Pound the quality
“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.”
—Legal Adage
I like that, it rings true as advice on how to win (even if you’re wrong). Of course, it’s bad advice, and, the rest of John Gruber’s post, Pound the Quality, mostly about the iPhone’s advantage over the competition, hits on the true advise we should take.
The iPhone has turned that around, and it’s driving Microsoft executives batty. The situation is so at odds with Microsoft’s view of the computing universe that Steve Ballmer came up with this cockamamie explanation: “The Internet was designed for the PC. The Internet is not designed for the iPhone. That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.” Pound the table, indeed.
The simplest reduction of the age-old Mac-vs.-Windows debate is quality-vs.-quantity. But I don’t blame Apple for bragging about the sheer number of iPhone apps available, because it’s something that can be measured. It’s a powerful marketing point because it is an undeniable fact: there are nearly 100,000 apps, and more every week. You can’t quantify the advantage Mac software has over Windows.
It’s almost impossible to pound the quality, cause it’s not quantifiable. It’s not irrefutable. It’s an aesthetic. That doesn’t stop it from being the most important thing, though.