By: Nick Barnes
There aren’t many products on the market that will draw a cult following, but one company has gathered just that for nearly everything it creates.
Apple Inc. has been able to grab consumers with its cutting edge design, integrated products and easy-to-use interfaces for years, but it wasn’t always like that.
The first line of Macintosh Computers was launched Jan. 24, 1984 and some may even be familiar with the tagline made famous by Apple Inc. in their commercial, stating that ‘you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984.”‘
According to Ken Polsson, in his book titled, “Chronology of Apple Computer Personal Computers,” the Macintosh line of computers launched by Apple Inc. were the first line of personal computers to use a mouse and a graphical user interface, stepping away from the previously used command-line interface.
For some time, the computers were extremely popular, until the early 1990s when consumer demand changed to the Wintel platform, or what many people know today as MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows.
After a few years, Apple Inc. changed the game, and created the iMac, or the all-in-one desktop consumers loved, and profits for Apple Inc. skyrocketed.
But what exactly is it that creates the cult following the Apple Inc. has developed for its products?
Brett Bird, a senior from Spokane, Wash., an avid Mac user studying film, said Apple challenges you to think differently.
“Apple has shrouded their product releases in secrecy, while most companies are very public with their releases,” Bird said. “The aesthetics of their designs and the principles they use in engineering are completely unique. While PCs are basically a collaboration of the cheapest components, Apple has basically engineered the entire experience from purchase to recycling.”
Bird said it was Apple’s rock-solid performance and aesthetic design that drove him to “convert” to becoming an Apple user in 2003, and he hasn’t looked back since.
But the feelings aren’t the same across the board.
Adrian Grow, a senior from Newport Beach, Calif., studying psychology, uses a PC for his school work and psychological research.
“Certain programs don’t exist for Macs, you have to have a PC if you work in a certain field or occupation,” Grow said. “Macs can’t do everything, they are limited and they aren’t for everyone.”
In a recent BBC documentary, “superbrands” like Apple Inc. and Google Inc. were studied to find out why these brands have such a huge following.
An article written by Emil Protalinski on techspot.com said Apple imagery has the same reaction in a consumer’s brain as a picture of their own religious deity might have.
“UK neuroscientists have found that Apple imagery activates the same parts of the brain in Apple fan boys that religious imagery does in followers of that religion,” Protalinski said. “In heated arguments on the Internet, some users sometimes say that Apple is like a cult, and it seems there might be at least some truth to that.”
According to the article by Protalinski, the phenomenon of a religious response to a brand or product has only been confirmed for the Apple Inc. brand.
