Why iAds will fail

Apple's new iAd proposition has been generating a great deal of discussion lately, most of it positive, and most of it remarkably short-sighted. It seems most people, including Steve Jobs, have forgotten the basic lessons of computing and the internet. People who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The iAd has no future, and neither does the iPhone/iPad. I will show why iAds must inevitably die, and how Steve Job's strategy for iPhone and iPad will inevitably lead Apple into becoming at best a marginal niche player, at worst an ex-business.

Layered model
We need to start by remembering what the smartphone platform is. First, let's forget the archaic concept of a "mobile phone." The iPhone is no more of a phone than a PC running Skype. The majority of iPhone time, money, and resources lies in apps. iPhones, just like smartphones running Google's Android or Microsoft's WinOS, are not phones but small computers that happen to have telephone capabilities. They may have started as phones, but they outgrew that classification a couple of years back. The only serious difference between a smartphone and a computer is size and the fact that smartphones are inherently location-aware. You will notice that the creators of smartphone operating systems are all computer companies.

As computers, smartphones are subject to the multi-layered business model common to all computers. Technology manufacturers, such as Nokia and Samsung, build the physical hardware. Above them we have the providers of operating systems, of whom the major players are Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Other companies provide apps and services. Some services are delivered directly through the operating system, such as SMS and phone calls, while others are delivered within applications themselves. Under this model, advertising falls into the category of services, while widgets combine apps with services.

Understanding the dynamics of this marketplace requires recognizing where the power lies, and how it shifts as technology evolves.

The smartphone marketplace
Hardware manufacturers make their money by selling new phones. They have no interest in making phones that last forever, or that can be upgraded via software. Just like PC manufacturers, their only chance of continuous revenue is by continually developing new models. The best way to sell a new model is to provide new capabilities, but opportunities for new capabilities are limited if the operating system does not provide access to them. Since operating systems are more difficult to develop than applications and services, and cannot upgrade as quickly, the emphasis on exploiting new capabilities inevitably falls on the app developer and service provider community. Thus the success of smartphone hardware providers is inextricably linked with the development of an active mobile app marketplace and a dynamic service provider community.

Irrespective of the capabilities of the hardware, both apps and services are limited by the capabilities of the operating system. If the operating system does not permit access to a new hardware capability, then that capability cannot be exploited. If the operating system does not provide an efficient development environment, then it may be difficult to exploit the new capability in a cost-effective manner. Thus hardware manufacturers, application developers, and service providers are all dependent on the operating system.

Operating system vendors can make money from both sides of the equation. They can license the operating system to the hardware manufacturer, and they can charge licensing for apps built on their platform, or for developer kits and support.

Operating systems are only attractive to hardware manufacturers to the degree that they offer future-proof access to new capabilities the manufacturer may one day create, and to the degree that the operating system is attractive to application developers and service providers.

It is important to remember that developers do not build applications for hardware, they build applications for operating systems. If the app works on Android, it makes no difference who built the hardware, the app will work on all Android phones.

Operating systems are attractive to application developers and service providers to the degree that they offer profitable development paths. For a developer, profitability is a combination of ease of development (which determines cost), and the deployed base of the operating system, which determines the size of the market. No one is interested in developing an application for an operating system no one uses.

The critical component in all this is the customer. In order for everyone to make money, people have to purchase the hardware, apps, and services. Smartphones, like all other computers, sell on the basis of what you can do with them. People buy IT equipment (laptop, PC, or mobile) on the basis of the applications they can run on it. The item purchased needs to be able to do what the customer wants it to. There are so many programs around for PCs today that this is rarely a consideration -- almost every conceivable application you could want is available.

As a result we have largely forgotten that capabilities are central to sales. However, there are many instances in which purchasing a Mac is not an option because the required software does not exist, which shows that applications still control purchases.

This creates feedback loops in the smartphone marketplace -- hardware is sold on the basis of the range of apps available. The range of apps available is dependent on the operating system. The success of the operating system depends on providing a good platform for apps and services. An operating system is attractive to a mobile hardware manufacturer only if they think it will help them sell hardware, and in order to sell, they must have apps and services.

