Facts Are Fun
The problem with using personal experience to make a factual claim is it’s easily refuted by providing a personal experience exactly opposite in nature. So for Michael Arrington Apple is flailing badly at the edges, and the proof of this statement is his own bad experiences with Apple products, but I’ve had good experiences. As it pertains to the question, is Apple flailing around the edges, and given two opposite personal experiences as an answer who’s right and who’s wrong?
Seeing as how neither Michael or myself can make it so by merely saying it is so, then we’re both right and we’re both wrong, and the reader can reach a conclusion based on who’s cuter, or drives a better car, or lifts the most weight, pretty much any arbitrary consideration not related to the question at hand.
This isn’t picking on Michael. I use personal experience to make factual claims myself. We’ve all done it, but with regard to this situation, Michael points to specific products. He writes the “Mac Mini, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Macbook, All Failed.” Well, no, the Mac Mini, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Macbook all failed you, apparently. Based on other criteria, not your own customer satisfaction, would that question prove true?
I don’t know the answer here, could be in the end it pans out in Michael’s favor, but to buttress specific claims you could always skip the personal experience and look at, like, numbers and facts and stuff.
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Personally, your comment form failed me. There are no labels, so I’m guessing as to which field does what. For others it might work just fine. But it failed me, and since the goal of your comment form isn’t to confuse anyone, your comment form failed.
That Apple’s products so significantly failed Mike *does* mean they’re failing. Not universally. Not every product/person/day. But more than ever *for mike* and, thus, they are failing.
I agree with your underlying point, but since Apple never set out to fail, that they have failed (and failed more than *just* mike, so we all know this isn’t an isolated incident), and admittedly have failed in recent years more than in the last decade… Yeah, the company is failing. But they’re also succeeding.
Where’s the balance? I’ll let history be the judge. Personally I’m a Windows guy, but all I really care about is stuff working. As long as my Apple products worked I was happy. Now that the few I have continue running into issues (and everyone I know who uses Apple products is having issues as well), I have a harder time giving them the benefit of the doubt.
And maybe that’s where the real failure is: that, more and more, Apple is falling under the “why are we giving them the benefit of the doubt again?” question. And that is a larger failure than individual product failures. If the cult of the mac/apple/steve jobs dies, Apple effectively dies.
Jeremy,
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I appreciate it, and sorry you had trouble with the login forms. Believe that should be fixed now. Thanks for pointing it out.
Suppose we can agree to disagree on Mike’s post. I see a big difference between the statements “Apple is Failing”, and “Apple is Failing Me.” Now what exactly does fail mean, and I think it means, in relation to a company, the products it creates are not living up to a set of standards, be it in terms of customer satisfaction, gross profit, product sold, or any number of criteria.
When Apple fails Mike it’s not living up to his standards. They have failed him on a personal level, but could be that Apple fails Mike and it is succeeding as a company. Maybe profits are high, they’re selling a ton of product, etc.
Could be I read Mike’s post the wrong way, and I can go back a re-read it again, but I think when you say a company is failing you need to offer more proof than simply extrapolating your personal experience.
But one thing we do agree on is just wanting stuff to work. No matter if it’s Apple, or a juice box I just want the things I use and buy to work in the manner I’ve been assured they would.
Again, thanks for the comment Jeremy. Always nice when folks take the time to write a long, thoughtful comment.