TidBITS#642/12-Aug-02
=====================

  Is the digital hub doomed? If the Hollywood-driven legislation
  surrounding digital television becomes law, Apple's freedom to
  create innovative products that blur the line between computers
  and entertainment devices could be shut down. Plus, Simon Spence
  starts a look at branding, something Apple has excelled at over
  the years. In the news, we note the iPod 1.2 update, AOL for Mac
  OS X, and a Mac OS X version of CMS's ABSplus backup solution.

Topics:
    MailBITS/12-Aug-02
    Can the Digital Hub Survive Hollywood?
    The Branding of Apple: Brands Embody Values

<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-642.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2002/TidBITS#642_12-Aug-02.etx>

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MailBITS/12-Aug-02
------------------

**iPod 1.2 Supports iTunes 3, Jaguar** -- After showing off
  iTunes 3 and the new iPod models at July's Macworld Expo (see our
  coverage beginning in TidBITS-639_), Apple has released the iPod
  Software 1.2 Updater for owners of existing iPods. A new Browse
  menu adds the capability to search your song library by genre and
  composer (provided that information is included in the songs' ID3
  tags), as well as by artist, song, and album title. The software
  also adds support for Audible.com audio books along with the Sound
  Check feature introduced in iTunes 3, which balances the volume of
  tracks imported at different sound levels. The iPod now includes
  on-screen visual feedback to indicate when it is safe to unplug
  the FireWire connection from your Mac. And, in preparation for
  the release of Mac OS X 10.2, the iPod now includes a calendar
  for synchronizing with the upcoming iCal, a clock to keep track
  of time (though you can view the time only by navigating to the
  Clock menu item; we want to see it also displayed on the main
  Now Playing screen in a future version), and an alarm for events
  requiring attention. The iPod 1.2 Software Updater is a free 6.7
  MB download. [JLC]

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1220>
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/>
<http://www.audible.com/>
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/>


**CMS ABSplus Adds Mac OS X Restores** -- CMS Peripherals has
  updated its Automatic Backup System Plus backup solution so it
  can now restore a Mac OS X system to working order, as it has been
  able to do with Mac OS 8.6 and Mac OS 9 since its initial release
  at Macworld San Francisco in January of 2002 (see "Macworld Expo
  San Francisco 2002 Superlatives" in TidBITS-612_). The ABSplus
  combines a FireWire hard drive with custom firmware and software
  that enables it to back up changed files on a Mac as soon as it's
  plugged in. The ABSplus can now boot a Mac in Mac OS X using the
  backed-up system's files, something that also wasn't previously
  possible. There's no question the ABSplus offers unparalleled
  ease-of-use for fast backup of an individual Mac, but keep in mind
  that it keeps only the latest version of each file. ABSplus units
  using FireWire bus-powered laptop hard drives are available in
  sizes from 10 GB to 60 GB for prices ranging from $240 to $700;
  larger desktop units that require external power sport 40 GB
  to 160 GB hard drives and cost between $300 and $600. [ACE]

<http://www.cmsproducts.com/usb_abs_mac.htm>
<http://www.cmsproducts.com/usb_abs_desktop_mac.htm>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06687>


**AOL for Mac OS X** -- America Online has released America Online
  for Mac OS X, a native version of the client software used to
  access AOL's proprietary online services. AOL for Mac OS X
  features a new interface built on Aqua, and integrates support
  for QuickTime 6, Apple's forthcoming iChat instant messaging
  software, and new Web browsing software using  Netscape's Gecko
  HTML engine. AOL for Mac OS X also enables users to access their
  Favorite Places, email, Buddy Lists, and Address Books from any
  computer. The software requires Mac OS X 10.1 or higher and
  either a modem or Internet access; it's free to current AOL
  members. [GD]

<http://free.aol.com/tryaolfree/dnld_aol/download_aol.adp#mac_os_x>


Can the Digital Hub Survive Hollywood?
--------------------------------------
  by Cory Doctorow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

  The Most Important Rule: Build Products People Want.

  iMovie, iPod, iPhoto, iTunes, television tuner-cards, composite
  video out, CD burners on laptops, flat-screen iMacs, Cinema
  displays, and QuickTime... seemingly every quarter, Apple ships
  another drool-worthy technology that further erodes the tenuous
  division between "entertainment devices" and computers.

