[lit-ideas] Re: Could an academic discipline do this?

Apple has a very high profile. Is there anything behind the smoke?
Its computer business (remember? they make computers) is no longer the core business. They even dropped the word from the company name Apple Computer. Apple computers have perhaps 2% marketshare, which is basically nothing.
They now make iPods, which are Walkman which use mini-harddisks or RAM memory instead of tape. SONY invented the Walkman, and they had a far larger impact on society than iPods. Many other companies offer Walkman devices with mini-harddisks or RAM memory. Apple managed to use a massive advertising campaign to grab marketshare (about 80%) for the devices. Apple's innovation isn't in technology: it's in marketing.
Apple also makes iPhones, a PDA cellphone. There isn't much innovation there either, asides from a pretty interface. It's... a PDA cellphone, just like all the other PDA cellphones on the market. It too is promoted with massive marketing.
But how innovative is that marketing? It uses billboards and TV ads. That's... so 80s. That's innovation?
Apple is on thin ice. PDAs and Walkmans as "cool products" have a very short lifetime. SONY Walkmans were a huge fad for several years, until people got used to them. Apple now must deliver a major cool product every few years to stay ahead. But the iPod was a copy of the Walkman and the iPhone is a copy of PDAs. What's next? iTV?
Could an academic discipline do this? Sure. Use massive marketing, with continuous declarations of innovation, led by an enigmatic promoter, idolized by cult followers. Deconstruction theory comes to mind. 

yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com

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