Search forums

Forums

Export thread

It's official, Apple is a religion...

May 17, 2011#1

@Li3n

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13416598

he scenes I witnessed at the opening of the new Apple store in London's Covent Garden were more like an evangelical prayer meeting than a chance to buy a phone or a laptop.
The strangeness began a couple of hours before the doors opened to the public. Inside the store, glassy-eyed staff were whipped up into a frenzy of excitement, jumping up and down, clapping and shouting.
When the doors finally opened, they hysterically "high-fived" and cheered hundreds of delirious customers flooding in through the doors for hours on end.
And what did those customers - some who'd travelled from as far away as the US and China and slept on the pavement for the privilege - find when they finally got inside?
Well, all the same stuff as in the Apple store half a mile away on Regent Street. No special offers, no free gifts (a few t-shirts were handed out), no exclusive products. Now that's devotion.
I searched high and low for answers. The Bishop of Buckingham - who reads his Bible on an ipad - explained to me the similarities between Apple and a religion.
And when a team of neuroscientists with an MRI scanner took a look inside the brain of an Apple fanatic it seemed the bishop was on to something.
The results suggested that Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith.

But what i really found funny was how the mainstream media didn't know something that was common knowledge among the internet since this gen started:

A company called iSuppli reduced my PlayStation 3 to a pile of screws, chips and diodes in order to work out the manufacturing costs, and I was astonished to find Sony had been losing money on every one it's sold.
This is partly because it has been giving away a free Blu-ray player in every one, making the PlayStation a games console and HD movie player in one box.
So, with 41 million PS3s sold to date, they've lost about £2bn, but captured a huge share of the market.
As they're making money on every Blu-ray disc sold, and HD-DVD has now died a death, it appears to have been a gamble worth taking.

Welcome to 4 years ago BBC.

May 17, 2011#2

Chibibar

heh. I am not surprise on the brain scan part. It is all about faith. Now I don't think the brain process faith (god) and faith (in a company) to different brain part. It is all about how a person feel about something.

May 17, 2011#3

AshburnerX

@Li3n said:
Welcome to 11 years ago BBC.

Fixed that for you. That was their strategy for the PS2 as well. They TRIED to do the same with PSP, but no one wants UMDs.

May 17, 2011#4

@Li3n

AshburnerX said:
Fixed that for you. That was their strategy for the PS2 as well. They TRIED to do the same with PSP, but no one wants UMDs.

PS2 had Blu-Ray? (you sure you don't mean PS1, as i recall all of PS2's competitors where using DVD's or at least optical media).

May 17, 2011#5

figmentPez

@Li3n said:
PS2 had Blu-Ray? (you sure you don't mean PS1, as i recall all of PS2's competitors where using DVD's or at least optical media).

I think he means that Sony used the PS2 to increase DVD market penetration, just like they used the PS3 to promote Blu-Ray. Also, the PS2 had DVD playback built in but the Xbox required a dongle, Gamecube required a special version of the console (only available in Japan) and Dreamcast used a special high-density CD.

May 17, 2011#6

sixpackshaker

In related news, scans of Micro $oft fans show the same activity in the brain of those people that fear the devil.

May 17, 2011#7

Officer_Charon

The greatest victory perpetrated by Bill Gates will be convincing people that he doesn't exist?

May 17, 2011#8

@Li3n

Officer_Charon said:
The greatest victory perpetrated by Bill Gates will be convincing people that he doesn't exist?

No, it's that he's a weak nerd and that Steve Jobs was behind the whole caper...

figmentPez said:
I think he means that Sony used the PS2 to increase DVD market penetration, just like they used the PS3 to promote Blu-Ray. Also, the PS2 had DVD playback built in but the Xbox required a dongle, Gamecube required a special version of the console (only available in Japan) and Dreamcast used a special high-density CD.

Yeah, ok, but DVD didn't have any actual rivals... and the PS1 works better anyhow, so if he wanted to be all inclusive it would be more then 11 years...

