wow. I didn't realize you were so sensitive... I called you daft: silly, foolish, crazy. Would you have been insulted if I asked "are you crazy?" Nothing else about my post was remotely close to "slinging insults"
and I STILL think it's crazy to reply to my statement of "the average consumer is ill-informed" with "but people here on MR know the difference!" THAT is a crazy analogy. Sure, SOMEBODY knows the difference. informed people know the difference. That doesn't take away from my statement that the AVERAGE ho-hum consumer is ill-informed (and there are tons of examples to prove it). Your argument is flawed.
Branding All over the device? Are you referring to the one small
icon on the back of the device? Hardly all over the device... Plus, like I said a lot of people don't really care so much about the apple logo, or the samsung logo etc. They want the experience. The apple advertising does a great job showcasing that experience. All their friends weilding iPhones show examples of that experience. They walk in the store and get confused because that look, feel, and experience is so similar in many other products. So they end up buying the cheapest or whichever the salesman recommended.
I wasn't brought to tears by your use of the word, but I found it particularly off-putting since you then, and now, ignored my argument and cherry-picked a sentence that, out of context, would be really easy attack. By the way, in context "daft" as you used it would align most closely with stupid or foolish- neither of which I'd use easily. You're right, saying that you were slinging insults was an exaggeration for effect.
Ok, with that out of the way, I was trying to debunk the stance that consumers in general are stupid by showing that at least
someone (maybe I should be more liberal in my use of italics) knows what type of phone they're buying, in this case MacRumors posters, leaving the reader to figure out that plenty of people who don't post may be similarly informed thus chipping away at the notion that everyone except people who are obsessed with all things Apple are too dumb to tell the difference between a Samsung phone and an Apple. If you're argument is that people don't care, then how confused are they? It's more that their priorities are such that a product's manufacturer doesn't matter, not that they can't tell the difference. Consumers, then, would be ill-informed since they don't care. Is Apple going to send them to re-education camps until they can recite the iPhone's specs?
Your asking if I'm daft plays into my argument that "Many posters who are convinced that the average consumer is a no-nothing idiot seems more to be reveling in their own perceived superiority to that person rather than actually engaging on the topic. Wiser people might acknowledge instead that an average person wouldn't know instinctively looking at the front of a Samsung touchscreen smartphone and an Apple one who made it and discuss the implications of that."
And, you're right, the branding isn't written all over the device, again I was exaggerating, but it is very clear at almost every point of sale (brick and mortar Apple Stores, the online store, a particularly section of BestBuy or ATT, and on the box) who makes an iPhone. Further, if there was enough confusion to warrant this type of suit, wouldn't the dismal sales of the iPhone show it...? Wouldn't many consumers end up with an Android phone when in fact they wanted an iPhone? How often does that occur? Even without hard facts, though I'll admit one poster did allude to example, when someone goes out to buy an iPhone, if they know enough to ask for that, how likely is it that they'll be derailed in that pursuit and end up with something else? You say they want the experience, not the brand. Ok, if that's true, they're free to choose a cheaper product that gives them a sufficient experience without buying Apple, are you then saying Apple competitors are copying Apple's IP by offering something that fits the bill? Will they really walk out of the store confused or will they have chosen something that does the job but is not conceived of in Cupertino?
Essentially, it comes down to my belief that while the iPhone is great and I enjoy the experience it provides, on a gut level, looking at the Samsung phones and their GUIs, I think that Apple's better course of action would be to play it classy and continue to make better products and be the market leader and not try to get Samsung to change the color of its icon for the phone app. Plus, two separate groups of people working on the same problem could come up with similar results. Their inspirations may be the same. Further, Apple is building its iPhones, in part, with Samsung's hardware- Apple is not creating the smartphone experience from scratch, even if they do it the best.
This coupled with Apple's trying to maintain its trademark on "App Store" annoy me. I'd prefer Apple's ethos to be one of engineering and development not one of lawyers and litigiousness.
