Why doesn’t Apple want my money?
I was recently looking for some Macintosh posters to decorate my office and perhaps one of the sort of mousepads that you see in Apple showrooms, but I’ve had a heck of a time finding any. I’ve never understood Apple’s unwillingness to sell officially licensed accessories. While you can find a few Apple memorabilia type items at places like The Missing Byte, it is quite hard to find any number of things one might like to have. Apple tends to engender the kind of loyalty that would lead to a lot of sales of mousepads, shirts, etc. Apple owns one of the most valuable brands in the world, and while I can understand their desire to keep it somewhat exclusive, it seems patently foolish to forgo a lucrative market which is pure profit. Other exclusive brands don’t seem to mind. So what gives? Why doesn’t Apple what my money?
January 28th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
That’s okay. I don’t really want your apartment full of apple logos anyway. The wall of computer terminals screams “techie” loudly enough already.
Love,
Rachel
February 10th, 2006 at 6:05 am
Rachel, have a heart! He obviously loves him Macs, allow him this small undulgance! Plus, its his apartment right? By the time he buys that house on the hill, having a few token Apple logo’d products will be the last thing on his mind.
Matt, here’s the scoop (from a 25+ year Apple/Mac user. Apple doesn’t sell logo’d merchandise for one basic reason. Steve hates it. If you read any current / former Apple employee blogs, you hear this brought up from time to time. In addition to Steve’s opinion (and nothing else would ever factor in during such matters), they feel it would cheapen the brand - which I only partially agree with.
In the early days, there was literally TONS of Apple related items ranging from the cool to the utterly corny such as the Apple/Rebook shoes and my personal favorite, the Apple Surfboard and parasail. This was all in the very early 80s and those items are quite hard to find these days (thankfully). The guys at the missing byte (as well as RedLightRunner.com) all get their stuff from various sources and then sell them at massive markups so don’t waste your time there.
The bottom line - there is literally a single place on the planet that sells official, extremely nice, Apple gear and that is at the mothership - otherwise known as the Apple Campus - in Cupertino, California which goes by the formal name of The Company Store — ( see: http://www.apple.com/companystore/ ). Being Apple, they of course have their strange quirks and won’t sell you anything from the Company Store online or over the phone. If you for Apple gear (non computers we’re talking about) - it’s a dream come true. They have all kinds of really, really nice logo’d merchendice, ranging from silk polo shirts, t-shirts, jackets, binders, insulated coffee-mugs, etc,etc. The coolest thing about it is the price - everything there is very reasonably priced with the average high quality t-shirt selling for $19.99 - $29.99 — and Polos going for $29.00 - 49.00. They are all very simple and understated, mostly black the Apple logo on the left breast pocket or sleeve. They also sell them in nice oversized sizes vs the crappy skin tight stuff you might find from CompanyStuff.com that literally falls apart after a few washes.
Cheap as it may be, you do have to get there in order to buy anything. And the real kicker is that when you exit the store, you are literally standing at the front door of where it all goes down - the Apple campus, building 1. Steve’s office is even in that very building. Looking at the windows (which all seem closed), it looks like quite a fun place to work - with lots of playful toys and such in the employees windows.
I’ve been fortunate enough to get out to the official company store a few times now, whenever I make it to MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. We usually charter a bus and a bunch of us trek out there. In 2004, we had some great connections and they actually got us into the campus and we the dubious honor of having lunch in the fabled Cafe Mac (google it) — which is the most amazing place to eat among some insanely talented people. The thing is, you look just like them (except you are likel twitching like a kid in the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory) so they don’t even know you are not an Apple employee without inspecting your temporary access badge. So you’re stting there snarfing down your meal, and unbeknownst to you, you are sitting next to one of the key OSX developers talking Feature X they are busily implemting while the guy on your otherwise is the product lead for the iPod group discussing the next version of the iPod right in front of you …(ok, dream on, those people would never do something so foolish as describe unreleased products in front of total strangers, hell, they don’t even do it with everyone in their own group, let alone in front of the company at large!).
Anyway - it’s February now — if you are still interested in getting some killler Apple swag, send me an email later this year (around Nov, Dec timeframe) and if I am indeed still planning on attending the 2007 MacWorld in San Francisco, I would be happy to pick you up something and mail it to you (it’s a pretty common practice among our group).
I’ve stacked up on some premium swag over the years and can personally attest to its quality. I’ve never seen a poster or anything like that there but they have almost everything else. For posters specifically, check out eBay as there are always some unique Mac items there. Alternatively, make friends with your local Apple rep at the CompUSA near you. They always have to work solo and are usually very nice people. You can sometimes talk them into giving / selling you some of their official Apple merchandice promotional items once they are taken out of circulation. I once picked up a very nice large black 3D/holographic PowerMac G5 marketing piece that way.
Drop me a line and/or check out my Mac-centric blog: Nosce Ti Ipsum ( http://203.98.164.153/~jlpowell/blog/ ) — bonus points if you actually know what that title means - and no fair googling for the anwser! Keep up the blog - it’s a good read.
Take care,
Jeff
October 7th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Black Coffee Facts and Interesting Coffee Resources…
Sorry, it just sounds like a crazy idea for me :)…