Friday, October 14, 2005

"Hi. I'm Jack Shafer, and I've never used an iPod. Additionally, I have no idea that before the iPod took off commercially--long after it was introduced to the market--Apple had next to zero press credibility for a good decade or so. I say things like, 'Although staffed by dorks and drizzlerods, Apple projects itself and its products as the embodiment of style and cool," without the self-awareness to figure out that I have just described every cultural enterprise in the universe short of the National Review. And I cite 'the introduction of the Apple III+, the Lisa, the Macintosh Portable, the Mac TV, the Newton, the Apple G4 Cube, and eWorld' as being 'greeted with great press fanfare before falling off the edge of the world' without mentioning that the thing that pushed all of them off was, in fact, their press coverage. Have a nice day.

P.S. Don't forget to download the iPod-ready audio version of this story here, or sign up to get all of Slate's free daily podcasts. Thank you for choosing Microsoft."