That's not how Apple makes decisions at all. The profits are assumed to come AFTER making a great product. Profits are not the decision driver in designing the products. There is so much evidence of this in Apple's history that has been well documented, it's now silly to even suggest otherwise.
You mistake the strategy for the goal.
The goal is to maximize long-run, total profits.
The strategy is to accomplish that by making great products.
Apple is trying to dictate the market. Which is exactly why Apple threw the hammer at IBM in 1984.
(Kinda like the old saying, "When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.")
Paranoid much? I think what you're upset about (which is something in and of itself that you should be concerned about) is that the market has preferred Apple's approach. It's actually vice versa from your suggestion. The "market" is the consumer. It's hard to argue that the "market" has voluntarily chosen to purchase the Apple product. I guess you could fall back on the "marketing" and "blind allegiance" explanation, but the numbers put us quite a bit past that now.
There are plenty of alternatives in each of Apple's product categories - smartphones, tablets, music players, PCs. People are free to purchase a Kindle Fire over an iPad, and some do. I'm pretty sure, other than market demands based on what Apple has shown is possible, Amazon didn't take any instructions from Apple when designing the Kindle Fire.
It's Zither, what do you expect. His posts are not based on a shred of truth. Apple could be doing so much more if it simply was concerned about profits and marketshare.
If Apple thought that increased marketshare was a path to greater total profits Apple would strive to increase their marketshare.
Do you really think they do things that they believe will result in lowering their total profits? Why would any publicly traded megacorporation do that?
The strategy is to accomplish that by making great products.
You do know that your previous posts are still visible, right? Your original assertion was that the maximization of profits drive Apple's product design decisions. The evidence, collected over the years from much documenting of Apple's internal decision making process, is that this is patently false. Apple does not make product design decisions based on the maximization of profits. They make many other profit focused decisions like where to manufacture and how to best source of components, but product design is definitely not in that category.
?We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn?t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren?t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.
When you?re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you?re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You?ll know it?s there, so you?re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.?
Steve Jobs said this in an interview in 1997. This is what I think Apple, or Jony if you will, means when they use the word "better".
Sir Jony is widely regarded as one of the best designers in world and by all accounts a pretty crazy and passionate guy who any designer would dream to work for. Plus he's English! The queen will be furious if she reads this article and sees that you haven't prefixed his name with Sir.
You do know that your previous posts are still visible, right? Your original assertion was that the maximization of profits drive Apple's product design decisions.
Nope, not quite.
The maximization of total profits drives everything that Apple does. Not just design, but everything.
What a ridiculous, ridiculous analogy. The similarity of those 2 phones is analogous that cars have tires and wheels? How many phones looked like that before the iPhone? Let's discern the similarities in that pic:
- Almost identical shape
- identical number and arrangement of icons (4x4 grid)
- identical concept of a dock
- same gray dock background
- black background
- same concept of dots to symbolize # of screens
- eerily similar icons. ie why did the phone icon need to havr the same green background color, the same handset shape and angle, etc. There's an infinite # of ways to design it.
There wasn't a single phone that looked anywhere near this before the iPhone, never mind the numerous amounts of small and large details that are shamelessly identical, and which could have easily been done countless other ways. An equivalent analogy to your car example would be 'phones have a screen, have a speaker, earpiece, and make calls'. Extending it to include the countless specific similarities in that photo is idiotic. Car manufacturers have been pretty good at making unique designs. That comment of yours seems like a shameless troll, because you can't possibly believe what you said.
I agree the Samsung is a bit of a copy of the iPhone, but lets not give to much credit. My Motorola razr had a 3 x 4 grid of icons as did the Sony I had before that. The shape of the origional iPhone is also square with rounded corners, a shape Steve jobs stated as being the most common shape in the world, so its not that surprising smartphones all end up looking like an iPhone.
Does anyone else think Jonny I've must have one of the most chilled out jobs in the world. It seems like he literally designs 2 products a year!!!
You can't be serious. Apple has a lot more than two products and their products take years to develop, not to mention they are constantly working on products that will never see the light of day.
But even if it was just one product there is nothing chill or laid back about a product that has excessive attention and concern to detail. In many ways it's easier to put out multiple variations of products that sell in less quantity, have less strict quality controls, and can be altered with a slight change to the injection mold machine.
Didn't Ives spend months in China training robots to fight in underground fighting leagues... or something?
I have a few requests for Jony. Can we please have a full size bluetooth keyboard? How about number pads for the macbooks? It is so counter productive to NOT have these. If it offends your visual aesthetics to build a number pad, then how about building it into the touchpad. Can you please build a better mouse. It feels like a light weight sliver of soap. It needs to feel more substantial. Don't tell me to to go buy a third party device. For celebrated designer, there are some serious flaws. They may seem trivial. But from a company and designer that is know for its attention to small details the keyboards and mouse need to be fixed.
