So I am in GS 101: Political Economy with Madeleine Wong right now and I am working on a project based on the novel No Logo by Naomi Klien. My group is working with advertisements in schools and focusing on the impact of Apple products used with elementary children. During my research, I came across the Apple website and an entire section devoted to education and production for classroom services. There’s even a financial aid plan for districts if they cannot pay off their products. The link can be found here. And basically it got me thinking of how selective Apple can be with its products. Making specific websites for education and installing Ipads in classrooms and offices, the company seems to be very precise with where they place themselves. I think that this is where Apple really gained their popularity, with the young people who wanted faster, chicer, modern devices and spoiled them with fancy I-things. Because of this, they close their minds to other products, mainly PCs and Windows. Sitting in the student center right now, I can count at least ten MacBooks and only one or two Dell or HPs. A clever marketing ploy on their part or maybe I’m just overthinking this idea.
But what if companies like Samsung and BlackBerry did something like this with their own products. Maybe not in the same fields as Apple, but maybe in higher more sophisticated areas of our society. So they would not necessarily take the same path that Apple has, but take one that could push them even further than they already have been.