5 More Reasons Apple Can Kickstart Web 2.0

In 10 Reasons Why Apple Can Kickstart Web 2.0, I Introduced the first five reasons why Apple is a force to be reckoned with on the new web, and how this will enable them to do things other industry players can’t. Here’s five more reasons:

#6 Apple actually isn't evil.

Google talks about not being evil, but their customer service is crap. Dealing with Google is like negotiating with one huge, maniacal computer system. Their applications work well enough, until they decide to yank your account, or sell your online history to the spooks, or ship you off to die in a Chinese cell.

Google is as evil as the most evil inventions of science fiction: Google is like 1984's Big Brother, the Matrix' Agent Smith, and Brazil's murderously incompetent bureaucracy, all smeared on a wafer of Soylent Green. And Yahoo!? They're like Google with more horrific advertising, say, the huge billboards from Blade Runner.

Apple plays fairly fair, and they try to be classy and stylish. Even people on Slashdot, who used to hate Apple, now think Apple is fairly brilliant and okay to like. If arrogant, stuck up nerds think you are cool, you certainly must have something going for you. Apple is also full of hippies who actually do give a crap about the environment. For example, they lead the industry in shedding unnecessary packaging material; they just don't make a huge noise about it.

#7 Apple gets technology

Google gets technology too. Who else? Not many of the companies out there. It seems like tech companies are the last to figure out the value of appropriately applied technology. Microsoft, like the old Apple, invents all kinds of solutions to problems that don't exist.

The old Apple's Newton and Pippin shared the same problems as Microsoft's designs for WinCE handhelds, Tablet PCs, and the Origami tablet handhelds: developing technologies on a speculative basis (if we build it, they will come) isn't the same as delivering real functionality that people can put to use. Like Google, Apple has been applying existing technology, often from open source developments, to build things that are of real utility, and are simple enough for normal people to use.

Another aspect of "getting technology" is recognizing when something needs to be done a better way. Konfabulator built a desktop widget system that worked, but was too complex, carried too much overhead, and had a clumsy business plan based on software licensing.

Apple implemented the same functionality in Dashboard, but designed it to use much simpler, standards based components that were far easier to develop, and cut out much of the system's resource overhead by relegating it to an dismissible overlay. They made it "free" with new Macs. Yahoo! just bought Konfabulator and stuck it on their web portal next to their freakishly garish ads. Boo.

#8 Apple gets user interfaces

Apple doesn't always get every detail perfect, or please everyone, but they do expend significant efforts researching actual usability before rolling out their user interface designs. The result is fairly consistent: Apple stuff is simple enough for mere mortals to use, with interfaces that are uncluttered and intuitive, and respectful of the user.

Microsoft insults users by stepping them through plodding lectures by wizards, as if everyone using Windows were retarded children. Fantastically simple ideas, such as presenting users with unambiguous verbs rather than yes or no options seems to be lost upon Microsoft, and the rest of the tech industry, despite being well documented well over a decade ago. When presented with a complex option:

You are about to do something potentially tragic to your data. Wouldn't you not rather like to not keep not going, or possibly not destroy things which may or may not have implications in your case. Please answer unequivocally:

YES | NO

Why not offer the less ambiguous:

Keep Going | Cancel

#9 Apple tries to make great things

Apple seems to have figured out that developing great things results in people lining up to buy them. So much of the industry seems so concerned with trying to make money, that they end up delivering crap nobody wants to buy. Squeezing ad revenue into everything is monotonous and distasteful. Pinching off a handful of versions of your software licenses to maximize revenues is confusing to users and looks cheap. Stuffing dubious features into a product until the core functionality is a mystery is just sloppy.

It's simply an uphill battle to try to constantly perform a hard sell of software and subscription licensing for nebulous ideas, rather than selling great bits of hardware with service and software included for "free." By focusing sales on sexy hardware, Apple leaves the impression of being the producer of great stuff, not another robber baron trying to sell access to information, or a greedy commercial whore trying to wrap the world with hideous billboards.

Of course, that flies in the face of .Mac, which while advertising free, does have a subscription price. Apple needs to include enough functionality to make .Mac worth it. I'll detail how in the next article, but first, example number ten:

#10 Apple can actually execute: ten examples

Having great potential or awesome vaporware isn't the same as actually shipping. Since 2000, Apple:

•has aggressively shipped regular advances for the highly regarded Mac OS X, outpacing Microsoft’s Windows;
•built a highly regarded consumer suite of iLife apps that sell new Macs;
•assembled a professional suite of highly regarded Pro Apps apps: Final Cut, Motion, Shake, Aperture and Logic;
•single handedly conquered the portable music player industry with the highly regarded iTMS and iPod;
•built a highly regarded, billion dollar retail store presence;
•built a highly regarded, top ten web site presence;
•built a distributed client webservice application and a highly regarded, market leading popular media store;
•built a highly regarded set of online retail stores using the company's own WebObjects technology;
•established their highly regarded QuickTime behind nearly 90% of the world's legal online media sales;
•shipped highly regarded computer hardware so desirable they currently are experiencing three times the growth of the rest of the PC industry.