I'm really finding it difficult to follow the author's logic here.
He starts off with the title
"What Tim Cook's Apple has in common with Porsche's Cayenne?",
but then the only comment he makes regarding porche is ..
"Just think what Porsche’s hardcore users said when they first saw Porsche Cayenne. “Betrayal!”, “It’s not a Porsche!”. And yet it made a killing when it comes to sales. Think Mercedes A Class, BMW 1…"
The rest of the article goes on in the same vein with quotes here and there, peace time/wartime something or other but essentially what he's saying is..
What people who demand innovations from Apple don't get is they are resting on their laurels? Taking it easy and raking profits? Riding on the coattails of their previous innovations. We get that. It's obvious and it's a deadend. It happened to Cannon, Sony, Nintendo, Intel etc etc. That's why people who get it want Apple to innovate.
Don't forget more relevantly, RIM who had the smartphone market completely locked up but couldn't get comfortable with a large, keyboardless, touchscreen device that was graphically oriented despite Microsoft having created these devices before the iPhone explosion. The question is are the innovations coming out of non-Apple mobile computing on par with the touchscreen/gui revolution of the late 2000s. Water Resistant? Wireless Charging? Wearables? Voice Control? None seem likely to supplant the basic form factor.
After all, post 1995, there wasn't a major innovation in the desktop or mobile pc market that took over. Flat Panel monitors maybe. Desktops and Laptops are simply faster and possibly smaller versions of what we had then.
The point I'm making is that tech innovation is going to shif t to something outside handheld. Cloud, IOT, VR/AR, AI, Wearables, Voice are leading contenders right now and Apple is certainly thinking about all of them.
The author's point is that the proper and profitable way to run a company - once it's crossed the chasm - is the way Cook is running now.
You needed Jobs (or someone like him) to get Apple to where it is now by doing things that fit the early adopter market. But once you have done it, it becomes the wrong thing to do - because doing what the early adopters want/need will hurt the much larger, much more profitable part of the business and customers that actually do prefer the stability.
It's not a dead end - it's harvesting the field you've planted instead of neglecting it to try other fields/crops; it's what the shareholders would likely prefer and unsurprisingly they have done so.
As a shareholder, I have to admit I've lost a little confidence in Tim Cook. He's a fantastic operations guy, but lacks a founder's vision, drive and risk-taking mentality. I also think companies, unlike governments, are best run by dictators. With Tim, it seems like decisions are community (in terms of employee) driven instead of coming from his vision.
With that said, I'm still a huge Apple fan boy. The stock's fundamentals are off the charts, look at P/E, solid dividend, and huge piles of cash on hand. Not sold on the 1 billion investment in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi Chuxing (I can't connect the dots right now).
Dictators can run governments the best. too. The problem is they can be also the worst. And the whole inheritance thing.
Apple's problem right now is not so much Cook's objective qualities, but perception. And perception leads to positive feedback loops and self fulfilling prophecies.
If the market sees Apple as company in trouble, some part of it will also start seeing themselves that way. And the company will start behaving appropriately.
Perception has been a huge part to Apple's success. Steve could bend perception by force of will. Watching his old keynotes, the reality he creates around the products becomes a part of them. Real or not. An Ive video just doesn't replace that, and Cook can't even approach it.
>He's a fantastic operations guy, but lacks a founder's vision, drive and risk-taking mentality.
If there's one thing I've learned in my corporate serfdom is that primadonnas can't handle other primadonnas. Do you think Steve Jobs would be able to work with another Steve Jobs? Jobs picked Cook because Cook wasn't Jobs, so Jobs was able to tolerate him. The problem is a company like Apple probably needs a Jobs-like character.
I see this all the time in the workplace. The difficult higher-ups always hire fairly milquetoast personalities they can easily control but when they leave, we now have a department of largely unmotivated 'yes men,' unable to do anything but take orders.
> The problem is a company like Apple probably needs a Jobs-like character.
I have been, idly, placing bets with myself on an Apple buy-out of Tesla, shades of Apple's buy-out of NeXT -- not merely to get a lead on the auto industry, but to get a new visionary leader on board in the shape of Musk.
(But I don't think Musk wants to lead a company he didn't build for himself: he doesn't want to just eat his cake, he wants to bake it from scratch.)