  Since 1979, Apple has broken every rule in business. It shipped
  a personal computer at a time when computers were million-dollar
  playthings of universities, insurance companies, and defense
  contractors. It introduced a commercial graphical interface to a
  market filled with power-nerds who sneered at the ridiculous idea
  of "friendly" computers. It brought video to the desktop, wireless
  to the home, and the biggest, sexiest titanium notebook ever made
  to laps everywhere. It put freaking open-source Unix underneath
  its legendarily easy-to-use operating system!

  Apple has broken every rule except the most important one: build
  what your customers want to buy. Since 1979, Apple has achieved
  its every success by selling the stuff that people like you and I
  want to buy. Since 1979, Apple's failures (Remember the Apple III?
  The Newton? The Cube?) have been products that simply didn't sell
  well enough.

  Today, Apple - and every other technology company - is in danger
  of losing its right to make any device that it thinks it can sell.
  Hollywood, panicked at the thought of unauthorized distribution of
  movies captured from digital television sets, is calling for a new
  law that would give it ultimate control over the design of every
  device capable of handling digital television signals.

  This is bad news for any company that wants to collapse the
  distinction between entertainment devices and computers. Digital
  hub projects are exciting, but they're also squarely in
  Hollywood's cross-hairs. The more your Mac acts like a television
  device (think of TidBITS's April Fools spoof iTiVo coming true,
  or El Gato's new EyeTV) the more your Mac will be subject to
  regulations that are meant to control "only" digital television
  (DTV) devices.

<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06765>
<http://www.elgato.com/eyeTV/>

  We've seen some coarse attempts to reign in technical innovation
  from the likes of Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC), whose Consumer
  Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA) is also
  known as the "Consume, But Don't Try Programming Anything" bill.
  There's a far more insidious threat to your rights to buy a Mac
  that does what you want it to do: regulations intended to speed
  the adoption of digital television are in the offing, regulations
  that will have a disastrous effect on Apple and every other
  computer manufacturer.


**Digital Television and Hollywood** -- Here comes digital
  television. Digital television uses a lot less radio spectrum
  than the analog TV system we use today. If all broadcasters were
  to switch to digital, the U.S. government could auction off the
  freed-up spectrum for billions of dollars. Understandably, the
  FCC is big on getting America switched over to digital, so much
  so that they've ordered all analog broadcasts to cease in 2006,
  provided that 85 percent of Americans have bought digital sets.

  Hollywood says that digital television will make it too easy to
  make digital copies of its broadcast movies and redistribute them
  over the Internet. Never mind that digital TV signals eat up to a
  whopping 19.4 megabits of data per second, well beyond the ability
  of any current Internet user to redistribute without compressing
  the video to the point where it's indistinguishable from analog
  shows captured with a TV card. Never mind that you can always hook
  up a capture card to the analog output of a digital set and make
  a near-perfect copy.

  Never mind reality. In Hollywood's paranoid fantasy, digital
  television plus Internet equals total and immediate
  "Napsterization" of every movie shown on TV. So the Motion
  Picture Association of America (MPAA) has threatened to withhold
  its movies from digital television unless Something Is Done.

  This has given the feds The Fear. If there aren't any movies on
  digital television (the argument goes), no one will buy a digital
  TV set, and if no one buys a digital TV, the feds won't be able
  to sell off all that freed-up spectrum and turn into budget-time
  heroes. So Something Will Be Done.


**Perfect Control Makes Imperfect Devices** -- In November of
  2001, at the request of Representative Billy Tauzin (R-LA), the
  MPAA's Copy Protection Technical Working Group spun off a sub-
  group, called the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG).
  It's an inter-industry group with representatives from the movie
  studios, consumer electronics companies, computer companies,
  broadcasters, and cable and satellite operators. The BPDG's job
  was to consult with all these industries and draft a proposal
  that would set out what kinds of technologies would be legal
  for use in conjunction with digital television.

<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/>

The BPDG started off by ratifying two principles:

  1. All digital TV technologies must be "tamper resistant." That
  means that they need to be engineered to frustrate end-users'
  attempts to modify them. Under this rule, open-source digital
  television components will be illegal, since open-source software
  (like Darwin, the system that underpins Mac OS X) is designed to
  be modified by end-users.

