Do You Develop Software or Experiences?

I read an interesting article today on Apple's marketing strategy. A certain section stood out to me, regarding their hardware manufacturing:

Apple is an experience company. They're a high-end marque; if they were in the automobile business, they'd be BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche rolled into one. They own about 12% of the PC market in the USA... but 91% of the high end of the PC market (laptops over $999, desktops over $699).

— Charlie Stross of Antipope.org.

The Point

Seth Godin and 37Signals both recommend marketing yourself to the early adopters and geeks. Apple, however, does the opposite. They market themselves to the middle market — the incredibly non-technical. The geeks come on their own, with no marketing needed. They love it. And this makes Apple enormously successful.

Develop your software/experience for the masses. Make the geeks love it, but make them find it on their own. Just a thought.