An Apple evangelist, also known as Mac(intosh) evangelist, Mac advocate or Apple fanboy is a promoter of Apple products such as the Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

, the iPod

IPod

iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

, the iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

 and the iPad

IPad

The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...

. As a group, the followers are called the Cult of Mac.

The term "software evangelist" was coined by Mike Murray of the Macintosh division. Apple's first evangelist was Mike Boich, a member of the . Alain Rossmann succeeded him. Boich and Rossman later took part in the founding of Radius

Radius (computer)

Radius was an American computer hardware firm founded in May 1986 by Burrell Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, Mike Boich, Matt Carter, Alain Rossmann and other members of the original Mac team specializing in Macintosh equipment....

 together.

The most well-known Apple evangelist is ex-Apple-employee Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, bestselling author, and Apple Fellow. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He is currently a Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, and has been involved in the rumor reporting...

. Kawasaki is credited as being one of the first to use evangelistic

Evangelism marketing

Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing in which companies develop customers who believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it...

 methods to promote a computer brand through a blog. Apple formerly had a "Why Mac?" evangelist site http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.apple.com/whymac/. The page no longer exists, but the company ran Get a Mac

Get a Mac

The Get a Mac campaign is a television advertising campaign created for Apple Inc. by TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the company's advertising agency, that ran from 2006 to 2009...

, which gave numerous reasons why "PC users" should switch to Macs. Several third-parties still host and maintain Apple evangelism websites.

Many Apple evangelists are employees of Apple whose job is to promote Apple products primarily by working with third-party developers.

In the early days of the Macintosh computer, the primary function of an evangelist was to convince software developer

Software developer

A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...

s to write software products for the Macintosh. When software developers need help from within Apple, evangelists will often act as go-betweens, helping the developers to find the right people at Apple to talk to.

Mac as Religion

Loyalty to Macintosh Computers and Apple have been compared to religious belief. The term Cult of Mac is often used to describe this group. Psychologist Dave Levine argues that the Mac community has a religious feeling, providing a sense of community and common heritage for those who have rejected religion. Russell Belk argues that, like a religion, the Cult of Mac is a belief system that helps its followers understand technology and the world.

Apple founder Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

 is compared to a God figure and Savior, and his life story is said to resemble Joseph Campbell

Monomyth

Joseph Campbell's term monomyth, also referred to as the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces...

's heroic adventure myths. Jobs was often viewed as a saintly figure to Mac users.

Mac users are frequently known to use religious language in describing Macs. Terms such as "evangelism", "persecution" and "martyrdom" are used. Many users view their devotion as a battle between good versus evil, with evil frequently being Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

.

The term Cult has been used to describe Mac users (Cult of Mac). However, this description is criticized. Dave Arnott, author of Corporate Cults argues that devotion to Macs is no different than devotion to a car or rollerblading.

See also

• Apple rumors community
  Apple rumors community
  The Apple rumor community is concerned with Apple Inc. and its products, including the Macintosh, the iPhone, the iPod and the iPad. In recent years, a subculture has developed around rumors about new products and services from Apple. The company enjoys a cult-like following for its Macintosh...
  
  
• Apple Switch ad campaign
  Apple Switch ad campaign
  Switch was an advertising campaign launched by Apple Computer on June 10, 2002. It featured what the company referred to as "real people" who had "switched" from the Microsoft Windows platform to the Mac. An international television and print ad campaign directed users to a website where various...
  
  
• Evangelism marketing
  Evangelism marketing
  Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing in which companies develop customers who believe so strongly in a particular product or service that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it...
  
  
• Operating system advocacy
  Operating system advocacy
  Operating system advocacy is the practice of attempting to increase the awareness and improve the perception of a computer operating system. The motivation behind this may be to increase the number of users of a system, to assert the superiority of one choice over another or out of brand loyalty,...
  
  
• Technical evangelist
• Wintel
  Wintel
  Wintel is a portmanteau of Windows and Intel, referring to personal computers using Intel x86 compatible processors running Microsoft Windows...
  
  

External links

• Mac|Life Magazine – Mac|Life, formerly MacAddict, which at one time hosted a Mac advocacy page
• MacKiDo – Now defunct Apple advocacy site
• iGeek – The new MacKiDo
• CultofMac.com – One of the original Mac evangelistic sites
• MacZealot.com – Mac evangelist site, focusing on users migrating from Windows
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog – One of the leading 'all things Apple' technology evangelist sites.
• iKnow Club – Student's Apple evangelist organization, operates in European countries