Apple could be "our friend in the computer business," the computer company that really cares about its customers, that listens to us and that works hard to keep us happy. How could the other 95% fail to be won over? Now, if Apple would just talk to us.

 

Dear Mr. Schiller

by Del Miller

September 2, 2002

 

Dear Phil;

I'm the kind of guy who likes for the world to make sense, but lately I've been finding that, out here on the prey end of Apple's marketing spear, things just don't seem to be adding up. I'm hoping that you, as Senior Vice-President of World Wide Marketing, would be in a position to clear up some of my questions.

Now, I ask these questions with abundant humility. I'm not privy to the internal workings of Apple corporate, so I recognize that there are a host of intricate, hidden details, in light of which the events that confound me might seem perfectly logical. And I should also add that I'm guilty of an unwavering loyalty to Apple Computer which might distort my view of your company's actions - but, by the same token, said loyalty should indicate to you that I'm entirely on your side and want only the best for Apple.

With that understood, I'd like to forge on with my somewhat indelicate ponderings.

 

Question: Is it just me, or have you also detected an ominous, widespread, online trend toward disparaging Apple as just another big, uncaring, greedy, corporation, with no concern for its customers?

Sure, some people have to complain about everything, but the static has gotten louder over recent months. Just as Apple has begun to deliver some of the greatest products in its history, I'm hearing, ironically, more grumbling about the company itself. It used to be that the general feeling of the Apple community was that Apple was a good company that sometimes fumbled the ball, but now I'm hearing a note of something else: A quickness to attribute any given problem to unseemly motives on the part of Apple and to the company's unwillingness to engage in dialog with its customers. I've seen several recent instances of real and widespread anger directed at Apple quite unlike I'm used to.

Have you noticed this, Phil? Or maybe you don't spend much time plugged into Apple's online community.

Maybe you should.

 

Question: Why would Apple allow the introduction of its new operating system to become mired in a swamp of adverse publicity regarding the no-upgrade-discount policy?

It's not like there weren't a dozen ways that Apple could have eased the community into a new OS upgrade that would have preserved Apple's revenues yet done so without spawning widely broadcast indignation and messy piles of brown, smelly, adverse publicity. A little upgrade discount here, a little raincheck coupon there, a bit of pot-sweetening on the side - Just some basic marketing tactics and the trade press would have had nothing negative to report, and your customers would be singing your praise instead of calling for your head. And you might have sold even more copies.

 

Question: Why did Apple switch from the free iTools offering to the hundred dollar per year .Mac service in such a clumsy and unfriendly manner?

I'm not saying that .Mac isn't worth the price of admission (though a little tiered pricing would have gone a long way, if you know what I mean), but the point here is that the announcement was made in such a manner that it cast Apple in the worst possible light and the whole program was launched under a cloud of hard feelings. And just like the Jaguar release, there were other ways to accomplish Apple's goals without turning a product offering into a public relations nightmare.

Phil, you had to know that in making the transition in the way that Apple did, the customer base would see it as a breach of faith and a indication that Apple really doesn't care - not exactly the sort of customer relationship that a Marketing V.P. would like to see. Heck, if you had asked me I could have told you how the public would react. If you had asked anybody in the Macintosh community they would have been happy to explain what would happen. In fact, if you'd queried just about any random individual walking down the street in, say, Nairobi, I'm confident that they could have predicted bad juju from such an announcement made in such a manner. You had to know that Apple's reputation was going to suffer - so why did you do it?

 

Question: Why did Apple stand idly by for months while your customers burned down the web regarding the 'fact' (as implied by a Steve Jobs comment) that Quartz Extreme would not work on graphic cards with 16 megabytes of VRAM?

Recent buyers clamored loudly for an answer and web sites overflowed with venomous accusations that Apple's silence on the matter could only mean that those with recently purchased iBooks would be out of luck. Then, after months of fuming, bad vibes, the answer quietly appeared on the Apple site and guess what - 16MBs of VRAM would be just fine. Why couldn't Apple have just cleared up the questions at the beginning and avoided months of negative comments and spared an immeasurable loss of goodwill?

Did anyone at Apple even know about this? Anybody there have a browser?