  2. To be legal, a digital television device must incorporate only
  approved recording and output technologies. Some system will be
  devised to green-light technologies that won't "compromise" the
  programming that they interact with, and if you want to build a
  digital TV device, you'll need to draw its recording and output
  components exclusively from the list of approved technologies.


**Hollywood Never Gets Technology** -- The entertainment industry
  has a rotten track record when it comes to assessing the impact
  of new technologies on its bottom line. Every new media technology
  that's come down the pipe has been the subject of entertainment
  industry lawsuits over its right to exist: from player pianos to
  the radio to the VCR to the MP3 format and the digital video
  recorder, the industry has attempted to convince the courts to
  ban or neuter every new entertainment technology.

<http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/200103/2001.03.09.01.html>
<http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/953>
<http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/RIAA_v_Diamond/>
<http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/Newmark_v_Turner/20020606_eff_pr.html>

  In 1984, Hollywood lost its suit to keep Sony's Betamax VCR off
  the market. The Betamax, Hollywood argued, would kill the movie
  industry. In the words of MPAA president Jack Valenti, the VCR was
  to the American film industry "as the Boston Strangler is to the
  woman home alone." The most important thing to emerge from that
  case was the "Betamax doctrine," the legal principle that a media
  technology is legal, even if it can be used to infringe copyright,
  provided that it has substantial non-infringing uses.

  That means that even though a VCR can be used to duplicate and
  resell commercial video cassettes illegally, it's still legal
  to manufacture VCRs, because you can also use them to time-shift
  your favorite programs, a use that is legal. That's why the iPod
  exists: You can create MP3s legally by ripping your lawfully
  acquired CDs with iTunes. That you can also illegally download
  MP3s from file-sharing networks is irrelevant: the iPod has a
  substantial, non-infringing use.

  The BPDG proposal compromises the Betamax Doctrine. Under Betamax,
  Apple can make any device it wants to, without having to design
  it so that it can never be used to infringe - it is enough that
  some of the uses for the device are non-infringing. Crowbar
  manufacturers aren't required to design their tools so that they
  can never be used to break into houses - it's enough that crowbars
  have some lawful uses. It's impossible to make really good,
  general-purpose tools that can't ever be used illegally - Betamax
  lets manufacturers off that impossible hook.


**A Veto Over New Technology** -- Consumer electronics and IT
  companies were willing to go along with the idea that devices
  should be tamper-resistant, and that there should be some criteria
  for deciding which outputs and recording methods would be
  permitted. Each company had its own reasons for participating.

  Two groups now have proprietary copy-prevention technology they
  want to build a market for: Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita, Sony, and
  Toshiba are members of the "5C" group, and Intel, IBM, Matsushita
  (Panasonic), and Toshiba are members of the "4C" group. Since
  the 4C and 5C technologies have been blessed by Hollywood's
  representatives to the BPDG, a mandated BPDG standard will make
  it illegal to sell less-restrictive competing products, and so by
  participating in BPDG, the 4C and 5C companies could shut out the
  competition, guaranteeing a royalty on every DTV device sold.

<http://www.dtcp.com/>
<http://www.4centity.com/>

  Other companies, like Philips and Microsoft, have their own copy-
  prevention technologies and were anxious that if they didn't play
  ball with the BPDG, it would be illegal for them to sell DTV
  devices that incorporate their technology.

  Finally, the computer companies became involved because they saw
  the BPDG as a way of setting out an objective standard that they
  could follow, and in so doing, be sure that they wouldn't be sued
  into bankruptcy if their customers figured out how to use their
  technology in ways that Hollywood disapproved of. But then
  Hollywood dropped its bomb. When it came time to setting out
  the actual criteria for DTV technology, Hollywood announced that
  it would consider only one proposal: new DTV technology would
  be legal only if three major movie studios approved it.

  The tech companies at the BPDG had been there with the
  understanding that the BPDG's job was to establish a set of
  objective criteria for new technology. Those criteria might
  be restrictive, but at the very least, tech companies would
  know where they stood when they were planning new gizmos.

  Hollywood suckered the tech companies in with this promise and
  then sprang the trap. No, you won't get a set of objective
  criteria out of us. From now on, every technology company with
  a new product will have to come to us on its knees and beg for
  our approval. We can't tell you what technology we're looking
  for, but we'll know it when we see it. That's the "standard"
  we're writing here: we'll know it when we see it.


