What is it about Apple???

Question

I realize that this question may not belong in this discussion forum and if someone knows about any other forum that is more suitable for this types of questions I would be very grateful if you could give me the name/link to the forum.
I am currently doing research for an article regarding brands and customer loyalty and after reading through a great number of articles, news releases, blogs, etc. I realize that the customers of Apple are not like other customers. They are probably some of the most loyal people I've ever read about. No matter what mistakes Apple may make, the customers are always there to support them and every time someone says something bad about the company, there are always one or more Apple-enthusiasts that steps forward to defend the brand. As a person who do not own any Apple products, I'm having a hard time understanding this extreme loyalty and I therefore need to ask: what is it about Apple that is so great? Is it just the great products that make the customers so loyal or is it something more than that?
I'd be extremely grateful for any replies I may get.

Answer 1

Ckristof wrote:
...what is it about Apple that is so great? Is it just the great products that make the customers so loyal or is it something more than that?
Ckristof ~ In this _1995 interview_, Steve Jobs explains the type of creative people behind the original Mac. And at the end of the quote below, Jobs reveals something special those people put into Apple's products — and presumably still do. ...Could it be that which is the +"something more"+ ? ... Could it be that which indirectly makes Apple's customers so loyal without them really understanding why?
Interviewer:
And the artistry is in the elegance of the solution, like chess playing or mathematics?
Steve Jobs:
No. I think the artistry is in having an insight into what one sees around them. Generally putting things together in a way no one else has before and finding a way to express that to other people who don't have that insight so they can get some of the advantage of that insight that makes them feel a certain way or allows them to do a certain thing. I think that a lot of the folks on the Macintosh team were capable of doing that and did exactly that.
If you study these people a little bit more what you'll find is that in this particular time, in the 70's and the 80's the best people in computers would have normally been poets and writers and musicians. Almost all of them were musicians. Alot of them were poets on the side. They went into computers because it was so compelling. It was fresh and new. It was a new medium of expression for their creative talents. The feelings and the passion that people put into it were completely indistinguishable from a poet or a painter. Many of the people were introspective, inward people who expressed how they felt about other people or the rest of humanity in general into their work, work that other people would use. People put a lot of love into these products, and a lot of expression of their appreciation came to these things. It's hard to explain.