"Still, it seems that many people are going to keep loving Apple no matter what, and getting hurt when the company acts to make money rather than loving them back. And, as it turns out, those rumors about 10.6.2 not working on Atom chips might not be true after all! Fall in love all over again."
Apple's marketing trust isn't a bunch of marketers, rather a bunch of psychologists. No one has ventured to write in-depth about this yet, maybe I'll get around to it one day. Apple accomplished two things with this latest action and I'll quickly explain both below.
This is only ONE example of Apple marketing vs. psychology and I will keep it relevant to the article: - Steve Jobs has said before that Apple doesn't seek to create markets or chase them. Point and case regarding netbooks: Steve Jobs said on the quarterly earnings call a little over a year ago that "not a lot of them are getting sold" (which is debatable) BUT then admitted that Apple is going to "wait and see" how the category evolves and "we've got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve."
So, on that note, the psychology behind the OSX update that could have eliminated the popular atom chip support in netbooks, potentially locking out a bunch of netbook owners from updating the OS or face inoperable computers...
It has been a year and netbooks (which is now just a buzzword since they are really a recycle of selling smaller screen laptops that fell out of favor and are now made more lightweight and with hardware that isn't overkill for the general population) are popping up like crazy appear to be selling like hotcakes.
Apple knows that OSX is being installed on these and I'm sure keep an eye on all the posts about how to do it and watch the comments on those posts and other forums. I'm sure just how Google monitors search term popularity, Apple does the same for things they are watching.
So, one year later, how do you test the temperature of the market for OSX on netbooks? Indirectly threaten the entire market by potentially not supporting the processors that run them and watch the reaction.
The second thing accomplished by this was what Apple seems to do that I have not seen any other company pull off so frequently: create controversy and then have people fall in love with you again. I don't need to list all the examples from just the last two years alone, I know you know them. Not only could they test and measure the reaction of possibly shutting netbook users out, but then come back to be the hero and give back what was almost taken away. Reaction goes from angry (without merit in my opinion) to "oh thank God" "whew" "thank you Apple".
Hopefully I'm making sense up there. Just wanted to bring the topic up and hear your thoughts as well.