What Apple Knows.
Published on September 9th, 2007.
Thursday evening at 6pm, the Louisville Apple retail store opened its doors. As a Verizon representative, I work at our Oxmoor Mall location here in Louisville. About half a year ago, I noticed that Kirklands had a big clearance sale. I considered a lamp but passed. Then, within a few weeks, the “Kirklands” sign came off the the back entrance that Kirklands shares with Verizon. Around that same time the local Apple retailer, a hip and enthusiastic group stopped stocking their inventory. Then, on my last visit, it was clear that they were shutting down. I was sad to loose them, but it was apparent that an Apple retail store was coming to town. An apple rumors site confirmed that hunch. And that was okay with me as I am a co
Out with Kriklands – in with Apple.
Well, reports have it that the line for the 6pm opening wrapped up and down the mall aisles and around a few corners. What is Apple doing right that gets this many people out of their Thursday night routine to “be there” for this grand opening? Was it the fact that the first 1,000 guests got a free t-shirt? Not likely. Was it that there was some mystery as to what Apple would be selling? Between the internet and television, there would be no surprises.
I have a suggestion. Two, actually. I think that Apple is tapping into something fundamental to human nature. I suppose that’s what all good marketing and product positioning is designed to do. When I listen to Steve Jobs introduce and describe his products, he repeats two words frequently – “easy, ” and “beautiful.” Here’s a reflection on the meaning of these two words for Apple’s success.
1) Apple is successful because Apple knows that people like things easy.
Simply put, Apple products are easy and humans were made for an easy life. I can remember going to a friends house in 8th grade. Windows 3.0 (I think) was out, but he knew DOS. So, he liked pecking around in DOS, loading applications from DOS and pretending to hack. There is something inside all of us that likes to feel like a pro at something hard and computers used to be for the kind of people accepting of technical challenges. But these days, you can hardly get around the world without them. Now, the distance of difficulty from DOS to Windows is farther than that from Windows to Apple OS, but everyone who has used a Mac for any length of time knows that Apple has made personal computing easy. From hardware to software this is their art.
Theologically speaking, the Christian believes that humans were made for an easy world. We were made in God’s image for the enjoyment of God and the privileges and responsibilities that he gave to us. We had one thing we weren’t allowed to do – to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Fellowship with God, plenty of food, a beautiful wife – Adam had it easy. But ever since Adam betrayed God in his eating, life for his race has been frustrating. Work was intended to be easy but now it’s frustrating. The same is true for relationships. There were no misunderstandings, no ill-motives, no jealousy, bitterness or unforgiveness, for there weren’t any sins to forgive. I might propose that the frustration that characterizes much of personal computing is a result of the fall. Lot’s of wires (See above) are a result of the fall. Death, both the human kind and the blue screen kind, are are tied to sins corrupting effects on the world.
But Apple’s hardware and software defy the frustration that has characterized most human interaction with electronics in the last thirty years. I remember my parents buying a new VCR when I was young and bemoaning, “Now we have to figure out how to set the time.” Like those old VCR’s, the Windows operating system, whether it’s on a computer or a mobile device, requires the human to conform to its intuition rather than the other way around. I warn my own Verizon customers to give themselves a week to a month before they should expect to enjoy their new PDA, and even then the only customers who leave the store with these devices are the ones who really need them – often they are required by their job. Not so with the iPhone. In contrast, Apple products represent the application of the knowledge that humans like things easy!
2) Apple is successful because Apple knows that people like things beautiful.
Apple products are beautiful and humans were made for a beautiful world. The iPhone, the iMac and Mac products in general are the adult equivalent of a baby’s rattle, a shiny spoon or mom’s necklace. We want to grab it and hold it and have it. One friend of mine recently commented at work, “Working on Windows XP is exhausting. Working on my Mac is relaxing.” At work we might expect to find rows of filing cabinets, ugly chairs and torn up carpet. That is, unless we are in retail – then everything will look good because pleasant environments sell products. But in our homes we don’t often settle for ugly. We want color on the walls and style in our seats. It would make sense that the computers at which we spend so much of our day, composing letters, writing papers, viewing photos and making videos would also be “comfortable” on the eye.
Theologically speaking, Christian’s know why beauty counts. The sky is blue, the grass is green, flowers come in all colors, they have attractive shapes and they even smell good – all because God made them so. All the beauty of this present order, with all of the death and decay that distort its purity, are a dim reflection of what was meant to be. Eden was a beautiful place and the new creation will be even better. In contrast to modernism’s attention to pure “function,” today, a new arena to be built downtown Louisville is designed to look like the Ohio river. If “form” didn’t matter we would all wear roughly the same clothes and drive roughly the same cars. But, of course, we don’t. We like beautiful things and we like to beautify ourselves with them. Doesn’t it make sense that, for all the ways we use them, that we would want our computers and our phones to be utterly dazzling? Yes, and Apple products represent the application of the knowledge that humans like things beautiful!
C.S. Lewis insightfully asked, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this earth can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Whether Apple knows it or not, humans were made for an easy life in a beautiful world and ease and beauty are why thousands of customers are stopping by the new Apple store this weekend in Louisville, KY.
iLife is not eternal life and the iPod “touch” can’t touch the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ. Thousands of people lined up to touch, feel and to personally encounter pretty little gadgets reminds us of our inheritance as Christians – an inheritance that Peter says is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” for us (1 Peter 1:4).
If the ease and beauty of Apple products have unbelievers and even ourselves talking, how much more should Christ be on our lips in conversation with one another and with our unbelieving friends? The beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the rest and peace (ease!) that is ours in him is a message of incomparable value. May the urgency of consumers for gadgets be transposed so that they lay hold of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For other gospelcentric thoughts on the Apple phenomonea, check out these posts,
How to Think About the iPhone.
100 Million iPods means something.
Desiring God and Desiring iPhone.
Filled under Miscellany.
Blog Roundup for 9/15/2007 | Said At Southern Seminary on September 15th, 2007
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