So an operating system's success is dependent on being an attractive platform for developers. In order to be attractive, the operating system must have (or promise) a large installed base. Thus hardware will sell if there are apps and services. There will be apps and services if there are customers. There will be customers if the operating system is widely deployed. An operating system will be widely deployed if it sits on a popular hardware platform, or as many less-popular hardware platforms as possible, and if there are attractive apps or services for it. Everybody feeds everyone else.

Apple's success is therefore dependent on the app developer community. Since it also controls the operating system and developer access, it determines how attractive the development environment is for developers. This has always been Apple's strategy, right back to the first Mac. Unfortunately, Apple's history in this area is appalling. Apple's desire to control its marketplace has made it a poor choice for developers, even when it offers a large market. Having a large base of customers makes Apple initially attractive, but its poor support for the developer community eventually forces smaller niche players out.

The long term result is easy to see -- Macintosh now runs Microsoft Office because no one else was interested in providing a compatible office suite. Apple's restrictive policies over the Mac almost caused the death of the Apple Corporation, and it was only by opening the environment to its arch-enemy Microsoft that Apple was able to survive.

When Steve Jobs announced MS Office for the Mac to a stunned audience in 1997, he looked very uncomfortable about it (decide for yourself). He justified it by saying Apple existed in an eco-system and could not sustain the Mac as a closed platform. His iPhone strategy seems to have forgotten this painful lesson.

Ancient history
I first became involved with computers in the late 1970s. This was before the days of the IBM PC and MS-DOS or Windows. Computing in those days resembled the smartphone market of today -- there was no common operating system. I remember buying my first computer -- it took a week. Because each hardware vendor had their own operating system, you could only buy applications that had been specifically designed for that hardware. In order to buy a computer, you had to first identify all the applications you wanted, then cross-reference all the hardware that these apps had versions for. If you were lucky, you would find a computer that ran everything. However, it was more likely that you would find that nothing ran all your applications. You were then forced to find alternative apps until you found the best compromise.

Eventually Microsoft solved this by creating an operating system which would run on any Intel chip, inventing the concept of "PC compatibility." Now app developers have the entire PC community as a market, irrespective of who makes the hardware. At the same time hardware manufacturers can produce their equipment knowing there is an massive range of apps customers can run.

Apple never joined in the universal move to PC compatibility. Based on the Motorola chip, Apple chose to cater to niche market players with hobby computers such as the Apple II. Apple's day came later when it copied the GUI operating system being developed by Xerox and created the first Mac. The GUI posed a threat to Microsoft's survival and the dominance of the PC, until Microsoft got its own GUI right with Windows 3.0.

Microsoft's strategy was always to open its platform to the widest possible developer community, while Apple's was always to restrict and control. In many ways, Steve Jobs continued to think in terms of the world he grew up in, a pre-PC world -- each computer manufacturer producing its own operating system and strongly controlling developer access.

Apple still continues to think this way, but the success of MS-DOS and Windows have shown that it is not sustainable. At peak, the Mac had 30 percent of the small computer market. Now that share is less than 3 percent.

Mobile, cable, and web access: 1990s
When the web was developing during the 1990s, I was often involved with attempts to extend web services to mobile phone users. We never succeeded, and neither did anyone else. The reason was the mobile phone companies regarded the customers as their property, and they weren't about to let others near them. They accepted that people would want web access from their phones, but thought they could provide all the websites themselves, or license those that would be allowed in.

If you had a mobile at the time, you may recall that for the first few years web access was restricted to websites provided by the phone company.

The mobile phone companies figured they could be more than just information carriers. They thought they could be information providers as well. They didn't grasp the scale or range of demand, and thought they could restrict subscribers to the limited amount of information they could offer. Eventually, of course, they realized this was impossible, that people wanted access to everything -- all 200 million websites, not some restricted subset of a few thousand. It was inevitable that, sensing the scale of the market demand for unlimited access, a mobile company would eventually open up, so they all did. Many cable companies tried the same thing at the time, and eventually learned the same lesson.

Lessons for Apple
Both these examples show that no company can succeed in the long term by restricting customers. Such a strategy may succeed for a few years, maybe even a decade, but in the long term, the market demands open systems. Companies that understand this always win out against those that try to stay closed.