**The Endgame** -- The BPDG co-chairs submitted their final report
  to Rep. Tauzin, the Congressman who had asked for the BPDG to be
  formed at the beginning. The report was short and sweet, but
  attached to it was a half-inch thick collection of dissenting
  opinions from the likes of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
  the Free Software Foundation, and Digital Consumer, as well as
  commercial interests like Philips, Sharp, Zenith, Thomson, and
  Microsoft.

<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000128.html#000128>
<http://www.house.gov/tauzin/>
<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000116.html>
<http://www.fsf.org/>
<http://www.digitalconsumer.org/>

  Missing from the report were objections from any computer
  manufacturer. The information technology industry took its lead
  from Intel, which has an interest in the 5C and 4C technologies,
  and is quite pleased at the idea of a BPDG mandate becoming law.
  Apple, which has previously been outspoken on the subject of a
  free technology market, was silent, as were IBM, HP, Dell,
  Gateway, and all the other general-purpose computing companies
  who have the most to lose from a BPDG mandate.

<http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0203/04.jobs.php>


**The Future** -- It's bleak. On 08-Aug-02, FCC Chairman Michael
  Powell announced that the FCC would open proceedings to mandate
  the BPDG proposal, turning this "standard" into the law of the
  land. Without any computer companies willing to carry the banner
  for the freedom to innovate, to make Betamax-legal technology
  without oversight from the film industry, the BPDG mandate will
  almost certainly come to pass.

  The BPDG world will be extremely hostile to the digital hub
  concept. Think about a high-definition digital video suite of
  iMovie tools. These tools will exist to capture, store, and
  manipulate high-definition video streams - streams from
  camcorders, TV sources, and removable media like DVDs. They
  might support cable-in or a DTV antenna so that your digital
  hub doesn't require a stand-alone TV. And they'll need a DVD
  burner/reader and drivers.

  Incorporating a tuner and a DVD player/burner into a Mac is just
  the kind of thing that scares the daylights out of the BPDG. If
  you expect to be able to play your existing DVDs on your Mac, let
  alone record shows that you get off cable or an antenna and play
  them on your TV set, think again.

  Hollywood wants to be sure that you can't do anything with video
  from TV or cable without the film studios' permission. So while
  you may want to be able to stick a DVD full of home movies into
  your Mac and edit a five minute short for your distant relatives
  to download from your iDisk, Hollywood wants to be sure you won't
  be able to do the same with that episode of Buffy you recorded
  from the TV. When your distant relatives download your home movies
  to their computers and burn them to DVD, Hollywood wants to be
  sure that what they're burning is really a home movie and not a
  Law & Order episode that slipped through the cracks and made it
  onto a Web site.

  How can this be accomplished? Once the video is on a DVD, a Web
  site, or your hard disk, neither your Mac nor your TV can tell the
  difference between Buffy and your holiday videos. There's no easy
  answer, and lucky for us, the Betamax doctrine says that just
  because someone might do something illegal with El Gato's EyeTV
  or a real iTiVo, it doesn't mean you can't have one. It's enough
  that there are legal things that can be done with the technology.

  But absent any way to achieve Hollywood-grade perfect control
  over the technology's use, the BPDG simply won't let it come
  into being. It will be illegal to _manufacture_ this device.

  Hollywood's approval of an iTiVo will be contingent on its "tamper
  resistance" (so long, Mac OS X, hello again, Mac OS 9!) and its
  operating system will have to include a facility for marking files
  that can't be streamed over an AirPort card or Ethernet port
  (forget sitting in your bedroom watching video stored on a server
  in your living room!). The entire operating system and box will
  have to be redesigned to prevent unauthorized copying of Hollywood
  movies, even if that means your own digital video data can't be
  backed up, sent to a friend, or accessed remotely.

  If the entertainment industry had gotten its way, we wouldn't have
  radios, TVs, VCRs, MP3s, or DVRs. Business Week called Hollywood
  "some of the most change-resistant companies in the world." No one
  should be in charge of what innovation is permitted, especially
  not the technophobes of the silver screen.