I suspect Musk is too busy with sexy technology like rockets and electric and self-driving cars to be bothered with agonizing over what Walmart moms think is a good phone. Apple isn't this hot sexy thing anymore, its the standard bearer of the mobile revolution which has become a fairly boring part of everyone's lives. I can't imagine a personality like Musk doing that job. It would seem like a caretaker job I imagine.
>As a shareholder, I have to admit I've lost a little confidence in Tim Cook. He's a fantastic operations guy, but lacks a founder's vision, drive and risk-taking mentality.
The same guy who's (from all we know) pivoting Apple into car making?
"... it matters to you whether your phone has 64 or 128 GB of RAM"
Holy Cow! I want that phone! I've only got 8 GB of RAM on my desktop.
"The first iPhone had apps..."
The only apps the original iPhone had were the kind you could get on any feature phone: weather, stocks, etc... It wasn't until later that the app store opened and really changed things.
As a whole, the article seems incredibly uninformed about technology. I would give the author a pass, but their conclusion doesn't seem to agree with history either. When the iPhone and iPad were released they were incredibly expensive and dismissed as toys for geeks. Less than a decade later those two devices have revolutionized technology and given Apple a dominant position. Apple has already crossed the chasm. Not with MacBooks, but with iPhones.
Yeah, even if you argue that the sideloaded app stores and whatnot that you could put on a jailbroken iPod Touch (remember those?) and 1st gen iPhones existed for a little before the official App Store, it was hardly the experience people think of today when talking about apps.
>Holy Cow! I want that phone! I've only got 8 GB of RAM on my desktop.
They probably had in mind smartphone disk storage options.
That said, technically speaking, they are correct in a pedantic way: a phone's SSD is also RAM, as there's a constant time of accessing any random address on the drive.
I think MacBooks were created after the market crossed the chasm already. There was nothing revolutionary about those laptops. They just keep on improving them, making them… thinner.
There's no lack of opportunities. But I'm seeing Apple struggling with keeping its current technology working as well as it has in the past - never mind building incredible cool new stuff.
>But I'm seeing Apple struggling with keeping its current technology working as well as it has in the past
I find that mostly a myth. The original OS X (10.0.1 or something) was a terrible release. It took until 10.2 to be usable. The G3 iBooks had thousands upon thousands of broken logic boards. The G5 leaked green cooling goo. The Cube was overheating. Don't get me started on the quality of their mice until the Magic Mouse. And most OS X releases, with 1-2 exceptions (Snow Leopard for one) were met with complaints and tales of horror (In fact El Capitan has been a big success in this regard -- hardly many complaints as with previous versions). XCode has been especially crappy before 6 (and doubly so before 4).
There will always be problems when you make tens of millions of devices and 100+ software titles, including 2 full OSes, a programming language, browser, down to NLEs and DAWs...
There might be more complaints today, but there are also 20x more Apple users than in 2005, and 10x more advanced ecosystem. Back then we discussed rumors for months and we cheered if the newly released iPod had cutting-edge features like a "color screen" (awe) or "video playback" (gasp).
Now we expect a fully working phone, a top notch compact camera, 4k video, retina display, 1.000.000+ apps in the app store, 4-5 different sensors, quick 3D graphics, fingerprint sensors, wi-fi, light on battery bluetooth 4, and tons more besides, which we take for granted, merely 9 years after then.
What people demanding innovation from Apple don't get is that as a corporation Apple cares only about profit. If the profit happens to require innovation then there will be innovation , but besides this it's pointless thing.
Usually the innovations in marketing are enough to keep the sales.
26 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 63.1 ms ] threadHe starts off with the title
"What Tim Cook's Apple has in common with Porsche's Cayenne?",
but then the only comment he makes regarding porche is ..
"Just think what Porsche’s hardcore users said when they first saw Porsche Cayenne. “Betrayal!”, “It’s not a Porsche!”. And yet it made a killing when it comes to sales. Think Mercedes A Class, BMW 1…"
The rest of the article goes on in the same vein with quotes here and there, peace time/wartime something or other but essentially what he's saying is..
What people who demand innovations from Apple don't get is they are resting on their laurels? Taking it easy and raking profits? Riding on the coattails of their previous innovations. We get that. It's obvious and it's a deadend. It happened to Cannon, Sony, Nintendo, Intel etc etc. That's why people who get it want Apple to innovate.
After all, post 1995, there wasn't a major innovation in the desktop or mobile pc market that took over. Flat Panel monitors maybe. Desktops and Laptops are simply faster and possibly smaller versions of what we had then.