The iPhone may be popular now, but history has shown us that the days of competing operating systems eventually give way to more open platforms. The world will not tolerate three or four competing smartphone systems with roughly equal market share. Eventually, one system will dominate. Apple's iPhone OS and BlackBerry's RIM are not candidates for that role because they're not available for other phones, which only leaves Google's Android and Microsoft's WinOS as candidates for global domination.

I think the determining factor will be developer support. The more apps available, the more popular the operating system, both for hardware manufacturers and customers. Microsoft has a tremendous advantage here -- it has 30 years of experience in developer support, whereas Google has already developed a reputation for poor communications.

According to Google there are 10 times as many web pages providing developer information for WinOS than there are for Android. Microsoft also has a huge body of experienced Windows developers. Google may still win the race, but we must recognize they're starting behind Microsoft.

Right now the iPhone has a dominating position in the U.S. smartphone marketplace. However, we must recognize this is a global village. Apple cannot sustain the iPhone as a purely U.S. phenomena. However, its share of the global smartphone marketplace is small. In Q1 2010, iPhone made up 15 percent of global smartphone sales, slightly less than BlackBerry's 16 percent and much less than Nokia's 48 percent.

If the smartphone goes the way of previous computers, and the way of the internet, Apple's strategy will eventually lead to the iPhone occupying a similar niche to the Mac -- a miniscule market share sustained only by the fanatical loyalty of dedicated followers.

Apple repeats itself
Steve Jobs says he hates Adobe Flash and will not support it on iPhone. The reason is clear -- Flash provides a cross-platform development system. Build an app in Flash and it runs on every operating system that supports Flash. In this sense Flash becomes an operating system to sit above the different operating systems deployed, providing developers with the widest possible market.

If all phone apps are written in Flash, then I can switch phones without inconvenience -- I'll keep my apps. People -- both consumers and developers -- are no longer locked into Apple. Apple has shown it likes to own the entire space around its devices, but history has shown that consumers like open systems, and that they inevitably get what they want. Locking Flash out is unsustainable if you want to retain market share.

Irrespective of the merits or problems with Flash, the only potential alternative on the horizon is HTML 5. Those of you who have seen iAd demos will recall they are produced in HTML 5. HTML 5 offers solutions for deploying complex media previously only possible with Flash. HTML 5 is the route Steve Jobs recommends, and he's already sending Apple down that road. However, HTML 5 is not finished. It is not even partially complete. Currently HTML 5 is in draft. This means new features can (and will) be added, while existing features may be changed or even dropped.

It is likely to be another year or two before HTML 5 is even finalized. Once it has been finalized, it then enters "draft recommendation" stage. At this stage anyone can evaluate it and propose changes. They will do so. No version of HTML has ever gone through the draft recommendation stage without being changed. HTML 3.0 was so radically altered at the draft recommendation stage, the final version agreed upon was numbered HTML 3.1.

Once again, Apple has shown it can't learn the lessons of history. Those of you who, like me, were developing websites in the early to mid-1990s will remember the days of "browser compatibility" problems. As companies like Netscape and Microsoft battled for domination of the web browser, they would fight to support the next version of HTML before anyone else. This inevitably led to support for unfinished (and competing) versions of HTML, so that when the latest HTML standard was finished, no browser would support it properly, and each would break the standard in different ways.

Building browser support for HTML 5 at this time means the browser will need upgrading when HTML 5 is released, and most HTML 5 apps built now will be obsolete. Irrespective of how attractive it may be one day, HTML 5 is not a viable development platform yet.

Just as it did with the Mac, Apple's treatment of iPhone/iPad developers is already turning some away. The web abounds with complaints from developers who have had their apps dropped from the iPhone App Store without reason, or who have been disadvantaged by sudden changes in Apple's T&Cs. Apple's attitude to developers looks to me as if Apple feels it is doing developers a favor by allowing them the privilege of access to their customers. I can't help contrasting this with Microsoft's attitude that developers are customers, very important ones who determine Microsoft's success.

When I look at the lessons of history, Apple's own past, and how things work out, it seems to me inevitable that within 5-10 years the iPhone will hold around 5 percent of the smartphone market at best.

iAd is just a second-rate widget
Calling iAd creations "advertisements" is misleading. iAd advertisements are, in reality, widgets. I presume Apple doesn't want to call them widgets because the term feels a little sour -- we've learned that effective marketing widgets are hard to find. Would anyone be so excited if Apple had said it supported a new widget technology? You can do wonderful things with iAd, just as you can with any widget, but consumer responses have shown good widget penetration is extremely hard to achieve. Widgets that succeed provide services, so the iAd isn't really an advertising system so much as a system for sponsored service delivery.

