[Cronos]

I don't think this is absurd. This is very good marketing. Apple products are good, but over-priced and they have a fanatical following -- why? I don't find them especially innovative - they ARE, but not some super innovations. What they are great at is marketing and sales. You buy an apple product and you stick with them.

A very good company to emulate for marketing and sales

[Pikachu_Dad]

Don’t forget the exceptionally great service.

When I spilled a drink on my IMac keyboard causing it to depart to the great beyond, I went to the Apple Store.

The greeter asked me why I was there.

I said seven words.

He went and got a new keyboard and handed it to me.

Shock and Awe.

I was in and out of the store in under five minutes.

And I didn’t have to buy a new keyboard as I was expecting to.

[dayglored]

> Apple products are good, but over-priced and they have a fanatical following

In a reasonably free marketplace, "over-priced" products do not sell well, because there are similar products at lower cost available. Apple products sell well because they are generally very high quality and are priced properly for the market. That's just common sense. If they really were "over-priced" Apple would be out of business.

Lower priced Androids sell more quantity, true, but only a small fraction of the market's profit goes to Android manufacturers; Apple enjoys a huge lead in profit. Why? Because the Apple products suit their customers' needs better than the lower-priced competition. Hundreds of millions of customers buying Apple's iDevices for more than a decade cannot all be deluded idiots. Apple is providing products that people want at a price they're willing to pay.

Incidentally, that's capitalism, something we on FR are supposed to recognize as a Good Thing.

It's my observation that only a small fraction of Apple customers are "fanatical". Most are simply satisfied (or else they'd be buying Androids, and indeed some do), and "satisfied" is not "fanatical".

For instance, I have a Fujitsu laptop computer that is exactly what I need in a Windows laptop. It was more expensive than a Dell or HP or Asus, but it exactly suits my needs and I'm willing to pay for that quality. I'm "satisfied". Does that make me a "Fujitsu fanatic" because I spent more on my laptop than I would have on a Dell that didn't suit my needs as well? Am I a "Fujitsu fanatic" because I will happily buy my next laptop from Fujitsu if they, again, provide a product that best suits my needs at that time?