Apple Afraid to Compete on the Hardware Side?

The people of France love the French language. It isn’t hard to see why. French, spoken properly, does possess a certain melodious sound pleasing to the auditory senses even when issuing from the pie hole of Gerard Depardieu. Unfortunately, French is generally considered to be a dying language. The government of France, in an effort to stave off the inevitable, not only subsidizes French speaking foreign nations but additionally uses legislation to ensure all government correspondence utilizes French exclusively. Thus if you are a government employee and wish to acquire a ping-pong table for an after school program you are forced to use the more cumbersome appellation “tennis de table” on the requisition form. That preceding is but one example, a complete list showing the inflexibility of the hard core Francophile would run for page after amusing page. The interesting aspect of this behavior are not the entertaining lengths the French will go to prop up a dying language but rather that the artificial measures taken will ensure the continuing slide of French into obscurity by removing the adaptability necessary for a language to thrive.

Apple is in a similar situation with the upcoming switch to Intel. The change in the hardware isn’t a huge deal, people buy Macs without a lot of regard for the chip inside, but the change in the OS is huge. Where OS X was a RISC processor/Macs only affair since the introduction of the PowerPC it will soon be the computer equivalent of Madonna, a system that will run on just about anything with a pulse. Or rather, OS X would be every machine’s best friend if Apple wasn’t trying to artificially lock OS X to hardware produced by Apple’s subcontractors. Apple’s reasoning behind the move is transparent; hardware sales subsidize software development. Therefore, an OS X free for all would seriously undermine Apple’s profits and, by extension, their ability to continue to develop new versions of OS X.

While the motivation may be as clear as the worst cola ever produced the underlying assumption needs to be examined. That tenet is as follows: people buy Apple hardware solely because it will run the Mac OS. The statement seems true but trivial, what other reason could there be? Why, industrial design of course. Apple’s machines look incredible on the low end (eMac excluded) and set the bar for accessibility (and in the case of the G5 towers, sturdiness) on the high end. There are a significant number of people who buy Macs, particularly the PowerBooks, not because of OS X but rather in spite of OS X.

Two overheard conversations while traveling illustrate this behavior. In a sandwich shop located in Mid Missouri, two people were discussing a brand new PowerBook. The conversation was inexpertly recorded but went something as follows:

“I used my cousins for awhile and it was fantastic. I had to get me one.”
“You like it?”
“Yeah, except it doesn’t run Windows. That sucks.”

While the use of “me” in the conversation was puzzling, the reasoning behind his choice was clear. Compare that conversation with one that occurred in the St. Louis Apple Store:

“I had an original iMac. I bought it because it looked so cool. I just stuck with them after that.”

Another person swayed by the industrial design. Now extrapolating two personal experiences to a market moving trend is a stretch worthy of the most deft sideshow freak but the point is obvious at this point: Macs are far more than simply a vehicle to deliver OS X.

Someone, undoubtedly, will argue the negative by pointing to the clone fiasco. Those who remember the days of Mac OS licensing will remind us that the clones were not only faster but also generally cheaper than Apple produced products. An interesting comparison to make but, perhaps, not relevant given the current state of Apple hardware. During the days of the clones Apple manufactured their own machines and were less flexible with regard to component and price changes. Subcontractors manufacture Apple’s hardware now so the flexibility that was once so problematic for Apple should no longer be a driving issue. The other key thing to remember is that when the clones were being produced Apple’s industrial design consisted of circuit boards in beige cases. It is hard to get excited about beige cases and thus, with the exception of the multihued Apple logo, there was no major visual differentiating factor between the Apple machines and boxes produced by the clone makers.

One question must be considered: If Apple releases OS X without all the protection where is the incentive for value minded folks to buy an Apple machine? One of the pricier aspects of computer manufacturing is customer support so expecting Apple to offer support for just any machine that a person slaps OS X on would be a mistake financially and a slap in the face of people who actually buy Apple branded products. Fortunately, the solution is simple: Only offer support for Macs. In that fashion, Apple can sell boxes of OS X with great big warnings that say “Mac ONLY!” and then decline to support callers who lack a valid Macintosh serial number.

If Apple’s hardware can’t compete on a, more or less, equal footing with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony machines then Apple either needs to make their products compelling enough to compete or leave the hardware business altogether.  Much like the long ago mentioned attempt to prop up an increasingly irrelevant language, trying to prolong the life of Apple hardware, if it doesn’t provide a positive, tangible benefit to Apple customers, is merely staving off the inevitable while wasting resources that would be best directed elsewhere. Apple should stop worrying about creating hurdles for hackers to jump through and focus on designing great hardware.