PLEASURE, FUNCTION,... MEANING?
I like my iBook and love my iPod. They're pretty. They give me pleasure. They work well. Two out of three ain't bad. But I'm getting a little uncomfortable with the cultural meanings Apple is determined to attach to its products. It's bad enough to have a portrait of John and Yoko starring out from behind the Apple Store's Genius Bar, as if these flakes belonged in the company of Richard Feynman, Jane Goodall, and Martin Luther King.
Now Al Gore has joined the Apple board. Some people look at Gore and see a nerdy Democrat. I see the guy who blurbed Algeny, so "pro-technology" he's anti-technology. Either way, he's no business genius (certainly not a Yoko-caliber profit monger). The appointment represents some combination of political favoritism and image making.
Maybe I'm nuts, but trying to grow your market share by excluding everyone who doesn't share hippie-dippy Bay Area politics strikes me as a dumb strategy. Of course, there is a way to make amends: diversify those black-and-white portraits. Nominees? [Posted 3/20.]