Widgets have their place, but we already know they can't replace all other forms of online marketing. How many times have you asked yourself : "Should I deploy a banner ad or a widget here?" -- that's how often iAd will provide a viable alternative to banner advertising.

iAds can be created in Objective-C and/or HTML 5. Objective-C is a difficult and cumbersome language. It runs at one-third the speed of C++, and has a poor reputation with C developers. A number of development agencies have announced they will not produce iPhone apps because Objective-C is not a cost-effective development platform. Unfortunately, HTML 5 is merely an idea, not a reality. Keeping HTML 5 iAd widgets alive over the next few years is almost certainly going to require frequent re-coding. As HTML 5 is developed Apple will need to change browsers to support each step. Consumers will not upgrade at a consistent rate, so this will lead to the development of different versions of the same iAd widget for each permutation of HTML 5 deployed by Apple. This will significantly increase the cost of development and reduce the potential ROI. Thus, from a developer perspective, iAd is not an attractive platform.

Apple dictates -- you obey
When he announced the iAd, Steve Jobs said he didn't want advertisers to segment the iPhone audience. He didn't want behavioral targeting, demographic analysis, or other forms of segmentation. He said he wanted advertisers to treat the community of iPhone users as a single demographic. All the advertising people I have spoken to don't see this as realistic.

As Ian Wolfman, CMO of IMC2, pointed out, simply selecting the apps you'll put iAd widgets into is already segmenting to some degree. However, in the longer term, he doesn't see how agencies can make convincing arguments to clients for iAd campaigns if they can't segment their deliveries.

In order to help control this space, and prevent segmentation, Apple will not allow any third party measurement of iAds. Apple has announced it will provide 15 standardized metrics, which it will gather and report for you. If those metrics don't suit your needs -- too bad. This also means you have to trust Apple when it takes its 40 percent cut of iAd revenue. Apple measures, it charges, you trust.

As Wolfman says, "Apple will have to change. It's not sustainable, people will need to make their own assessments. I think Apple wanted to start with something simple and controlled, but I expect them to change the program very quickly."

Roy de Souza is CEO of Zedo, one of the world's leading ad technology companies. Ad metrics are core to his business. According to him, "It is important for advertisers to track with their own technology because they need their own data if they are to trust that the ads were shown to users as promised. This accountability creates a strong incentive for Apple to make sure that the ads are served correctly. Google initially did not allow advertisers to use their own tracking but now they do. I would urge Apple to follow suit."

Conclusion
The iAd is a symptom of Apple's inability to come to terms with the way computing has been for the last 30 years. While designing innovative products, as a business Apple still strategizes like it's the 1970s -- trying to create isolated ecosystems when everyone else knows the world wants one big open inter-connected system.

Apple seems wedded to the idea that it can own all aspects of its customer experience, even though its own corporate history shows this is unsustainable. The smartphone environment is a mirror of the early days of personal computing, yet Apple shows no sign of having learned from this experience.

The iAd system depends on unfinished technology, and therefore cannot be sustained in its current form, increasing the cost of ownership for those who develop iAd widgets. At the same time, Apple wants advertisers to forget about demographics and segmentation, rolling back the clock to the days of TV and radio-style mass delivery. In addition to asking advertisers to work with flaky technology in an old-fashioned manner, Apple proposes to deny them the ability to assess their own work, or to check that it is doing what it's being paid for. Under these circumstances, iAd only has a future while there is no alternative. History has shown us an alternative will inevitably develop.

"I'm not convinced iPhone/iPad has a long-term future. It's a closed system. It's attractive now because the U.S. lacks an open alternative, but it's inevitable that one will develop."

