Daring Fireball: Nerve Touching (
1):
If you take it personally that the Mac has perhaps slipped to Apple’s second-most-profitable division, you’re weird.
Not always right, but always entertaining and insightful, John Gruber pokes a cluestick at those who fret over . . . whatever it is they find fretworthy this week. For the moment, Apple dropping FireWire cables as standard equipment with the iPod as opposed to staying FireWire only seems to have many peoples’ knickers in a twist, ignoring the fact that introducing USB-equipped iPods accounts for the bulk of the product’s success.
To me, this calls to mind Dave Eggers’ well-known rant about “selling out” (79) or whatever insecure people call the prospect of losing a sense exclusivity for a band, a TV show, or a product.
Apple already has distinct product lines — the Powerbook and iBook, iMac and PowerMac, the Mini, the eMac, the XServe, — with it’s computing products, and a slew of iPods. It’s not much of a leap to see these as divisions with diverse audiences and goals.