Following up on Part 1...
I think technology -- forget all the claims to a new world of participatory democracy, etc. -- has mainly been geared toward bourgeois personal convenience, toward making life as effortless and comfy as possible, so users are always connected to people and things they know.
Their iProducts make them feel safe, confident and powerful -- never far from a friend who can help, never lost, never going where no one else has gone before.
I accidentally deleted an anonymous comment on Part 1 that basically said "Jobs didn't make people zombies; people are free to choose to become zombies or not." And I thought: But didn't Jobs, just like a heroin dealer, make it a whole lot easier for people -- who naturally gravitate to the lowest common denominator -- to become zombies? Didn't he grease the skids to a world where it's considered wonderful that people can watch video as they walk down the sidewalk, and in essence bring their living room with them?
Never mind that the video they watch is the same old crap, and that the buzz they're addicted to is about the same old Pop crap, just updated every few years for a new crop of suckers.
So I think people who say Apple products have made this a better world really mean that the products -- by boosting their ability to be comfortable wherever they go -- have made them feel sleeker and more powerful than they would if disconnected from their Apple product.
They probably don't notice how they constantly consult their device as they walk down the street, seeking its confirmation that they still belong to the shiny world it connects, so it's hard to tell if the device is an appendage, or they're the appendage. And they probably don't notice what pliant consumers they've become, of a corporation that's always sought maximum control of its platforms.
So when you factor in Apple's paranoid approach to leaks and criticism, Jobs' ruthless treatment of underlings, and the near-spiritual devotion of Apple consumers, it's not a stretch to consider the term "cult," even if Apple devotees belong to something a little closer to a cargo cult than a proper one.
