I keep hearing all these pundits who cover Apple trying to find that mysterious, elusive, “X” factor that explains why Apple has become such a phenomenal success and an inspiration to a whole new generation of geeks and hipsters alike. It’s the rise of Mac OS X!…no, it’s the elegant, sophisticated design language!…no, it’s teh Jobs himself!…no, it’s the iPod!…no, it’s the fanatical userbase!…no, it’s the lack of consumer awareness and quality control in other tech companies!…no, it’s all just media hype!…no, it’s…

What few people seem to get is that Apple’s success simply boils down to one thing: Apple is a philosophy, and it’s a philosophy that has been expertly executed for several years and is resonating with a growing number of people sick of the mainstream alternatives. Apple is way more than the sum of its parts, and the story is way more complex than just “Steve Jobs” or “iPod”.

The philosophy of Apple is that people deserve to be treated with respect. Don’t insult me by trying to sell me something that does way more than I need it to, looks crappy, and fails all the time in bizarre and frustrating ways. The simple, elegant design of Apple products isn’t just “cool”, it’s respecting the user. Take the iPod: it’s a very polite piece of hardware. It has a screen and a wheel. You can turn the wheel to pick logical options like Music. You look in your music, and you find the thing you want. Press the button, and you get your music. That’s it. No muss, no fuss, no blinking lights, no confusing array of buttons, no illogical myriad of options. It. Just. Works.

Or take Mac OS X. I loaned an old iMac G4 of mine to an older friend who’s in her 60’s. She used Windows for some office work years ago, but since then she hasn’t even had a personal computer and only occasionally went to the library to check e-mail and look at some Web sites. Once we got her set up with a Mac and showed her a few basics, she got going with it right away (with some help from her very smart little grandkids). Now she raves about the Mac and has told me numerous times how much more fun it is to use than Windows. In her words, it just makes sense and stuff is where you think it should be. Everything’s laid out in a simple, intuitive, logical, elegant fashion. Little does she know that a rock-solid, powerful UNIX core is blazing in the heart of her cute little machine.

Again, this is more that just “cool design, man” — it’s a deep-seated philosophy that the user should be treated with respect. Don’t insult them with multiple layers of obtuse, mystifying functions. Don’t bog the system down with badly-engineered code sludge, outdated technology, and irrelevant add-ons. Keep the visual look of the system smooth, functional, explanatory. Use eye candy to enhance the explorability of the interface, not just to get in the way and be annoying.

When I buy Apple products, I don’t just buy some hunk of metal with code loaded on it. I buy a complete, thought through, precision instrument designed to respect my intelligence and my time and give me exactly what I need to get the job done as well as make it an enjoyable experience. When I use Apple, I know I’m supporting a company that will support me if something goes wrong, and I know that I’m part of a committed userbase that also cares deeply about design and quality. The rise and fall of products on the Mac platform has sometimes come down to the sheer visual quality of the interface. Mac users care about quality.

So again, to the pundits out there who are constantly trying to figure out why Apple is so successful, don’t look at any one element. Look at the whole. Look at the philosophy. Apple is a mindset, and the more people “get it”, the more they’ll become dedicated customers and the company will continue to grow. We haven’t even come close to seeing the end of the rise of AAPL, my friends.