I have a few requests for Jony. Can we please have a full size bluetooth keyboard? How about number pads for the macbooks? It is so counter productive to NOT have these. If it offends your visual aesthetics to build a number pad, then how about building it into the touchpad. Can you please build a better mouse. It feels like a light weight sliver of soap. It needs to feel more substantial. Don't tell me to to go buy a third party device. For celebrated designer, there are some serious flaws. They may seem trivial. But from a company and designer that is know for its attention to small details the keyboards and mouse need to be fixed.
The mouse is near perfect for me, even if maybe a little on the heavy side because of the batteries. They might be designed for average hands and tactile sense. Not so good for Sumo wrestlers? Hockey players?
I love when Jony gives interviews b/c the apple haters come out in droves. He fires 'em up almost as much as Steve did.
What's annoying though is if you get one pro-Apple comment people jump all over it and call the poster a fanboi, sheeple, etc. Yet out of 100 comments 90 of them can be anti-Apple and that's OK. Those people don't have an agenda or bias, they're not brainwashed. No they're completely objective.
hmm, well with iOS they should try to get it at least to "good"
but hey they making money... I see it like a nice restaurant you always went to that one day puts hotdogs on the MENU - you just ignore the stupid people who order it.
Remove the branding, and I dare you to discern a Toyota Camry from a Honda Accord or a Hyundai Sonata. They all flipping look the same, but you don't see car manufacturers suing each other, do you?
"What? You mean their car has 4 tires, a steering wheel, and voice activated features TOO?! Get legal on the phone, NOW!!"
I don't know if they sued each other... but they probably could have...
I have a few requests for Jony. Can we please have a full size bluetooth keyboard? How about number pads for the macbooks? It is so counter productive to NOT have these. If it offends your visual aesthetics to build a number pad, then how about building it into the touchpad. Can you please build a better mouse. It feels like a light weight sliver of soap. It needs to feel more substantial. Don't tell me to to go buy a third party device. For celebrated designer, there are some serious flaws. They may seem trivial. But from a company and designer that is know for its attention to small details the keyboards and mouse need to be fixed.
Quite wrong. Microsoft (following on from IBM who really could not get things right) loves heavy feeling clunkers of keyboards and mice. These feel like some horrible growth under the hand. IBM started the trend of putting more keys on keyboards, but on keyboards, less is actually more. For those who are heavy inputters of numbers, I agree with a numeric keypad, but for most of us it is just a waste of space. I now use a trackpad, which really doesn't have any weight factor at all, so long as it doesn't move around. Less is more.
Jony Ive's real comment is that if Apple can't make it better, they don't do it. In other words, unlike most companies that bring out inferior knock-off products in order to share in the profits of a sector, Apple does not work in this blatant commercial way.
Comments
That's not how Apple makes decisions at all. The profits are assumed to come AFTER making a great product. Profits are not the decision driver in designing the products. There is so much evidence of this in Apple's history that has been well documented, it's now silly to even suggest otherwise.
You mistake the strategy for the goal.
The goal is to maximize long-run, total profits.
The strategy is to accomplish that by making great products.
Apple is trying to dictate the market. Which is exactly why Apple threw the hammer at IBM in 1984.
(Kinda like the old saying, "When I want your opinion, I'll give it to you.")
Paranoid much? I think what you're upset about (which is something in and of itself that you should be concerned about) is that the market has preferred Apple's approach. It's actually vice versa from your suggestion. The "market" is the consumer. It's hard to argue that the "market" has voluntarily chosen to purchase the Apple product. I guess you could fall back on the "marketing" and "blind allegiance" explanation, but the numbers put us quite a bit past that now.
There are plenty of alternatives in each of Apple's product categories - smartphones, tablets, music players, PCs. People are free to purchase a Kindle Fire over an iPad, and some do. I'm pretty sure, other than market demands based on what Apple has shown is possible, Amazon didn't take any instructions from Apple when designing the Kindle Fire.
It's Zither, what do you expect. His posts are not based on a shred of truth. Apple could be doing so much more if it simply was concerned about profits and marketshare.
If Apple thought that increased marketshare was a path to greater total profits Apple would strive to increase their marketshare.
Do you really think they do things that they believe will result in lowering their total profits? Why would any publicly traded megacorporation do that?
You mistake the strategy for the goal.
The goal is to maximize long-run, total profits.
The strategy is to accomplish that by making great products.
You do know that your previous posts are still visible, right? Your original assertion was that the maximization of profits drive Apple's product design decisions. The evidence, collected over the years from much documenting of Apple's internal decision making process, is that this is patently false. Apple does not make product design decisions based on the maximization of profits. They make many other profit focused decisions like where to manufacture and how to best source of components, but product design is definitely not in that category.
But define 'better.'
?We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn?t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren?t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.
When you?re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you?re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You?ll know it?s there, so you?re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.?