Also, Xbox came out like 2 years after the PS2... and it didn't have DVD playback from the get-go... MS where idiots.

May 17, 2011#9

AshburnerX

@Li3n said:
Yeah, ok, but DVD didn't have any actual rivals... and the PS1 works better anyhow, so if he wanted to be all inclusive it would be more then 11 years...

Except all the PS1 could do was play music CDs and Game CDs... and who the hell actually uses their TV as music player?

May 17, 2011#10

Officer_Charon

...... dude, it was the only stereo I had...

May 17, 2011#11

PatrThom

As a CD player, the PS1 is actually pretty high-end for fidelity.

--Patrick

May 17, 2011#12

Azurephoenix

PatrThom said:
As a CD player, the PS1 is actually pretty high-end for fidelity.

--Patrick

Provided it's hooked up to a good sound system and not crap TV speakers...

May 17, 2011#13

AshburnerX

Azurephoenix said:
Provided it's hooked up to a good sound system and not crap TV speakers...

... and if you have good speakers, chances are you have a proper stereo as well.

May 17, 2011#14

Mathias

It's a fucking computer people; not a lifestyle. People that need brandname crap to define themselves make me a sad panda.

May 17, 2011#15

Officer_Charon

Working in the field you do, you doubtless see a lot of that, right? (It seems to me that the sort of person who defines themselves by a technological brand name tend to be white-collar academical types... am I wrong?)

May 17, 2011#16

Mathias

Officer_Charon said:
Working in the field you do, you doubtless see a lot of that, right? (It seems to me that the sort of person who defines themselves by a technological brand name tend to be white-collar academical types... am I wrong?)

What? No. Most of the academics I know define themselves by their work and their contributions to science (which is still kinda sad in my eyes too).

The only brand I'd really associate myself with is Jeep, but it's mainly because Jeep Wranglers fit my type of hobbies and lifestyle; not because I have some kind of religious attachment to a machine.

May 17, 2011#17

Terrik

Also their computers are overpriced, as I am sadly finding out.

May 17, 2011#18

Azurephoenix

Terrik said:
Also their computers are overpriced, as I am sadly finding out.

^
This x100000000000000

May 17, 2011#19

Terrik

I'm trying to get a Mac book Pro for my girlfriend next month because there's some special music writing software that's apparently Mac only and I've been running the numbers and specs and I still can't get my jaw off the floor.

May 18, 2011#20

@Li3n

AshburnerX said:
Except all the PS1 could do was play music CDs and Game CDs... and who the hell actually uses their TV as music player?

Well now we're just talking about different stuff. The CD was as much a Sony thing as the Blu-Ray back then, while the DVD was pretty much adopted by everyone, them using it wasn't really a gamble etc. How much you could do with it on the console isn't that important (especially considering the time frame and how consumer expectations change).

Mathias said:
The only brand I'd really associate myself with is Jeep, but it's mainly because Jeep Wranglers fit my type of hobbies and lifestyle; not because I have some kind of religious attachment to a machine.

You do realise those people don't see themselves as having a religious attachment, right?

May 18, 2011#21

strawman

Terrik said:
I'm trying to get a Mac book Pro for my girlfriend next month because there's some special music writing software that's apparently Mac only and I've been running the numbers and specs and I still can't get my jaw off the floor.

I just spent $3k on a macbook pro.

This is more than I spent on the last 6 PCs I've purchased combined, and two of them were quad core systems. One of them still has better specs than this computer in many areas.

People who claim that Apple's computers are "comparable" live in an entirely different world than I do. I'm not sure if I should envy them, or pity them.

This is certainly not something I would have spent money on if it weren't for the very particular circumstances of the contract I accepted (which more than covers it, and requires it, though I get to keep it at the end of the contract).

May 18, 2011#22

PatrThom

stienman said:
[(]I get to keep it at the end of the contract).

Sweet.

--Patrick

Forums