 

Question: Why has Apple allowed itself to be universally cast as thief and betrayer over the remarkable resemblance between Sherlock 3 and Karelia Software's Watson?

Fact: Every single news item and review of Sherlock 3 that I've read, in either the Mac press or in the mainstream, has made it a point to accuse Apple of stealing Watson from Karelia.

Now there are two sides to every story and I do recall one brief, obscure explanation from Apple to the effect that Sherlock 3 had been in development since before Watson was even released. Ok fine, but that's entirely beside the point. What is important to Apple is that it grows a strong developer base and you can't do that as long as there is a widespread perception that Apple might likely stab a developer in the back by "stealing" a good idea.

It seems to me that someone at Apple should have jumped on the Watson scandal with instant and infinite vigor and defused any and all appearances that Apple swipes its developer's products. If you had to license the damned thing from Karelia - even if you weren't legally required to do so - then so be it. Bad relations with your developers is the single most expensive thing that Apple could possibly bring down on itself and hush money to Karelia would have been entirely worth it.

But do something. Anything.

 

Question: ...and on the subject of developers?

The entire point of the Cocoa API was to enable small development teams to produce applications as rapidly as large software companies. But your software developers need more than a development environment - they need to eat.

So what does Apple do to help the small Macintosh-only developers? Beyond a developer section on the Apple website, nothing that I can see. Apple doesn't help them get their shrinkwrap on the distributors shelves; hell, Apple doesn't even stock them in Apple retail stores. Does Apple expend any effort helping to lead developers in the business of software?

Instead you see Apple doting on Adobe, Microsoft, Macromedia and all the other big, cross-platform software companies who have no more loyalty to Apple than they have faith in next quarter's revenue projections. The big guys don't care if Apple gains market share; if the public buys Wintel platforms its just a simple change of account code for them. How about supporting the Mac-only developers, who have your interest at heart, with guidance and marketing help? If Apple is going to gain marketshare it means that the third party Cocoa programmers have to be successful in the market and Apple Marketing's job is to help them find success.

 

Question: Why does a company that intends to sell its spiffy new Xserve into the IS driven server market, have a website that doesn't even give a sysadmin a tab to click?

Take a look at Sun's site and you'll find a link entitled "System Admins," right up at the top of the front page, which lead to an enormous pagefull of information for just the sort of people who make server purchase recommendations. There is a banner saying "GIVE A SYSADMIN A HUG!!!" and a couple of congratulatory notices regarding System Administrator Appreciation Day. Then there is an offer for a free Sun T-Shirt if I'll just complete a survey that gives Sun feedback on System Administrator concerns. Below this are fifty-two links to other Sun pages that cover just about any issue that a System Administrator could ask for. Included are Newsletters, newsgroups, documentation, a list of patches, an "ask an XPert" page, downloadable scripts, FAQs and HowTos, a suggestion box and Service and Support destinations. One could spend hours here. The message is: "Sun appreciates your business, and we'll help you in any way we can."

On the Apple website, you find...practically nothing. What is a sysadmin supposed to do when it comes time to research the next server acquisition? Go to an Apple Store?

The message is: "Could someone please tell us who our customer is?"

 

Question: Can it actually be true that Apple lawyers strongarmed Other World Computing into discontinuing their iDVD enabler with the threat of a DMCA suit????

First off, Other World Computing is a long-time, loyal vendor of Apple products and it depends on Apple for its very existence. OWC would have smartly saluted and stopped selling the enabler if Apple had simply called up on the phone and, in a nice but firm tone of voice, asked it to do so. But no, Apple had to not only threaten a pointless lawsuit, which is snotty enough behavior, but then it had to invoke the DMCA: the single most offensive four-letter word in the lexicon of modern consumer electronics.

In one swoop, Apple advertised to its entire proposed demographic - composed of people who hate Microsoft's high-handed DRM tactics as well as the entire open source community who consider DMCA to be an assault on our basic freedoms - that Apple was just another money grubbing, opportunistic, megabillion corporation that was not one whit better than Microsoft. For a company that claims it wants to penetrate that other 95% of the market, this is as boneheaded a maneuver as I can imagine - and it was entirely unneccessary.

