The Times: Tech column - Apple's PR backlash/Microsoft insecurity/Klausler keyboards
By David Rowan
IF you are one of the 97 per cent who choose PCs over Macs, you may have wondered why so many smug Mac owners continue to worship the cult of Apple Computers. Like many cults, members pay over the odds to join, and even though software producers treat them as an afterthought, they fill magazine columns and fan websites with paeans of celebration to a company invariably described as "cool". But in the past week, Apple has managed to attract levels of hostile press normally hurled at tech-world Goliaths such as Microsoft and BT. Suddenly the company has single-handedly repositioned itself as damagingly uncool - through clumsy PR efforts designed to control its fans@discussions.
The backlash began over the rather trivial issue of press access to next week's Macworld Expo, a New York trade show during which Apple traditionally launches new products. Each new announcement will be pored over by hundreds of Mac news sites, from professional ones to those run by amateurs unhealthily obsessed with their G4's curves. Over the years the free publicity generated by these grassroots sites has transformed Apple into something approaching a cult. Unlike clumsier corporate rivals, the company that implored us to "think different" would never seek to silence its fans.
That all changed last week, when Apple decided to blacklist any news site that "features coverage on rumours and speculation" about its future plans. The only reporters to be given press credentials at Macworld Expo, it said, were those who agreed to co-operate with its PR department and publish only when directed. This meant that none of those unhelpful leaks about Apple's new operating system, codenamed Jaguar, or its plan to redesign the iPod music player for Windows. Its executives in Cupertino, California, would henceforth shape the message.
Enthusiasts such as Scott McCarty, who edits the GraphicPower news site "out of love for Apple, the Mac, the Mac community, and graphics technology", were told that media registration was cancelled if stories had challenged the company's line. McCarty's response was to close down his site: "I will not roll over and play dog to Apple's manipulation of the Mac press," he said. Another fan site, ThinkSecret, denounced the ban as "blackmail, pure and simple. While Apple might see it as a way to control information, reporters (and any normal human being) see it as Apple's way of controlling the news."
As condemnation spread like a virus this week, Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has suddenly found himself accused of imperilling the cult's core principle. For if Apple starts acting like any other corporate monolith, using PR arm-twisting and legal threats to silence debate then why, its members are asking, should they pay premium prices to remain members?
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MICROSOFT, meanwhile, faces PR battles of its own, most recently over its new Palladium security system for managing digital rights. Concern is growing over a security patch that it has just released to fix bugs in its Windows Media Player. According to the small print, by installing the patch you agree that Microsoft may provide further security-related updates "that will be automatically downloaded on to your computer. These security-related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play secure content and use other software on your computer". In other words, by clicking "I agree", you are letting Microsoft decide how you use your PC. This is a truly worrying development.
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If only I had discovered Peter Klausler earlier, I could have written this column far more quickly. Klausler is an American programmer who, wondering whether the "qwerty" keyboard is efficient for today's typist, devised a program to check. Based on an algorithm, it determines the minimum distance that one's fingers need to travel while touch-typing a typical English text. The result? If you really want to speed-type, replace your keyboard with one whose top line reads "k , u y p w l m f c", followed by "o a e i d r n t h s" on the middle row, then "q .'; z x v g b j". Though you might first want to switch on your spellchecker.
(The Times, July 10 2002)
IF you are one of the 97 per cent who choose PCs over Macs, you may have wondered why so many smug Mac owners continue to worship the cult of Apple Computers. Like many cults, members pay over the odds to join, and even though software producers treat them as an afterthought, they fill magazine columns and fan websites with paeans of celebration to a company invariably described as "cool". But in the past week, Apple has managed to attract levels of hostile press normally hurled at tech-world Goliaths such as Microsoft and BT. Suddenly the company has single-handedly repositioned itself as damagingly uncool - through clumsy PR efforts designed to control its fans@discussions.
The backlash began over the rather trivial issue of press access to next week's Macworld Expo, a New York trade show during which Apple traditionally launches new products. Each new announcement will be pored over by hundreds of Mac news sites, from professional ones to those run by amateurs unhealthily obsessed with their G4's curves. Over the years the free publicity generated by these grassroots sites has transformed Apple into something approaching a cult. Unlike clumsier corporate rivals, the company that implored us to "think different" would never seek to silence its fans.
That all changed last week, when Apple decided to blacklist any news site that "features coverage on rumours and speculation" about its future plans. The only reporters to be given press credentials at Macworld Expo, it said, were those who agreed to co-operate with its PR department and publish only when directed. This meant that none of those unhelpful leaks about Apple's new operating system, codenamed Jaguar, or its plan to redesign the iPod music player for Windows. Its executives in Cupertino, California, would henceforth shape the message.
Enthusiasts such as Scott McCarty, who edits the GraphicPower news site "out of love for Apple, the Mac, the Mac community, and graphics technology", were told that media registration was cancelled if stories had challenged the company's line. McCarty's response was to close down his site: "I will not roll over and play dog to Apple's manipulation of the Mac press," he said. Another fan site, ThinkSecret, denounced the ban as "blackmail, pure and simple. While Apple might see it as a way to control information, reporters (and any normal human being) see it as Apple's way of controlling the news."
As condemnation spread like a virus this week, Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, has suddenly found himself accused of imperilling the cult's core principle. For if Apple starts acting like any other corporate monolith, using PR arm-twisting and legal threats to silence debate then why, its members are asking, should they pay premium prices to remain members?
++++
MICROSOFT, meanwhile, faces PR battles of its own, most recently over its new Palladium security system for managing digital rights. Concern is growing over a security patch that it has just released to fix bugs in its Windows Media Player. According to the small print, by installing the patch you agree that Microsoft may provide further security-related updates "that will be automatically downloaded on to your computer. These security-related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play secure content and use other software on your computer". In other words, by clicking "I agree", you are letting Microsoft decide how you use your PC. This is a truly worrying development.
++++
If only I had discovered Peter Klausler earlier, I could have written this column far more quickly. Klausler is an American programmer who, wondering whether the "qwerty" keyboard is efficient for today's typist, devised a program to check. Based on an algorithm, it determines the minimum distance that one's fingers need to travel while touch-typing a typical English text. The result? If you really want to speed-type, replace your keyboard with one whose top line reads "k , u y p w l m f c", followed by "o a e i d r n t h s" on the middle row, then "q .'; z x v g b j". Though you might first want to switch on your spellchecker.
(The Times, July 10 2002)
posted by David Rowan at Wednesday, July 10, 2002
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