Cast your minds back to the heady days of early 2005. We had all become catching fleeting glimpses of those telltale white earbuds that marked someone out as an Apple Acolyte, as a proud owner of the much desired iPod. It seems odd to many of us now, but a mere two years ago There was only one iPod. No mini, no nano, no shuffle. But what an iPod? Colour screen, photo displaying, 30gb. Though the iPod had been around for 4 years by this point, they were still highly desirable, and with features and style that no-one else seemed to be able to match, Apple was printing money.
But not everyone had iPods, starting at $349 for the 30gb, that amazing style and Apple ethos was out of the reach of most non-working people, and a healthy majority of those who did work. It still seems slightly ludicrous when you say it out-loud, but who pays hundreds of pounds for a simple music player?
At this point in time, even with the iPod at dizzying heights apple spotted a gap. They had securely locked down the market for affluent enough people who didn’t mind shelling out considerable abouts of money for a music player that had 3 times more space that many audiophiles required. But there was still the vast market of people to whom the idea of spending so much on something so seemingly frivolous made them nauseous. These were the people stuck with the many many flash-based mp3 players.
These little things are still around today, normally in pound shops and the like. You know the things i mean. plasticy clunky, cheap little 256mb slightly enhanced usb sticks. Just enough to fill up for that morning commute. But cheaply made, lacking in design, no value added.
What someone clever at apple realised is that there were literally millions of people who desperately wanted to buy into the Apple image. The smooth, round corners, the super cool silhouette adverts, the whiteness.
A simple man would have designed and built the iPod Shuffle (the first device that turned a lack of control into a selling point), and put roughly the same margin on as it’s big brother. But the true genius at apple was the man who said, “No”, for he had true insight. Sure the iPod only cost $30 dollars to make, but people weren’t going to buy it for what it was, but what it represented.
It represented all that was holy with Apple, and people wanted to buy in to that vision. They wanted so badly to buy in to apple that they were prepared to pay over the odds for that apple brand. Apple had found success, and pretty soon 10million people bought into that sense of success by buying iPod Shuffles.
part 2, where we start to tangentially approach the point, coming right up
p.s. the tittle is of course a reference to Dr. Strangelove in case you were confused
Activisim vs Apathy 