Once Bitten, Twice Ambiguous

Apple has sure learned a lesson since the launch of the iPhone 4S. That lesson is that the public are both pedantic and self-deluded.

I've been reading the Game of Thrones series. In it, there's a character called Sylvio Forel, who teaches another character, Arya, how to fight with a sword. The last lesson he teaches her, before his presumed death, is how to look at things and see what is really there, rather than what is wanted to be seen.

Remember back to the days after the launch of the iPhone 4S? There was so much talk about how Apple had disappointed people by not launching the iPhone 5. Nobody could say exactly what they would have expected out of an iPhone 5, that wasn't in the revised phone that was released, other than wanting it to look different enough for people to be able flash around the latest phone.

Well, the same thing has happened again, but nobody seems to have noticed this time. What and why?

Well, nowhere on Apple's site does it make mention of the "iPad 3". Everything is about "The new iPad". That's how it is across URLs, page titles, page content etc. Yet everyone is still talking about the iPad 3. It's what they have been expecting, and Apple hasn't actually contradicted anyone. They are referring to the new model descriptively, but that description actually appears to be the new model name.

To see how genius this is for Apple, note this iPad 3 launch story, which focuses purely on the negative. The author actually says:

No A6 processor: Prior to launch, there was lots of chatter about what kind of chip would power the next iPad. After the iPhone 4S got a modified version of the A5 processor found in the iPad 2, many presumed the iPad 3 would get the A6 processor. Instead we got the A5X, which does have a quad-core processor (no disappointment there). Apple says the A5X offers "four times the? performance" of of Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip. Great as that all sounds, it's still no A6. [italics added]

It is doubtful that the author of that post could point to a single difference between the A5X and the A6, other than that "SIX IS HIGHER THAN FIVE!!11!"


Anyway, I find this an amusing example of human, consumerist nature. 


The lesson from above, reworded: Give people what they want, and if it's not what they want, don't tell them and let them assume it is.