The point I'm making is that tech innovation is going to shif t to something outside handheld. Cloud, IOT, VR/AR, AI, Wearables, Voice are leading contenders right now and Apple is certainly thinking about all of them.
You needed Jobs (or someone like him) to get Apple to where it is now by doing things that fit the early adopter market. But once you have done it, it becomes the wrong thing to do - because doing what the early adopters want/need will hurt the much larger, much more profitable part of the business and customers that actually do prefer the stability.
It's not a dead end - it's harvesting the field you've planted instead of neglecting it to try other fields/crops; it's what the shareholders would likely prefer and unsurprisingly they have done so.
With that said, I'm still a huge Apple fan boy. The stock's fundamentals are off the charts, look at P/E, solid dividend, and huge piles of cash on hand. Not sold on the 1 billion investment in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi Chuxing (I can't connect the dots right now).
Apple's problem right now is not so much Cook's objective qualities, but perception. And perception leads to positive feedback loops and self fulfilling prophecies.
If the market sees Apple as company in trouble, some part of it will also start seeing themselves that way. And the company will start behaving appropriately.
If there's one thing I've learned in my corporate serfdom is that primadonnas can't handle other primadonnas. Do you think Steve Jobs would be able to work with another Steve Jobs? Jobs picked Cook because Cook wasn't Jobs, so Jobs was able to tolerate him. The problem is a company like Apple probably needs a Jobs-like character.
I see this all the time in the workplace. The difficult higher-ups always hire fairly milquetoast personalities they can easily control but when they leave, we now have a department of largely unmotivated 'yes men,' unable to do anything but take orders.
I have been, idly, placing bets with myself on an Apple buy-out of Tesla, shades of Apple's buy-out of NeXT -- not merely to get a lead on the auto industry, but to get a new visionary leader on board in the shape of Musk.
(But I don't think Musk wants to lead a company he didn't build for himself: he doesn't want to just eat his cake, he wants to bake it from scratch.)
The same guy who's (from all we know) pivoting Apple into car making?
Even before the iPhone was introduced, the phone market was huge by volume if not revenue.
"... it matters to you whether your phone has 64 or 128 GB of RAM"
Holy Cow! I want that phone! I've only got 8 GB of RAM on my desktop.
"The first iPhone had apps..."
The only apps the original iPhone had were the kind you could get on any feature phone: weather, stocks, etc... It wasn't until later that the app store opened and really changed things.
As a whole, the article seems incredibly uninformed about technology. I would give the author a pass, but their conclusion doesn't seem to agree with history either. When the iPhone and iPad were released they were incredibly expensive and dismissed as toys for geeks. Less than a decade later those two devices have revolutionized technology and given Apple a dominant position. Apple has already crossed the chasm. Not with MacBooks, but with iPhones.
They probably had in mind smartphone disk storage options.
That said, technically speaking, they are correct in a pedantic way: a phone's SSD is also RAM, as there's a constant time of accessing any random address on the drive.
There's no lack of opportunities. But I'm seeing Apple struggling with keeping its current technology working as well as it has in the past - never mind building incredible cool new stuff.
I find that mostly a myth. The original OS X (10.0.1 or something) was a terrible release. It took until 10.2 to be usable. The G3 iBooks had thousands upon thousands of broken logic boards. The G5 leaked green cooling goo. The Cube was overheating. Don't get me started on the quality of their mice until the Magic Mouse. And most OS X releases, with 1-2 exceptions (Snow Leopard for one) were met with complaints and tales of horror (In fact El Capitan has been a big success in this regard -- hardly many complaints as with previous versions). XCode has been especially crappy before 6 (and doubly so before 4).
There will always be problems when you make tens of millions of devices and 100+ software titles, including 2 full OSes, a programming language, browser, down to NLEs and DAWs...
There might be more complaints today, but there are also 20x more Apple users than in 2005, and 10x more advanced ecosystem. Back then we discussed rumors for months and we cheered if the newly released iPod had cutting-edge features like a "color screen" (awe) or "video playback" (gasp).
Now we expect a fully working phone, a top notch compact camera, 4k video, retina display, 1.000.000+ apps in the app store, 4-5 different sensors, quick 3D graphics, fingerprint sensors, wi-fi, light on battery bluetooth 4, and tons more besides, which we take for granted, merely 9 years after then.