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One of the most ridiculous things I've read about Apple's success
recently argues that the key to Apple's success isn't innovative
products or great marketing; it's bad grammar.
Yes, you read that correctly. The Atlantic, a magazine I once had a
good deal of respect for, published a nonsense fluff piece by John
Hudson,
The Secret to Apple's Success: Bad Grammar, in which he argues that
poor grammar is secret to Apple's success.
The idea isn't original to Hudson. He references an article on SAI
by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry,
Apple's Cleverest - and Most Annoying - Marketing Gimmick, who
states, "Apple refers to its products grammatically as persons and not
as objects."
Huh? What does he mean by that?
Steve Jobs and Apple marketing don't talk about the iPhone,
the iPod, or the iPad. Instead, Jobs may note that
"iPhone does this" and "iPad does that", eliminating the definite
article (for those who don't remember their grammar, that's the word
the).
Gobry says that's the way we refer to people, not objects, and that
it's so subtle that most people don't even notice it.
I guess I'm not most people, because I've found it annoying for
years. Then again, I took a lot of writing courses in college and
earned a B.A with a group major in English, history, and
philosophy.
Maybe I'm just the kind of person who would notice.
Gobry says that "there's something just faintly creepy" about this,
and then goes on to diss Apple for it's infamous Think Different ad
campaign, which he also maintains is egregious grammar.
It's nonsense, but rather than think it through, The Atlantic's John
Hudson pretty much parrots Gobry's thesis.
Sorry, You're Wrong
Gobry and Hudson need to open their eyes and look about them. They
may see cars and computer models and mobile phones referred to with the
definite article, but they will also see things where that isn't the
case.
For instance, in all my years working with personal computers
(starting in the late 1970s), operating systems have never been
referenced that way. We never talked about the CP/M, the
DOS, the Unix, the Windows, or the Linux. We
referred to them the same way Apple and Jobs refer to iPad, iPhone,
iPod touch, and Mac.
When we refer to an operating system, we refer to it by name. There
is no need for a definite article. You're running Windows or Linux or
Snow Leopard; treating them as proper nouns is appropriate.
That's what Gobry and Hudson fail to see: While it is correct to
speak of the Mac Pro or the MacBook Air or the third-generation iPod,
it's no less correct to speak of Snow Leopard, iPad, or iPhone without
using the definite article because the operating system and hardware
are that tightly integrated.
That said, the end of the year is a notoriously slow time for tech
news, so posting some troll bait about Apple is bound to bring extra
eyes to your website. It's not responsible journalism or even good
op-ed, but if your only intent is building traffic, attacking Apple is
a proven tactic.
However, your English teachers would definitely take you to task for
such a silly thesis.
Thinking Different
I'm also sick to death of hearing how grammatically incorrect
Think Different is. That's just a bunch of nonsense.
Way
back in
the 1920s, IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, Sr. came up with
Think as an important slogan for his business. The goal of the
motto was to get employees to think, not simply do things. As Watson
said, "'I didn't think' has cost the world millions of dollars."
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, people were encouraged to
"think outside the box", which goes a step beyond Watson's goal of
getting people to stop acting without thinking. Thinking outside the
box urged people to examine their thinking, to think about new,
unconventional, and innovative ways of doing things. In other words, to
do a different kind of thinking.
In the decades since, the phrase has become something of a
cliché, but it's one everyone is familiar with.
There's a real difference between
thinking differently and thinking different. To think differently might
mean to have a mental process that functions differently from the norm
(perhaps due to ADHD, alcohol, drugs, or a differently wired brain). It
points to you, as the thinker, functioning differently.
Thinking differently means to think in a different way. The emphasis
isn't on you using a different thought process but on the
thought process itself being different or coming to a different
conclusion.
But to think different means something, well, different.
Grammar 101
For instance, if you feel differently, it means you have a different
opinion. Differently is an adjective (adjectives usually end
with ly), which means that it refers to a person or thing, not a
verb. It's about your opinion, not about your thought process.
If you feel different, it could be a cold coming on or a reaction to
your meds. Different is an adverb, which means that it modifies
the verb, not the subject or object of the sentence. The though process
itself is what is different (in hopes of coming to a different
conclusion).
If you think differently, you have a different opinion than you once
did. You might no longer think as highly of Windows as you once did,
which Apple would most certainly appreciate.
If you think different, you are thinking about thinking,
meta-thinking, doing philosophy. The focus isn't so much on the data
and the conclusions; the focus is more on the process itself.
In the worlds of Windows and
Unix/Linux, the focus is on input and output. If you do this, that will
happen. And that's an important thing, especially in the world of
computing where we depend on our hardware and software to work reliably
and produce meaningful results. A CPU or spreadsheet with a math bug is
not a good thing.
But the focus of Think Different was on the process itself, the
experience of using the computer, the operating system, and the
applications. Sure, predictability is essential, but so if a focus on
the process itself. How easy is it to use the program? How accessible
are the features? How easy is it to find and try new options (Photoshop
filters, for instance)? How much does the process get in the way or
allow me to just do what I need to do?
It's All About the Experience
Ever since Apple moved from
command line operating systems in the early 1980s while developing Lisa
and Macintosh, the focus has been on the user experience. While Apple
DOS, CP/M, and MS-DOS required you to think like a computer, Apple
moved to a place where the computer became more transparent, and the
iOS ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) is the latest outgrowth of
that philosophy.
Although Windows and Linux have improved vastly over the years, they
are still operating systems rooted in the old paradigm of just making
it work. Elegance has been added over time, mostly in response to
Apple's innovations, but in the end, it's Apple that thinks different
while competing operating systems do their best to emulate the Mac,
iPad, and iPhone experience.
Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986,
sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and
has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.
Links for the Day
Mac of the Day: Performa 630, introduced 1994.07.01. The first desktop Mac with an IDE hard drive could accept a TV or radio tuner.
Way
back in 
There's a real difference between
thinking differently and thinking different. To think differently might
mean to have a mental process that functions differently from the norm
(perhaps due to ADHD, alcohol, drugs, or a differently wired brain). It
points to you, as the thinker, functioning differently.
In the worlds of Windows and
Unix/Linux, the focus is on input and output. If you do this, that will
happen. And that's an important thing, especially in the world of
computing where we depend on our hardware and software to work reliably
and produce meaningful results. A CPU or spreadsheet with a math bug is
not a good thing.
Ever since Apple moved from
command line operating systems in the early 1980s while developing Lisa
and Macintosh, the focus has been on the user experience. While Apple
DOS, CP/M, and MS-DOS required you to think like a computer, Apple
moved to a place where the computer became more transparent, and the
iOS ecosystem (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) is the latest outgrowth of
that philosophy.