On the Subject of MacTel Compatibility...

Apple: Jump. Apple Fans: Anything for you, Steve! Who do you want us to land on?

As you can plain­ly see in the dis­cus­sion here and here, as well as a hun­dred oth­er blogs, forums, and bul­letin boards around the Web, the zeal­ous Macintosh fan base is quick to accuse Adobe, Microsoft, and oth­er Mac soft­ware mak­ers of inten­tion­al­ly drag­ging their feet in port­ing appli­ca­tions to the new Intel-based Mac Universal Binary code. In oth­er words: the mar­ket is once again jump­ing at Apple’s command.

Adobe has announced that Creative Suite 3, due out in the first or sec­ond quar­ter of 2007, will run native­ly on Intel-based Macs (com­mon­ly referred to as “MacTels”), but that the work involved in the port­ing of its code will be too exten­sive to migrate cur­rent ver­sions of its Creative Suite appli­ca­tions. Microsoft, Corel, and oth­er pub­lish­ers of large Mac soft­ware titles have made sim­i­lar announce­ments. As a result, a large por­tion of the Mac fan­base has turned on those soft­ware mak­ers, com­plete­ly and inten­tion­al­ly ignor­ing the com­pa­ny tru­ly responsible.

Everytime Apple comes up with a great idea (and they spe­cial­ize in tru­ly great ideas) and keeps it secret from part­ners, Apple accom­plish­es it’s goal of manip­u­lat­ing the mar­ket. Apple CEO Steve Jobs believes in cre­at­ing demand before any­one can sat­is­fy the sup­ply. It’s a time hon­ored strat­e­gy with sev­er­al great suc­cess stories–PlayStation 2, Tickle Me Elmo, and Mac Mini, just to name a few. By announc­ing and ship­ping MacTel PowerBook Pro and iMac sys­tems before part­ners have had time to work with the new proces­sor chip and code lay­er, Jobs knows that he’ll get mar­ket con­sumers drool­ing over new MacTels long before soft­ware mak­ers can update their prod­ucts and actu­al­ly make the MacTels usable to Apple’s core markets.

Whereas Sony cre­at­ed more demand than sup­ply with its PlayStation 2 game con­sole by (alleged­ly) lim­it­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing sup­ply, there’s no need for Apple to be so bla­tant. Apple can build all the MacTel units it likes because Jobs knows his com­put­ers are all but use­less with­out third-party soft­ware. Apple’s part­ners will be the appar­ent cause of demand out­weigh­ing sup­ply. Therefore, it’s they who will take the heat for it, not Apple. It’s a win-win for Apple: They cre­ate a buzz and demand for their prod­uct, which trans­lates into cer­tain sales now or lat­er, and they inspire con­sumer bad will toward com­pa­nies like Adobe and Microsoft–companies that rep­re­sent threats to Apple’s expand­ing and increas­ing­ly com­pet­i­tive interests.

Steve Jobs is, with­out ques­tion, one of the most bril­liant vision­ar­ies of our time. He pro­duces amaz­ing ideas where­from grow amaz­ing prod­ucts with impec­ca­ble tim­ing. But Steve Jobs is also a bril­liant busi­ness shark. Ever since his famous “1984” adver­tis­ing cam­paign that launched the Apple Macintosh and an ongo­ing cam­paign of paint­ing Apple’s then- and later-competition as the Evil Empire, Jobs and Apple have deft­ly manip­u­lat­ed the per­cep­tions of com­put­er consumers.

Jobs is a mas­ter at manip­u­lat­ing peo­ple into revil­ing Apple’s competitors–justified or not. And zeal­ous Mac fans hap­pi­ly sus­pend crit­i­cal thought to swarm any tar­get at which Apple points. Major Mac soft­ware pub­lish­ers are only the lat­est quar­ry for Apple’s dex­trous and mighty mis­di­rec­tion machine.

If your com­put­er has been dam­aged or has been fac­ing any form of a soft­ware prob­lem, then click on the fol­low­ing to find out how com­put­er repair Boynton Beach can help you fix your computer.