Is Apple Snagging the Kids but Losing the Parents?

In an article about “Engineering the teenager only-PC”, CNN noted that teenagers have fallen in love with the iPod and iTunes. While this was leading to the teens becoming interested in Macs as Apple had hoped it might, the teens are reporting that their parents have been resisting buying Macs because “they don’t run Windows”. While those of us with experience on a Mac realize that “not running Windows” is one big reason to buy one, most adults are simply not that educated. Most people settle for the status quo and what they are familiar with; and most parents are totally ignorant of the fact that Microsoft Office for the Mac, in v.X and 2004 versions, makes owning a Mac at college largely invisible.

Has Apple miscalculated?

It’s true that the Apple stores opening across the country are serving to introduce the Mac to the uneducated masses. The question is whether they are working fast enough to do the company some good. If teens are failing to sway their parents and are forced into buying Windows machines anyway, the answer would seem to be “no”. Apple needs some mechanism to reach those parents and show them how buying a Mac for a college student is an advantage, not a disadvantage. …like a targeted advertising campaign…maybe another version of the Switcher campaign where once beleagured Windows-bearing parents talk about how switching to a Mac has made their lives and the lives of their students better. No matter what, Apple needs to do something or else the momentum the iPod has brought them may crash to a halt at every local PC retailer’s cash register.