. Source.

[Rodamala]

Fastest cell phone memory... important to have if you need to model global warming, while updating your twitter feed, in rush hour traffic, in your Apple iCar.

[freedumb2003]

The fact that you dismiss functionality and just look at market trends shows the cult following.

The iPhone 6 (fill in the blanks here) is still behind the Android, all versions.

More importantly, he adults in the room just waited for the versions of the Android to be available.

You little kids line up for the catch-up devices.

A little bit faster isn’t a differentiator.

And your maps still haven’t come close to Google navigation.

Cult. No question.

[Swordmaker]

The fact that you dismiss functionality and just look at market trends shows the cult following.

Market trends? ???? Do you even have a flipping clue what that chart from AnandTECH is all about? ???

You make yourself look like an idiot, it has NOTHING to do with "market trends", it is a technical bench mark showing that the iPhone 6S is TWO times faster than the closest speed Android phone on the market in sequentially storing data to internal memory.

You don't use these devices and you aren't even qualified to express an opinion, especially one which is based on a hilariously ignorant reading of that chart, claiming it's about "market trends," and then calling the people who can correctly that they are "children!" when you just demonstrated your abysmal ignorance! ROTFLMAO!

[Swordmaker]

You make yourself look like an idiot, it has NOTHING to do with "market trends", it is a technical bench mark showing that the iPhone 6S is TWO times faster than the closest speed Android phone on the market in sequentially storing data to internal memory.

Pardon me. . . that's the chart for sequential reads. . . The speed is about the same for sequential writes. They look the same. My apologies.

However, this quotation from the same source cuts through the fog, and shoots down freedumb's idiotic argument:

Overall, NAND performance is impressive, especially in sequential cases. Apple has integrated a mobile storage solution that I haven’t seen in any other device yet, and the results suggest that they’re ahead of just about every other OEM in the industry here by a significant amount.