<http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2002/nf20020327_2364.htm>


**A Glimmer of Hope** -- For all the likelihood of a BPDG mandate
  becoming law, it's by no means inevitable.

  One technology company - Apple, IBM, AMD, Gateway, Dell, HP -
  could stall the process. All it would take is a public statement
  of opposition to the BPDG, a breaking of ranks with Intel and the
  other companies who are seeking to secure a market for their
  copy-prevention technologies, and the FCC would be confronted
  with infinitely more uncertainty about a BPDG mandate than it
  currently faces.

  There are already a couple million DTV devices in the market that
  will be nearly impossible to accommodate under the BPDG mandate;
  another 12 months and there will be 10 million or more, and it
  will be too late to try to lock down DTV without permanently
  alienating DTV's most important customers.

  Apple has been a strong champion of its customers' right to buy
  and use innovative technologies in innovative ways. If any company
  has the rule-breaking courage to stand up to Hollywood's bullying,
  it's Apple. If we're very lucky, Apple will agree. One press
  conference where Steve Jobs gives the MPAA what-for would likely
  derail the FCC's consideration of the BPDG process - maybe
  forever.

  Mac users are fiercely loyal to the Macintosh, and Apple has
  always responded with new Macs with innovative features. Let's
  hope that they won't forget us now that there's pending
  legislation that could hamstring both Apple's entire digital
  hub strategy and the ways we already use our Macs with tools
  like iMovie, iDVD, and the SuperDrive.

  (For further reading, I encourage you to read the following Web
  sites and articles: the EFF's BPDG weblog, "Consensus at
  Lawyerpoint"; Rep. Tauzin's memo to the BPDG representatives;
  the EFF's letter to Rep. Tauzin; the New York Times on the BPDG's
  final report; the EFF's comments on the BPDG's final report; a
  summary of the EFF's comments on the BPDG's final report; and
  the BPDG final report.)

<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/>
<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000138.html>
<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000133.html>
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/05/technology/05DIGI.html>
<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000116.html>
<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/one-page.pdf>
<http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000128.html#000128>

  [Cory Doctorow is Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier
  Foundation. He's been using Apple computers since 1979 and has a
  27-pixel-by-27-pixel tattoo of a Sad Mac on his right bicep. He
  won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer
  at the 2000 Hugo Awards, and his first novel, Down and Out in the
  Magic Kingdom, will be published by Tor Books next Christmas. He
  is the co-editor of the weblogs Boing Boing and Forwarding
  Address: OS X and is a frequent contributor to Wired.]

<http://www.boingboing.net/>
<http://www.saladwithsteve.com/osx/>
<http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,54202,00.html>


The Branding of Apple: Brands Embody Values
-------------------------------------------
  by Simon Spence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

  Branding is big business at the start of the 21st century. We are
  constantly drawn to (or repelled from) images and messages from
  companies who ask us to believe them, join them, or react to their
  products in a certain way. A brand at its best is a call to the
  consumer, a request for us to be part of a style that it embodies.

  Few companies have proven as successful at branding as Apple,
  to the point where the Apple logo was reportedly once the sixth
  most-recognized in the world - an amazing feat for a company that
  doesn't have even a tenth of the personal computer market. For
  better or worse, we Mac users are all participants in Apple's
  highly successful branding strategy. But because Mac users are
  generally far more knowledgeable about Apple than are customers
  of other companies, I think we should also understand just how
  branding works, how Apple has built their brand, and how this all
  ties in with Apple's recent forays into retail stores. In this
  article, I'll look at the role of branding; future installments
  will look more closely at Apple's approach to branding.


**Branding Basics** -- How rational are you when you walk into
  your local mall? How often have you researched products from rival
  companies and at the last minute opted to go for A over B based on
  a gut feeling or instinct? As much as technology companies try to
  sell you the promise of reliability and quality, very few manage
  to win the hearts as well as the minds of the consumer. The
  ultimate goal of the marketer is to inspire consumer confidence
  to such an extent that potential customers will choose one
  product above all rivals. When they think about the technology
  in question, do consumers think of one company first and
  benchmark all alternatives in relation to this product?

  Good branding can help a company ensure that customers return
  and continue to purchase from them - brand loyalty is the highest
  reward in an age of fickle decision-making and a dazzling array
  of merchandise from which to choose. A brand is built up through
  a range of different elements such as commercials, the retail
  outlet where the goods are purchased, the way a product works,
  and the post-sales support.