Let's read what Mac Daily News' take is on this story:

Marketing consultant: ‘Apple’s iAd has no future, and neither does the iPhone or iPad’
Friday, May 21, 2010 - 11:24 AM EDT
"Apple's new iAd proposition has been generating a great deal of discussion lately, most of it positive, and most of it remarkably short-sighted. It seems most people, including Steve Jobs, have forgotten the basic lessons of computing and the internet. People who forget history are doomed to repeat it. The iAd has no future, and neither does the iPhone/iPad," Brandt Dainow, an independent web analytics and marketing consultant, writes for iMediaConnection.

MacDailyNews Take: Our iCal is havin' a par-tay!

Dainow continues, "Hardware manufacturers make their money by selling new phones. They have no interest in making phones that last forever, or that can be upgraded via software."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow, they do if their customers expect upgradeable devices, as nearly 100 million iPhone OS users do. Android settlers, not so much.

Dainow continues, "Smartphones, like all other computers, sell on the basis of what you can do with them. People buy IT equipment (laptop, PC, or mobile) on the basis of the applications they can run on it. The item purchased needs to be able to do what the customer wants it to. There are so many programs around for PCs today that this is rarely a consideration -- almost every conceivable application you could want is available. As a result we have largely forgotten that capabilities are central to sales. However, there are many instances in which purchasing a Mac is not an option because the required software does not exist, which shows that applications still control purchases."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow seems to not know, or has forgotten, that Apple Macs run everything, including Windows and Windows apps natively and/or via fast virtualization. Fact: Apple Macs run the world's largest software library, of which software written for Windows is but a subset.

Dainow continues, "So an operating system's success is dependent on being an attractive platform for developers. In order to be attractive, the operating system must have (or promise) a large installed base."

MacDailyNews Take: Wrong again, Mr. Dainow. In order to be attractive to developers, an operating system, or, more accurately, a platform, must be profitable. Period. Taken to an extreme, imagine Steve Jobs is the world's only Mac user. However, he spends $200 million on software per year. Guess what? Even with one Mac user, there would be Mac developers. Now, in reality,Apple Mac users are better educated and have more disposable income than Windows PC sufferers on average and Mac users buy significantly more software than their PC suffering counterparts. Therefore, Mr. Dainow's argument is flawed from the outset.

Dainow continues, "Apple's desire to control its marketplace has made it a poor choice for developers, even when it offers a large market. Having a large base of customers makes Apple initially attractive, but its poor support for the developer community eventually forces smaller niche players out. The long term result is easy to see -- Macintosh now runs Microsoft Office because no one else was interested in providing a compatible office suite. Apple's restrictive policies over the Mac almost caused the death of the Apple Corporation, and it was only by opening the environment to its arch-enemy Microsoft that Apple was able to survive."

MacDailyNews Take: Not this again. The iPod/iPhone/iPad is not the Mac, so stop comparing them:

iPhone isn't the Mac, so stop comparing them. To draw an analogy between the Mac and iPhone platforms simply highlights the writer's ignorance of the vast differences between the two business situations. Look at the iPod, not the Mac, to see how this will play out.

Google Android offers the same messy, inconsistent Windows PC "experience," but without any cost savings, real or perceived. Windows only thrived back in the mid-90s because PCs (and Macs) were so expensive; the upfront cost advantage roped in a lot of people, who were, frankly, ignorant followers who did what their similarly-ignorant co-workers and friends told them to do. Microsoft still coasts along on that momentum today.

The fact is: Apple's iPhone 3G costs just $99 and the 3GS goes for only $199 in the U.S. with a 2-year plan. I'd call any Android device the "Poor Man's iPhone," but you have to spend just as much, if not more, to partake in an increasingly fragmented and inferior platform. There's no real reason to choose Android, people settle for Android. "I'd have bought an iPhone if Verizon offered them." Just look what's happening in any country where iPhone is offered on multiple carriers. It's a bloodbath.

Apple offers consistency to developers of both software and hardware. Just look at the vibrant thrid-party accessories market for iPhone vs. the Zune-like handful of oddball items for Android. If you make a case or a vehicle mount, does it pay to make 14 different Android devices that number under 1 million each, or to make one or two for what's rapidly approaching 100 million iPhone/iPod touch devices? As Apple's iPhone expands onto more and more carriers, Android's only real selling point ("I'm stuck on Verizon or some other carrier that doesn't offer the iPhone") evaporates. - SteveJack, MacDailyNews, December 23, 2009

And Microsoft introduced Office for Macintosh in 1989. Before any Windows version existed.

