It’s a reasonable question, however consider the following: If someone is late for a job interview and unkempt, do you question whether they will be on time for work and will have meticulous software development hygiene (by whatever standards you employ, e.g. tests, proper use of source control)?

It’s true that some unkempt people are very careful about their work, and some people who are late for an interview are on time for work. So I would personally probe further to make sure this is not a sign of a deeper lack of commitment.

Careful attention to detail in marketing materials doesn’t automatically mean careful attention to detail in product development. But you know, I doubt it’s a coïncidence that Apple's marketing materials are clean and simple, and they don’t play the “Intel Inside” sticker game, and they are restrained in the CrapWare they allow on their OS X machines, and so on and so forth.

So if you show me a busy, confused marketing item, I won’t automatically refuse to buy the product. But I will certainly probe to see if this is an anomaly or whther it is representative of their approach to product development.

"Next time somebody asks you why you prefer Apple products to competitors, show them this invite. Explains everything."

I suppose in your metaphor it would be: "Next time somebody asks you why you prefer Jim to his colleagues, show them how he dresses. Explains everything."

I think your formulation is reasonable and measured. I totally agree that Apple's marketing reflects something about the company. But the GGP comment is hyperbolic at least, sycophantic at worst. If I asked you why you like Apple products and you showed me this invite, I would probably disregard your opinion.

It's the kind of comment that makes many Apple fans seem like cult members, at least to me.

To be fair, there is a difference between saying that X demonstrates Y and saying that X proves Y. It is sometimes useful to say things like “Apple’s approach to ___ demonstrates how they approach product development.” It simply shows an example of something you believe carries over to their products.

The example that comes to my mind is how the original Macintosh was packaged. Someone at Apple had taken great care to design the “Opening the box and setting up your computer” experience such that the right booklet was the first thing you saw when you opened the box, the power cables, keyboard, and mouse were layered under the documents in the right order to set them up, and by the time you lifted the computer out and put it on your desk, it all seemed very natural to plug things together and turn it on. Their attention to the details of the unpacking experience demonstrated their approach to macintosh product development in the late eighties.

That being said, “X explains Y” normally suggests to me that X carries enough information that you can deduce the important things about Y from it. I wouldn’t personally suggest their marketing materials explain their products, so we agree on that.

You know, I actually judge people by the way they dress. This might sound like a very shallow thing to do at first but I think you get a non-trivial amount of information about a person just by looking at how they dress.

Fashion is a visual language and everyone is, deliberately or not, communicating something with it. If you communicate that you don't care about fashion, that's not a problem. If you communicate that you can't really afford very fashionable items, obviously, that's not a problem either. However if the way you dress is telling me that you don't care about yourself or your environment, that could be an issue.

The fact that people give more trust to a well dressed person has been in the playbooks of con men since, well, the dawn of civilization?

Make of that what you will... But appearances are often deceiving and it is, in my opinion, reckless to not remind yourself of that from time to time.

It's not justifiable, it's just obtuse. The invite is being used as an example of the attention to detail and high quality that people like about Apple.

Attention to detail in one spot makes it more likely there's attention to detail elsewhere.

Or less likely, depending on the spots in question. For example you might take inordinate amounts of attention to detail in form factor and aesthetic appeal as emblematic of a fundamentally superficial approach to product development, and that it is emblematic that that will always win out over say actually better performing computers with actually better hardware.

Like in this instance, and you'd be right, too.

I'll never understand why people pay so much money for jeans with holes in them, when you could simply just rip the holes yourselves.

But I won't hesitate to pay a bit more for a quality Apple product.

Some things just don't make sense. :)

Right, because the products Apple makes don't need designing... ?