Bonum Certa Men Certa

Badge of Dishonour for Apple, Even Dilbert Grows Tired of It



Summary: Some of the latest backlash against Apple's brand zealotry and aggressive pre-emptive wars

THE world's leading badgewars/badgeware company (Apple) must know that its fate is hanging on a logo and some associated perceptions



Someone who uses a Mac-branded PC told us this morning that "Dilbert takes a shot at Apple" in the daily cartoon. "The company is going to make a mess going down," he wrote, "but it seems to have no future without Jobs. And even he was losing his touch at the end. I just hope they don't sell out to Microsoft on the way out. That could keep Microsoft afloat artificially."

We wrote about Steve's death before we found out he was a central figure in the assault on Linux and one of our readers made us aware of this article which criticised Steve even before those newer revelations. It says:

I had an iPhone but I was relieved to lose it because it swallowed so much of my time in pointless ways. I enjoyed following myself down a street, as a dot on a map, for instance, but all I was really doing was being both CIA operative and target in a tiny movie of my own life. I also think, as others have noted, that the products look like children's toys. Beautiful simplicity, say the fans, but more simple than beautiful, made for CBBC. The equivalent 40 years ago would have been blind adherence to the ideology of Habitat.

But I am in a minority. Jobs's death has stopped the clock. As the corpse cooled, all aspects of his life and legacy were detailed by a prostrate media. He is now, just a little too late to enjoy it, the world's most famous man, one pixel short of saviour. His memorial service last Sunday was covered by the broadsheets, who reported that the golden triumvirate of Bill Clinton, Stephen Fry and Bono appeared to mourn and rend their garments. This made me laugh, I am afraid, because if the question "Which global celebrities are most likely to attend the memorial service of Steve Jobs?" was asked on Family Fortunes the top answers would surely be – Bill Clinton, Stephen Fry and Bono. Who else could it be?

Some of the mourners, appropriately, tweeted their loss, which I am sure Jobs would appreciate, being the world's chief facilitator of manufactured emotions in 140 characters or less. The more general population, who are practised in responding to the media's idiocies, obediently responded. They were told they have lost something precious, and so the more credulous grieved. Logos representing Jobs's death were designed, circulated, fought over and abandoned.


Well, the comments are worth reading too. Some people raise the point about Apple just being badgeware and over at TechDirt there is criticism over the subject we wrote about last night -- that Apple goes way too far with its badgeware greed:

Not this again. We were just noting some recent attempts by Apple to pretend its trademark blocked anyone else from using an Apple in their own logo, no matter how obviously different and unrelated to the computer company.


Apple has become extremely unpopular among many people although its own followers are the very opposite. But given this overall notoriety of Apple, the future does not seem too promising. Apple's brand value is estimated to be about half the company's market capitalisation. This can change very rapidly.

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