I could go on for pages with questions like this, but you get the idea. Some of these questions are simply headscratchers, while others surround events that caused weeks of online discussion that was full of anger and disappointment and negative attitudes about Apple Computer - All of it in the world's most public forum and nearly all of it could have been avoided if Apple had just been engaged enough with its customer base to understand how to avoid the problems or at least to deal with them effectively if they were unavoidable.

The real question is: "How does Apple reconnect with its customers?"

 

Over the river and through the event horizon

Periodically Apple will come out with a new feature for which the Macintosh community has been pleading for eons, and of course the announcement will contain the statement that "Apple listens to its customers." Well, trust me on this: It doesn't seem that way from out here in the bleacher seats. Perhaps Apple does sometimes listen, but Apple certainly never gives any real-time indication that it's doing so - such as feedback, for instance. Apple's customer relations organization is a giant black hole which absorbs all customer comment but allows no reply to escape it's event horizon. There is no dialog at all between the company and its customers. If there's anything to the Cluetrain Manifesto, and the market is indeed a conversation, then what we have here isn't marketing - I don't know what it is exactly, but it is definitely not marketing.

Apple seems to have lost touch with its customers - and I ought to know, I am one. And I'm not alone: Lurking around the Macintosh web forums at any given time reveals at least a couple of inflammatory issues that keep Apple's goodwill churned into the mud on an ongoing basis. Generally these are minor issues that could be dealt with easily, but are instead allowed to build into ugly and negative publicity. Can't somebody in the marketing department keep an eye on the Macintosh web and head off misunderstandings with a clarifying announcement now and then, or perhaps just a bit of exposition to explain the company's position. There's no need for a response every time someone gripes, but when the entire readership is in an uproar a soothing noise from the mothership would really help Apple's reputation. It's just basic customer relations.

Of course, Apple may not want to to have anything to do with the Macintosh web. This is a pretty fair bet, considering the nose-holding attitude that everyone at Apple - from Steve Jobs on down - appears to reserve for the Apple-ish websites. In spite of the fact that Apple benefits from the most loyal and active web based population on planet earth, Apple marketing doesn't return our calls or answer our emails or even acknowledge our existence (Legal department excepted) - preferring, I suppose, to instead spend quality time in interviews with a mainstream press that would just as soon Apple died. Perhaps the powers that be at Apple consider our sites to be nothing but sneaky little gossip rags, determined to release the company's trade secrets to the world. Maybe we're seen as ungrateful, low rent, wannabe pundits inflating our own importance with this small potatoes, fanboy hobby of ours. Fine. Consider us as you will but the real truth about the Macintosh web is this: WE ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS!

And not just any customers, but your very best ones. The folks who build these hundred-plus Mac sites and the thousands and thousands of people who read them are the cream of your customer base. We are the early adopters, the ones who buy five and six times as much product from you as your average customer, we are your real tech support line and your best salespeople, the ones whose help you will ultimately need to convince the other 95% to buy Macintosh. We are your focus group, your beta testers and your software developers. We are a source of new ideas and your supporters in tough times. Maybe Apple could occasionally show us a little respect, perhaps you might even take a moment every couple of months to say something nice to us - like "thank you", if that isn't too much to ask.

But in the holy name of the Cluetrain, YOU COULD AT LEAST TALK TO US!

 

The dialog box

I cannot promise you that Apple's more active involvement with the online Macintosh community will soothe your every publicity headache nor will it stop the human need to complain, but I guarantee that getting closer to your customers through an ongoing dialog will go a long way toward stopping the growing incidence of unfavorable comments and what appears to me as a steady trend out there toward villainizing Apple. That should be a worthy aim, I think.

Apple's stated goal, these days, is to increase its market share, which means taking customers away from Windows. Fortunately, this is a time when Microsoft seems to be doing everything it can to help you. Between usurous licensing arrangements being forced down its customers throats, a reputation for security problems and its well publicized penchant for loathsome business practices, Microsoft has never offered a better opportunity for Apple to steal away its customers.

If Apple wished, it could play the Good Witch to Microsoft's Bad. Apple could be "our friend in the computer business," the computer company that really cares about its customers, that talks to us and that works hard to keep us happy. How could the other 95% fail to be won over?

But first you have to try.

Copyright 2002, Del Miller. All rights reserved.

Del also writes the "Difference Engine" column at www.macopinion.com

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