There's no reality distortion field. What's at work with Apple products is a well-known psychological effect/behaviour, called the cognitive dissonance.
In the actual situation the latter means - to put it simple - that the more money you throw at something and the less results you get, the more you are inclined to actually make yourself and also everyone else believe that the product is great or actually the best ever possible - even contrary to the obvious facts -, just so you don't have to admit that you made a very bad decision, and that you spent just way too much on a product that's way inferior to what you've could bought for far less.
That's why buyers of overpriced, but technologically inferior Apple products insist that said products are superior to everything else, and that's why they want to drive everybody else to buy the same piece of crp, too. And it actually works - at least with people who just can't withstand peer pressure, and then after buying an inferior Apple product will be subject to the same psychological effect.
This is why Apple consumerism spreads like a virus. Not because Jobs was a genius or because he had any kind of reality distortion field. He just invoked - mostly by chance - this viral action of denial and self-justification, rooted in the very essence of human psyche. Which btw. also works with cars, clothing, etc. and is exploited by other companies to sell their similarly inferior products at ridicolously premium prices.
The press now finds “reality distortion fields” everywhere, from one surrounding Newt Gingrich to the process of AIDS research. But the original field surrounded the Apple campus in Cupertino for decades and was widely derided by the entire computer industry. Perhaps now, with Apple one of the world’s most valued companies, it’s time to scrap the RDF dog collar
According to the Wikipedia, the term was applied from an original Star Trek episode to describe Steve Jobs’ leadership charisma during the development of the first Mac. It didn’t matter what was happening around the rest of the company or what division was making money. Forget the success of the Apple II computer (which actually was the major breadwinner for Apple until around 1987, years after the launch of the Mac), or the lack of same with the Lisa business machine (where many of the Apple GUI concepts were formulated). Forget all that and focus on the insanely great Macintosh, Jobs urged the team. And it was so.
This optimism was integrated into Apple culture and the company’s employees have always acted on it. Of course, Apple knows better than everyone else, the Mac is way better than Windows, and someday everyone will understand that the Apple Way is right.
This was especially irksome to the rest of the PC industry, who noticed that Apple had a shrinking user base and group of developers. In fact, during the 1990s, Apple was cut out of almost all government contracts. The computer world circled around the twin suns of Intel and Microsoft. Apple was declared dead by the PC trade press and Michael Dell told a crowd of IT analysts and volume buyers that Apple should be shut down and the money returned to the shareholders.
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But the installed base of Mac users, long-suffering Apple developers and Apple employees kept their heads up high. When PC press attended a briefing or demonstration at the Cupertino campus or at the Macworld Expo show, they would complain of the influence of the reality distortion field.
Who cared about a computer used by fewer than 5 percent of the world? Or its operating system? Or the worthy technologies developed there, such as QuickTime, FireWire and AppleTalk? The real world of the computer industry was happening at Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Sony, Fujitsu, Sun Microsystems, or anywhere else but One Infinite Loop. I heard this many times at technical sessions and IT analyst conferences I attended.
Now, a decade or so later, after the resurgence of the Mac, the relatively success of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple is one of the worlds most valuable companies. This fall, its market cap this fall was about the size of Amazon, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft combined.
Yet, I observe that there are many analysts who still haven’t reconciled themselves to the new world order. Certainly, we all can agree that is the year to put away the “distortion field” and perhaps look at the Apple reality. More on that later.