  However, as much as a company will seek to control all these
  elements to ensure a consistency for the customer, total control
  is impossible. A company builds and controls a product, but the
  brand evolves from the interaction between the company and the
  consumer. The company makes a set of claims and proposals about
  itself, and consumers react to these messages; the brand lies
  between the two. Perception is the key to a brand - it starts
  with what the company says or does, but is inevitably modified,
  sometimes significantly, by the way customers interpret the
  message.

  Perception can be harsh. A company that attracts bad news or
  reviews for an aspect of their business can be perceived as
  failing in all other areas. Through bad public relations, poor
  customer service, or flaws in basic implementation, a technology
  brand may build a perception around it that is disproportionate
  to reality. Microsoft is a good example. Although to date the
  antitrust legal proceedings have had little or no impact on the
  structure of the company, they have negatively impacted the
  Microsoft brand. While the case and its final outcomes are still
  being debated, the company remains intact with its business and
  products untouched. However, if in its advertising Microsoft
  claimed to be open, enthusiastic to competition, or a guardian
  to fair play in the marketplace, the majority of consumers would
  reject such a message thanks to Microsoft's brand being tarnished.
  The products remain unaffected, the company remains unaltered, but
  the connection between the organisation and the consumer has been
  damaged. Apart from any legal ruling to date, Microsoft is
  _perceived_ to have acted unfairly. This view appears to have
  entered the consciousness around Microsoft's brand and is now
  part of what it represents in the mind of the public.


**Brand Bosses** -- There is often an uneasy relationship between
  a strong brand and its custodians, the managers of the company.
  For a much-loved brand, the custodians are often treated with
  skepticism by loyal consumers who have bought the products for
  far longer than the current crop of top employees have been in
  position. Remember what happened to Coca-Cola in 1985 when they
  tried to change the formula of the product and altered the taste?
  The resulting consumer revolt was met with a quick backtracking
  and release of Classic Coke to accommodate the consumer reaction.
  Coca-Cola learned that breaking the unwritten contract between
  brand and consumer risks long-term damage.

  If a company plans to alter its products, it should make sure the
  change fits with the brand. In 1998, British Airways discovered
  that selling their airline seats at low prices was negatively
  affecting the company's brand identity, which was about quality,
  service, and making the passenger feel special. So British Airways
  launched Go!, a low cost carrier that offered budget seats between
  European destinations. Go! sought to be fun, youthful, cheerful,
  and cheap - a very different brand proposition from that of
  British Airways.

  It was essential that British Airways did not blend the two
  individual brand messages together into one combined entity. Doing
  so would have led to a perceived diluting of the British Airways
  brand and its heritage, and as seen in the case of Coca-Cola,
  perception can have a harsh backlash.


**Brands vs. Products** -- A brand is also separate from the
  product or company that it is linked to. Apple (the company)
  builds the iMac (the product), but both of those are distinct
  from Apple (the brand). Everything Apple does, says, publishes,
  and advertises contributes to the building of the company's
  perceived identity, the brand. For many companies, the brand is
  the corporation's most valuable asset. During the early nineties,
  at a time when Apple's management was seen to be making poor
  decisions and when the company had lost focus, a large proportion
  of users remained loyal to the brand, even if they were highly
  critical of its custodians.

  These loyal users are in many ways ambassadors of the brand, and
  the recent move from the free iTools to the subscription-based
  .Mac service risks stretching this relationship too far. It
  strains the goodwill of Apple's brand ambassadors and wastes
  some of Apple's hard-won brand capital.

  In purchasing a computer we consumers are influenced in numerous
  ways. The machine's technical specifications are of course
  important, but how many people who purchase based on brand loyalty
  will justify an already-made decision by quoting specs? Branding
  and the values that become embodied in a brand can have a decisive
  influence over us as consumers, whether or not we realize it.

  In the next installment of this series on branding, I'll look more
  closely at the Apple brand and show why Apple is unique in the
  computer industry in the way it has taken advantage of strong
  branding.

  [Simon Spence is head of research and information technology at
  Alexander Dunlop Ltd., a brand consultancy working with
  multinational corporations to define brand identity. He also
  provides Mac consultancy to small businesses and educational
  establishments in Ireland.]

<http://www.alexanderdunlop.ie/>



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