There are two things that come to mind when I think of how/why Apple has become so successful:
1) I don't remember when Steve said this, but years ago he talked about building "the whole widget", instead of buying bits & pieces from other companies, and hoping they fit together and will play nicely. Related to this is user experience. While other companies focused specs and features?because they assumed that to consumers, "size matters"?Apple focused on making products that people would want to use. Doesn't matter if it's 5 MHz or 500 GHz, as long as it helps you do what you want to do. Apple's philosophy for years as been to get the technology out of the way, so that the user can do what he/she wants to do. And clearly, Apple has made the right choices: they're making more money and selling more (and more expensive!) products than anyone else, and in a crappy global economy, when you'd think that people would want to save their money and buy "cheaper" stuff.
2) Apple is huge, but very very streamlined. Unlike many other companies (Samsung, Sony, Motorola, HP, etc.) which make a gazillion products in the attempt to please as many people as possible, Apple makes just a few, and there's not much overlap between them. Other companies are operating on the assumption that customers want choices?isn't that the first thing that Android acolytes say? That Android is "open" and you have more "choices".
When I was in design school, we were told that you *don't* want to give your client a gazillion choices. What you want to do, is find out what their needs are (and try to anticipate/read between the lines as well), work on a gazillion options in your studio, away from the client, and then present the client with three, or better yet, two of your best results.
Where to go from here? It's highly unlikely that Apple will squander their success and start making dumb choices. It's pretty clear that there's an ethos there that will not soon dissipate. Tim Cook may not be the charismatic, visionary leader that Steve Jobs was, but he knows what he's doing, and I think he believes in what Apple is doing, and knows that they're on the right track, so he will push his people to keep going. Same with Jony Ive. He's become more disciplined over the years, and is designing products that are simple, functional and beautiful. He's designing stuff that he wants to make, not what some market research surveys says he should make.
I keep thinking that Apple should break back into the enterprise space, but on the other hand, why do they want/need to? There are more consumers and laypersons in the world than there are engineers and IT people. And IT departments will want/need to buy their hardware at the lowest prices they can, and Apple doesn't do bargain-basement, volume discounts. It's highly unlikely that Apple would "waste" money building servers or blades or whatever for 3-5% profit margin. That said, I would still like to see an Apple Enterprise division. It would just be cool to see racks of Apple servers, or Apple-based render farms, or data-houses building their own clouds using iCloud as their model (licensed, of course!). That would once-and-for-all close the whole "Apple doesn't make real computers" argument. Then again, trolls never really go away, do they?
Someone mentioned the possibility that Apple might enter the automotive arena. I don't think they'd actually build cars, but I could see them partnering with major auto manufacturers to embed a lot of Apple tech (Siri, navigation, iTunes, communications, etc.) into new cars. You wouldn't even need to bring your iPod with you, or you could, but you wouldn't need to plug it in. The car's built-in wifi/bluetooth, or mobile network connection would grab your playlist off of your device, or sync with your playlist from the house while it's parked outside and start playing your music whenever you like.
Hmmmm... Maybe once they've conquered planet Earth (by 2015, I predict), they could use that "spaceship" they're building to establish a colony on Mars.
Comments
1) I don't remember when Steve said this, but years ago he talked about building "the whole widget", instead of buying bits & pieces from other companies, and hoping they fit together and will play nicely. Related to this is user experience. While other companies focused specs and features?because they assumed that to consumers, "size matters"?Apple focused on making products that people would want to use. Doesn't matter if it's 5 MHz or 500 GHz, as long as it helps you do what you want to do. Apple's philosophy for years as been to get the technology out of the way, so that the user can do what he/she wants to do. And clearly, Apple has made the right choices: they're making more money and selling more (and more expensive!) products than anyone else, and in a crappy global economy, when you'd think that people would want to save their money and buy "cheaper" stuff.
2) Apple is huge, but very very streamlined. Unlike many other companies (Samsung, Sony, Motorola, HP, etc.) which make a gazillion products in the attempt to please as many people as possible, Apple makes just a few, and there's not much overlap between them. Other companies are operating on the assumption that customers want choices?isn't that the first thing that Android acolytes say? That Android is "open" and you have more "choices".
When I was in design school, we were told that you *don't* want to give your client a gazillion choices. What you want to do, is find out what their needs are (and try to anticipate/read between the lines as well), work on a gazillion options in your studio, away from the client, and then present the client with three, or better yet, two of your best results.
Where to go from here? It's highly unlikely that Apple will squander their success and start making dumb choices. It's pretty clear that there's an ethos there that will not soon dissipate. Tim Cook may not be the charismatic, visionary leader that Steve Jobs was, but he knows what he's doing, and I think he believes in what Apple is doing, and knows that they're on the right track, so he will push his people to keep going. Same with Jony Ive. He's become more disciplined over the years, and is designing products that are simple, functional and beautiful. He's designing stuff that he wants to make, not what some market research surveys says he should make.
I keep thinking that Apple should break back into the enterprise space, but on the other hand, why do they want/need to? There are more consumers and laypersons in the world than there are engineers and IT people. And IT departments will want/need to buy their hardware at the lowest prices they can, and Apple doesn't do bargain-basement, volume discounts. It's highly unlikely that Apple would "waste" money building servers or blades or whatever for 3-5% profit margin. That said, I would still like to see an Apple Enterprise division. It would just be cool to see racks of Apple servers, or Apple-based render farms, or data-houses building their own clouds using iCloud as their model (licensed, of course!). That would once-and-for-all close the whole "Apple doesn't make real computers" argument. Then again, trolls never really go away, do they?
Someone mentioned the possibility that Apple might enter the automotive arena. I don't think they'd actually build cars, but I could see them partnering with major auto manufacturers to embed a lot of Apple tech (Siri, navigation, iTunes, communications, etc.) into new cars. You wouldn't even need to bring your iPod with you, or you could, but you wouldn't need to plug it in. The car's built-in wifi/bluetooth, or mobile network connection would grab your playlist off of your device, or sync with your playlist from the house while it's parked outside and start playing your music whenever you like.
Hmmmm... Maybe once they've conquered planet Earth (by 2015, I predict), they could use that "spaceship" they're building to establish a colony on Mars.