Dainow plods on, "Apple never joined in the universal move to PC compatibility. Based on the Motorola chip, Apple chose to cater to niche market players with hobby computers such as the Apple II. Apple's day came later when it copied the GUI operating system being developed by Xerox and created the first Mac. The GUI posed a threat to Microsoft's survival and the dominance of the PC, until Microsoft got its own GUI right with Windows 3.0. Microsoft's strategy was always to open its platform to the widest possible developer community, while Apple's was always to restrict and control. In many ways, Steve Jobs continued to think in terms of the world he grew up in, a pre-PC world -- each computer manufacturer producing its own operating system and strongly controlling developer access."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow, Apple did not "copy" the GUI from Xerox. To state so only highlights your ignorance. You might just as well have written, "I do not know what I'm talking about, so here's five pages of my disjointed, illogical theories." For anyone who cares, the real story, as told by the people who lived it, is right here.

Dainow continues, "Right now the iPhone has a dominating position in the U.S. smartphone marketplace. However, we must recognize this is a global village. Apple cannot sustain the iPhone as a purely U.S. phenomena."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow, please explain this: Apple dominates Japan’s smartphone market with 72% market share; sales tripled in latest quarter - May 19, 2010. Hello, Mr. Dainow? Paging Mr. Dainow...

Dainow continues, "If the smartphone goes the way of previous computers, and the way of the internet, Apple's strategy will eventually lead to the iPhone occupying a similar niche to the Mac -- a miniscule market share sustained only by the fanatical loyalty of dedicated followers."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow, the operative word in your statement is "if." And it won't, for the reasons we've explained above; not to mention that, four pages in, you haven't yet been right about anything.

Dainow continues, "Steve Jobs says he hates Adobe Flash and will not support it on iPhone. The reason is clear -- Flash provides a cross-platform development system. Build an app in Flash and it runs on every operating system that supports Flash."

MacDailyNews Take: For the umpteenth time: We do not want ported software on our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. The type of "write once, deploy everywhere" software that lazy Adobe wants to "help" developers to excrete results in lowest common denominator apps that fail to take advantage of individual platforms' strengths. Rather than see developers create great experiences by playing to the strengths of individual platforms, lazy Adobe, and Mr. Dainow it seems, instead want mediocrity everywhere. Adobe just wants to control the tools developers use to poop out cookie-cutter apps that fail to inspire users because they fail to take advantage of each platform's unique hardware and operating system features.

Dainow continues, "Locking Flash out is unsustainable if you want to retain market share."

MacDailyNews Take: Is this guy serious?

Dainow continues, "When I look at the lessons of history, Apple's own past, and how things work out, it seems to me inevitable that within 5-10 years the iPhone will hold around 5 percent of the smartphone market at best."

MacDailyNews Take: Seriously, our iCal might have just audibly sighed. Not sure if it was satisfaction, consternation, or something else.

Dainow continues, "iAd is just a second-rate widget. Calling iAd creations 'advertisements' is misleading. iAd advertisements are, in reality, widgets... The iAd is a symptom of Apple's inability to come to terms with the way computing has been for the last 30 years. While designing innovative products, as a business Apple still strategizes like it's the 1970s -- trying to create isolated ecosystems when everyone else knows the world wants one big open inter-connected system."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow offers no proof of that statement either. At least he's consistent. We have about 100 million reasons and rapidly growing that proves that Dainow's wrongly-described "isolated ecosystem" hasn't dissuaded "the world" from accepting the iPhone platform. Really, how can you call a platform "isolated" when it's connected to the Web, has over 200,000 apps made and supported by tens of thousands of developers and supports a flourishing ecosystem of third-party accessories, including mass market vehicle and electronics makers? Mr. Dainow's arguments are illogical and incoherent.

Dainow continues, "Apple seems wedded to the idea that it can own all aspects of its customer experience, even though its own corporate history shows this is unsustainable. The smartphone environment is a mirror of the early days of personal computing, yet Apple shows no sign of having learned from this experience."

MacDailyNews Take: Mr. Dainow, you're wrong and your attempt to compare two dissimilar things in order to try to predict the future is just plain silly.

