tedz98

New product secrecy and IP are clearly very important to Apple. But Apple’s success has created a demand for advance product information unlike any other in any industry. A whole industry of predicting Apple’s product strategy has developed over the years. In many ways that’s a measure of just how successful Apple has been. Of course it’s not just the fan boys who want inside information. It’s also the Wall Street crowd. But Tim has to be careful. Creating a corporate culture that’s so locked down in the interest of protecting information can in fact stymie innovation, communication and colleagueality. I think leaks need to be an accepted reality of life at Apple. “Doubling down” is just a heavy hammer threat that may or may not produce the desired outcomes and could have unforeseen negative consequences. Apple needs to grow its disinformation capabilities vs. trying to plug all the leaks in the organization. As far as preventing the leaking of internal organizational information/emails/meeting notes, that too is mission impossible. In an organization with 150k employees you will never succeed in preventing external data transfer. You’ll never have 150k happy employees. So there will always be disgruntled staff who feel a need to share internal information with outsiders as a way of seeking retribution. Perhaps internal communication needs to be segmented and true open communication is an unattainable dream. Tim needs to manage to this reality.

How much performance do people want out of a handheld computer? How much performance is actually needed? Unless Apple significantly increases the number of megapixels in their camera I’d argue you don’t need any more performance than what the 13 Pro offers. The challenge Apple has is they need to continuously offer “compelling” reasons to justify the premium price of the iPhone. Android has a superior market share. But Apple has an incredible share of the market measured in dollars and average price per device sold. The performance numbers are more important with the M series of laptop and desktop CPUs.

Apple should have made 256GB the base storage level for the 13 Pros. It costs them virtually nothing and what good is it to install features in your most capable device if it doesn’t work on all configurations? Bad marketing decision.

The general public has no understanding of what a file hash is. So the techies at Apple have no understanding of how the general public perceives what they are doing. They just think Apple is scanning their phone. I’m not a huge Bill Maher fan, but I agree with him here. It’s a slippery slope that Apple is embarking on.

This information shows that Steve Jobs was looking at product differentiation based on lower cost and smaller size. Apple would do well to continue with that strategy. I would not recommend discontinuing the iPhone 12 mini for those reasons. Having older models at a lower price is one approach. But I’d prefer the latest tech in a smaller package at a lower price.