The iPhone Code: Cracking Apple’s Product Secrets.

Is iPhone hysteria just hype or a a reflection of a new reality in techno gadgets?

If Mac and iPod owners are rabid loyalists, just wait until 50-million iPhone users have their say. What’s the secret to such glowing views of the Mac and iPod? Can anyone crack Apple’s code?

The iPhone Code, that special blend of hardware, software, and personality, already evident in iPhone videos and commercials, has roots in the Mac, and more recently, the iPod.

Despite the fact that Apple has provided the public with precious little information about the iPhone, the Associated Press accuses Apple of becoming a ”hype machine… to propel iPhone hysteria into the stratosphere.”

In other words, it’s Apple’s fault that iPhone expectations are so high and the hysteria so public. That might be the case except for the evident facts.

Facts: Apple has less than half a dozen press releases regarding the iPhone. There’s also half a dozen TV commercials, and half a dozen web pages with video descriptions of the iPhone’s features.

That’s hardly fanning the flames of hysteria about a product that Apple won’t let anyone touch until it’s time to buy.

Why should Apple fan the flames of PR when others gladly do it instead? There’s nearly 20 Associated Press articles about the iPhone in just the past two weeks, with more to come.

Add to that all the major newspapers, hundreds of online publications, the many industry publications, and the blogosphere, and iPhone Phrenzy would appear to be a nationwide phenomenon set ablaze by Apple. Except that Apple didn’t do much, did it? Or, did it?

What did Apple do to create such a frenzy, such flames of passion, such criticism of a product a precious few have even seen, let alone touched? Cracking Apple’s secret code is easy.

Apple builds classy, elegant, valuable, affordable techno toys and tools that buyers actually enjoy using-- a passion that comes when said product delivers more than the sum of the parts.

A case in point could be the Mac. There are lower priced personal computers. There are lower priced personal computers with more features, longer warranty, brand names, more applications-- so why do Mac users insist on remaining Mac users?

Arguably, it is because the Mac works better. The sum of quality hardware meshed with intuitive, dependable software, gets users into a mode of use and enjoyment not fostered by Windows or Linux PCs.

So it is with the iPod. There are portable music players that cost less, have more features, more and higher quality music formats, but are largely ignored because they don’t do what the iPod does so well-- it works seamlessly between Mac and Windows PC and iPod.

iTunes is elegant and works well, Mac or PC. Synchronization is a breeze. Navigation is a breeze. Such simplicity is lost on other manufacturers whose products often resemble the end of result of a political action committee gone amok with Obamamania or some such affliction.

Apple is ready with yet another revolution, though more of a converging evolution-- a cell phone, and an iPod, and a wireless browser and email device. Small, elegant, simple to use in ways competing products don’t seem to get, but that millions of Mac users and iPod users already recognize as the next great thing.

How long have cell phones been in common use among the millions? A couple of decades? How many cell phones appear as easy to use as the iPhone? Few. How many pocket-sized wireless internet devices are available? Not many, right?

Throw those into an easy-to-use iPod-like, Mac-like device that is also an iPod with a beautiful screen, and what do you get? Mass market hysteria? Yes. Why? Because Mac and iPod users know what to expect from Apple and the company delivers-- competitors do not.

Remember, Mac users first embraced the iPod, but now over 100-million iPods have been sold to PC users, so they have a tasty glimpse of Apple’s secret code, the ingredients cooked into everything Apple.

The mass hysteria being scoffed about in the mainstream media, and elsewhere, comes from the masses who now understand why a Mac is such a greatly loved techno creature-- because the masses have a similar creature in the iPod.

Just as the world is divided into two camps, Mac and Windows PCs, the rest of the techno gadget world is about to be divided again-- love the iPhone or not. Watch and learn, oh ye of little faith.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

Off Topic #58 - Do politicians use personal computers? Of course. We’ve heard Barack Obama prefers a Mac, while Hillary Clinton uses a Dell, though, apparently neither of the candidates can bowl. Does Obama’s potential vice president use a Mac? Even Clinton acknowledges Apple’s brand power but says she can’t afford a Mac. Maybe she’d win if she used a Mac.

Off Topic #23 & #18 - Want to speed up your Mac? Try Kate MacKenzie’s approach to the $7.99 speed increase. Do you have a back up system for your Mac? Kate’s PixoBebo shows you how to use Time Machine with SuperDuper! for the ultimate Mac back up. And she doesn’t even charge Mac360 readers to visit her site.