Full article — click away, as we've linked to Dainow's "print article" page that not only has his five rambling pages combined into one, but (whoopsie Mr. Marketing Consultant!) also has no ads — here.

You were saying ...

Interesting that your comment is the exact opposite of the truth. People buy PCs because of what they do. People buy Macs because of what they represent.

Very true! :-)

Another variation on this "theme" is that people only buy things because "marketing" tells them to do so ... LOL ...

Good grief! Some go off on this "marketing mantra" that the only thing that Apple has going for it is simply "marketing" (as that's the only thing that Apple is good at) and they sell lousy products, which don't work right and are the worst products you can ever get.

In fact, some of these people who say that, apparently think that a company can "market like crazy" for the last decade and no one will ever get a clue that they've been sold crappy products for the last decade ... LOL ...

I think I know who the "crazy people" are in "this story" -- it's the ones who hold to this "magic marketing prowess" of Apple ...

For example, here's a features list for the recent Apple iPad. Heck! There are people who can probably use this as their only computer and need no other one around ... (and with many people, having a desktop is "overkill" for them and what they do).

Apple iPad Features

Watch the iPad video

All of the built-in apps on iPad were designed from the ground up to take advantage of the large Multi-Touch screen and advanced capabilities of iPad. And they work in any orientation. So you can do things with these apps that you can’t do on any other device.

Safari

iPad is the best way to experience the web. View whole pages in portrait or landscape on the large Multi-Touch screen. And let your fingers do the surfing. Learn more

Mail

There’s nothing like the Mail app on iPad. With a split-screen view and expansive onscreen keyboard, it lets you see and touch your email in ways you never could before. Learn more

Photos

A vivid LED-backlit IPS display makes viewing photos on iPad extraordinary. Open albums with a tap. Flip through your pictures one by one. Or play a slideshow and share your photos. Learn more

Videos

The 9.7-inch high-resolution screen makes iPad perfect for watching HD movies, TV shows, podcasts, music videos, and more. Learn more

YouTube

With the YouTube app designed specifically for iPad, videos are even easier to find. And on the amazing iPad display, they’re more fun to watch. Especially in HD. Learn more

iPod

Reach out and touch your songs. View your album art full-size. iPad makes music look as good as it sounds. Learn more

iTunes

Millions of songs, thousands of movies and TV shows, and so much more. Browsing and buying are just a tap away. Learn more

App Store

You’ll find more than 150,000 apps on the App Store, and iPad can run almost all of them. Including everything from games to productivity apps. Learn more

iBooks

Reading is a joy on iPad. Text looks crisp and bright. Pages turn with a flick. And you can buy new books from the iBookstore. Just download the free iBooks app to get started.1 Learn more

Maps

See more of the world with iPad. Find locations easier than ever with street view, satellite view, or new terrain view — all using Google services. Learn more

Notes

With its large display and onscreen keyboard, iPad makes it easy to jot down quick notes and keep important information on hand. You can even email yourself reminders. Learn more

Calendar

Work, home, and everything in between. Your schedules are easy to read and easy to manage on iPad — even all at once. Learn more

Contacts

With Contacts on iPad, you can see much more than just names and numbers. And you can do more with them, too. Learn more

Home Screen

With just one press of the Home button, you have access to every app on your iPad. Learn more

Spotlight Search

No matter what you’re looking for, Spotlight Search can help you find it. Learn more

Accessibility

Universal access is built into iPad. So right out of the box, Apple makes it easy for people with disabilities to enjoy all that iPad has to offer. Learn more

iWork

The iWork productivity applications that you know and love on the Mac — Keynote, Pages, and Numbers — have been completely redesigned for iPad.2 So you can create great-looking presentations, documents, and spreadsheets. All using just your fingers. And while they’re easy to use, they’re also the most powerful productivity apps ever built for a mobile device.

Keynote

Create a presentation with custom graphic styles, elegantly designed themes, stunning animations and effects, and powerful new features designed just for iPad. Learn more

Pages

Pages has everything you need to put your words into beautiful documents. Including Apple-designed templates and easy-to-use formatting tools. Learn more

Numbers

Numbers includes over 250 easy-to-use functions, an intelligent keyboard, flexible tables, and eye-catching charts. So you can create compelling spreadsheets in just a few taps. Learn more

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