Apple evangelist
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An Apple evangelist, also known as Mac evangelist, Macintosh evangelist, and Mac advocate is a promoter of the Apple Macintosh platform. Mac zealot is a more pejorative term for mac evangelists, indicating that the advocacy has become excessive, or simply disapproval.
The most well-known Apple evangelist is ex-Apple-employee Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki is credited as being one of the first to use evangelical methods to promote a computer brand. Apple formerly had a "Why Mac?" evangelist site at http://www.apple.com/whymac/. The page no longer exists, but the company currently has a Switch campaign page, which gives numerous reasons why, in Apple's opinion, PC users should switch to Macs. Several third-parties still host and maintain Apple evangelism websites.
In his book Tog on Interface (Addison Wesley, 1991), Bruce Tognazzini ("Apple Employee #66") is referred to as Human Interface Evangelist, both on the cover, and in this telling quote from the Preface, which gives the sense of the term:
"In the early days, developers wishing to break into the marvelous new world of the Macintosh were forced to make pilgrimages to Cupertino to sit at the feet of the masters (an unpleasant prospect at best) in the hope of being able to capture the essential flame of the Macintosh philosophy, to carry it forth to their own companies, gently cupping the flickering light until they could make it burst forth into their own first Macintosh application. (Tog's official title at Apple is Human Interface Evangelist. Can you tell? Apple Direct Editor)."
Zealotry
Mac zealots are those advocates whose zeal for the platform can be considered extreme. Of course, depending on the standards of a community any level of zeal can be viewed as extreme, and the term is frequently used interchangingly with "fanboy" as a derogative description of any Mac advocate by proponents of other computer platforms. This occurs during agitated operating system advocacy discussions on message boards or some community sites (e.g. Digg.com), implying that this person's views are to be taken less seriously due to his/her irrational conviction.
The term stems from religious zealots, implying negative aspects of religion such as dogmatism and irrationality. Zealous mac advocates have been known to verbally abuse computer users who do not embrace the Macintosh platform, which has contributed to this reputation.
It should be noted that there is no organized group of Mac zealots that collectively agrees on all Apple topics or the decisions of CEO Steve Jobs. For instance, there is currently somewhat of a schism over the Apple Intel transition. Intel has long been seen as an enemy of Apple's because the processor manufacturing company has been making its processors for Windows based machines.
See also
- Technical evangelist
- Apple Switch ad campaign
- Computer zealotry
- Wintel
- Operating system advocacy
- Software war
External links
- MacAddict Magazine — Homepage of MacAddict Magazine, which formerly hosted a Mac advocacy page.
- the JoshMeister's Apple/Macintosh Evangelist Site
- macvspc.info — Focusing on the educational sector.
- MacKiDo — Now defunct Apple advocacy site.
- iGeek — The new MacKiDo
- Church of the Customer — Profile/interview of Kawasaki's evangelism work at Apple