I abhor malls. I venture to the mall near our house for three things. Aveda product like Blue Oil. Non-iron shirts from Men's Warehouse and a hands on experience of what's new at the Apple Store.
So this weekend I am away for a small tennis vacation in Houston. And the club we are playing is IN THE GALLERIA! Go figure that. Wow.
And thus tonight as I ventured out for food and fluids I found my self in the 4th largest indoor mall in the US. And in my quest I noticed that the mall was packed. And not just kinda full, I mean PACKED. I could hardly make my way for all the pods of folks moving about. And as I busied past the stores it was pretty obvious what stores were IN (making rent) and what stores were OUT (ghost towns). As a market research study it was an interesting stroll.
Why is it that the Apple store is always packed? I know why I go. But why does everyone else go? Have we not seen enough of the iPhone and the new iMac and the Nano's-of-many-colors? [Okay, I've been going lately to see if I can put my hands around one of the new 17" monoblock MBPs. But they still don't have any. Even here in HOUSTON's Galleria.] The Apple staff, not all geniuses mind you, are certain that the 17" is shipping but they don't know when they will actually GET one.
Is this a supply problem like past Apple hits? The 17" shows "now shipping" on the Apple website. Okay, enough about Apple. Oh, except one note that the Sony Style store is dazzlingly pretty and chrome and black and full of large flat panel TVs, but there are a total of 5 people in the store, and 3 of them work there. So what is it about Apple and it's nearest design worthy competitor that is so different?
Okay, so stores like Dior have exactly 3 people in them, all in Dior suits and all standing behind the Dior counter. Brookstone is vacant. The wild clothing stores with blasting hip hop and rap are doing a brisk business. And then a little store like Teavana, is all alone selling upscale teas. And the cute girl in the organic clothing can't even give away a hot tea sample. The Food Court and the Ice Rink are pretty full. And still there are just so many damn people. Shopping, eating, looking at Apple computers.
So what if Apple did an Ad [maybe they already have] that shows their newest laptops and says, "Windows Optional." At my former employer's the biggest innovation to come out of their innovation pipeline is machines shipping with Ubuntu. Now, Ubuntu is cool and pretty but it's not exactly ready for prime time. So why were some many folks ready for a non-Windows laptop?
I'll leave that question for a minute to make one of my favorite Windows jokes. "Windows is like this application I use sometimes when I have to run really old software." Even IBM and Lotus are ready to support and ship software for the Mac. And my former employer… Well, you can still get Windows XP if you've got to have it. And even most of the company itself prefers XP. But they charge you an additional $50 to "sell" you Windows Vista and then "downgrade" you to XP. And guess what, Windows logs a sale of Vista. So they can show that the Vista numbers are improving, all the while trying to get momentum pumped up for Windows SEVEN. Nice name.
Meanwhile, on my Mac, XP with SP3 [yes somewhere along the bumpy road to Vista, MS release a new Patch to Windows XP, how's that for hedging your bets?] is running just fine. And so is the Mac OS [Oh, and Apple is about to ship a new one of those, with about a bazillion new features] and so is Ubuntu. In fact, I think with VMWare's Fusion I can run Windows 95 and Windows 3.11. That way I can showcase some of the killer programs we used to kludge together to run on Windows back-in-the-day.
Am I being harsh? I don't know. Why is the Apple store, full of the most expensive laptops going, and the best selling phone and the best selling music player, the number one online music and video store, why is the Apple store packed with people? Say what you want. I say, "Windows Optional!"
[A friend at my former employers used to say, "I hate Apple." I asked him, "What's to hate? They are kicking everyone else's ass." "Yeah," he said, "I just don't like the way they do business. The closed model. Locks you into iTunes and iPods and stuff." "Okay," I said, sensing first blood. "So how's that Zune thing doing for you?" My friend still works there, but I'm pretty sure he bought an iPod over Christmas.]
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/windows-optional
the closest I've come to a 17" macbookpro
