It was late Sunday (between football games) and I needed some inspiration for my article. So, I did what every tech pundit does– I scoured the web to obtain my needed dose of inspiration about the Mac.
After all, we’re a site about the Mac, so it only makes sense that I find something about the Mac to write about. What did I find? Nothing. At best, not much. Clearly, the Mac has taken a back seat to media headlines about the iPhone. Will the iPhone go the way of the Mac?
Maturity, Meet Your New Brother
The Mac is mature. Apple is building the best, fastest, most beloved Macs ever, yet the Mac doesn’t get much respect– or media coverage. A quick scan through a couple of pages of MacDailyNews revealed– nothing about the Mac.
It was as if the Mac had been banned. The same thing took place on Cult-of-Mac. There was page after page of non-Mac news; news about iPhone, Samsung, Apple, iOS apps, but the Mac was clearly no longer the featured product.
MacSurfer came through for me with a few links to Mac sites. First on the list was Low End Mac. A site about old Macs.
Then, it struck me head on, right between the eyes. The Mac is an utterly mature and successful product, but it belongs to a bye-gone (almost) era. The Mac is boring.
What’s not boring are Apple’s newer products, for which there is no shortage of news, opinions, speculation, and controversy.
That’s just like the Mac was a few years ago, right?
Here’s the problem. iPhone 5 represents Apple’s first utterly mature smart phone. The original was a rebel, the hallmark of a revolution, a watershed event (like the Mac’s launch in 1984).
Today, the iPhone is an ubiquitous device that smacks of middle age; a mature icon in a sea of similar devices.
For now, news and controversy about the iPhone is like a pandemic. After all, there are a few hundred million iPhone users world wide.
Websites today are more about Apple and iPhone struggles than Macs. If it took the Mac 25 years to become boring, how long before the latest iPhone is announced as a web page announcement on Apple’s site vs. a keynote presentation in front of Apple’s select media friends?
That’s what happened to the Mac. It will happen to the iPhone. Is that a good thing? Yes. Because Apple will have moved on to the next great thing and that will take center stage.