Steve Jobs said this in an interview in 1997. This is what I think Apple, or Jony if you will, means when they use the word "better".
You do know that your previous posts are still visible, right? Your original assertion was that the maximization of profits drive Apple's product design decisions.
Nope, not quite.
The maximization of total profits drives everything that Apple does. Not just design, but everything.
What a ridiculous, ridiculous analogy. The similarity of those 2 phones is analogous that cars have tires and wheels? How many phones looked like that before the iPhone? Let's discern the similarities in that pic:
- Almost identical shape
- identical number and arrangement of icons (4x4 grid)
- identical concept of a dock
- same gray dock background
- black background
- same concept of dots to symbolize # of screens
- eerily similar icons. ie why did the phone icon need to havr the same green background color, the same handset shape and angle, etc. There's an infinite # of ways to design it.
There wasn't a single phone that looked anywhere near this before the iPhone, never mind the numerous amounts of small and large details that are shamelessly identical, and which could have easily been done countless other ways. An equivalent analogy to your car example would be 'phones have a screen, have a speaker, earpiece, and make calls'. Extending it to include the countless specific similarities in that photo is idiotic. Car manufacturers have been pretty good at making unique designs. That comment of yours seems like a shameless troll, because you can't possibly believe what you said.
I agree the Samsung is a bit of a copy of the iPhone, but lets not give to much credit. My Motorola razr had a 3 x 4 grid of icons as did the Sony I had before that. The shape of the origional iPhone is also square with rounded corners, a shape Steve jobs stated as being the most common shape in the world, so its not that surprising smartphones all end up looking like an iPhone.
Does anyone else think Jonny I've must have one of the most chilled out jobs in the world. It seems like he literally designs 2 products a year!!!
You can't be serious. Apple has a lot more than two products and their products take years to develop, not to mention they are constantly working on products that will never see the light of day.
But even if it was just one product there is nothing chill or laid back about a product that has excessive attention and concern to detail. In many ways it's easier to put out multiple variations of products that sell in less quantity, have less strict quality controls, and can be altered with a slight change to the injection mold machine.
Didn't Ives spend months in China training robots to fight in underground fighting leagues... or something?
I have a few requests for Jony. Can we please have a full size bluetooth keyboard? How about number pads for the macbooks? It is so counter productive to NOT have these. If it offends your visual aesthetics to build a number pad, then how about building it into the touchpad. Can you please build a better mouse. It feels like a light weight sliver of soap. It needs to feel more substantial. Don't tell me to to go buy a third party device. For celebrated designer, there are some serious flaws. They may seem trivial. But from a company and designer that is know for its attention to small details the keyboards and mouse need to be fixed.
The mouse is near perfect for me, even if maybe a little on the heavy side because of the batteries. They might be designed for average hands and tactile sense. Not so good for Sumo wrestlers? Hockey players?
Does anyone else think Jonny I've must have one of the most chilled out jobs in the world. It seems like he literally designs 2 products a year!!!
He says in the original interview that they will work for months on one small detail. You should read it, then get back to us.
What's annoying though is if you get one pro-Apple comment people jump all over it and call the poster a fanboi, sheeple, etc. Yet out of 100 comments 90 of them can be anti-Apple and that's OK. Those people don't have an agenda or bias, they're not brainwashed. No they're completely objective.
hmm, well with iOS they should try to get it at least to "good"
but hey they making money... I see it like a nice restaurant you always went to that one day puts hotdogs on the MENU - you just ignore the stupid people who order it.
Seriously, go get a life!
Remove the branding, and I dare you to discern a Toyota Camry from a Honda Accord or a Hyundai Sonata. They all flipping look the same, but you don't see car manufacturers suing each other, do you?
"What? You mean their car has 4 tires, a steering wheel, and voice activated features TOO?! Get legal on the phone, NOW!!"
I don't know if they sued each other... but they probably could have...
no similarity here either ....
Funny how in India you can see a photo of the iPhone with the Samsung logo underneath. I wonder if this is the case in other countries.
I have a few requests for Jony. Can we please have a full size bluetooth keyboard? How about number pads for the macbooks? It is so counter productive to NOT have these. If it offends your visual aesthetics to build a number pad, then how about building it into the touchpad. Can you please build a better mouse. It feels like a light weight sliver of soap. It needs to feel more substantial. Don't tell me to to go buy a third party device. For celebrated designer, there are some serious flaws. They may seem trivial. But from a company and designer that is know for its attention to small details the keyboards and mouse need to be fixed.
Quite wrong. Microsoft (following on from IBM who really could not get things right) loves heavy feeling clunkers of keyboards and mice. These feel like some horrible growth under the hand. IBM started the trend of putting more keys on keyboards, but on keyboards, less is actually more. For those who are heavy inputters of numbers, I agree with a numeric keypad, but for most of us it is just a waste of space. I now use a trackpad, which really doesn't have any weight factor at all, so long as it doesn't move around. Less is more.