Well I just got a new Macbook and boy is it awesome. Now I’m not the first person to think this, but having made the switch from PC to Mac (I’m no longer “a PC”…) all I can say is I now understand fully why people become fanatical about Apple.
What captured my attention was that the branding, the funky stuff you know and love from the ads, carries on even once you turn your macbook on for the first time. The Mac OS X introduction video – slick and welcoming makes the experience of turning on your new macbook fun and you can’t wait to see what happens next.
However this is where my gripe begins because what happens next is highly frustrating. Updates, updates, updates…
Quite simply, there is not much point in building a great brand through great advertising, creating a great first time experience but then rendering all that great brand work USELESS by forcing upon users a very “PC-esk” plethora of software and operating system updates. Over a gig of updates – just to make my macbook ‘secure and stable’? Who in Apple slacked off at the final hurdle? Why release something that clearly isn’t ready…
But of course this is not just something that is limited to Apple users, it affects every computer user. Windows, as you may have experienced, is just as bad. But it seems to be more and more common, as if software or hardware companies believe we have accepted that patches and updates are part and parcel of any new product.
Well I can’t say I feel that way. To me, nothing destroys brand cred more than making it plain to your customers that you rushed a product out the door without giving thorough testing first.
Is there anything we can do as consumers? Perhaps a collective push back to the decision makers at these organisations.
If we don’t tell them…they’ll never pick up on it themselves.
Br-o – i like how you create a scene of pleasantrys, and then BAM – the dark clouds swoop in.
Poetic.