The linked article is a detailed criticism of Apple, and ends with this quote from Phil Schiller, from his appearance on John Gruber’s WWDC Talk Show, back in June of 2015:
We don’t need to be told how great we are, and how big we are. It’s not about that, and we don’t want it to become about that. It’s not about P/Es, and it’s not about market value. I mean, sure, the finance team has to worry about that. But for the rest of us, it’s about: Are we making the best product? Do people love what we do? Is it changing lives? And if it isn’t, then beat us up until it is.
Take some time to read the whole piece. There are some common themes (notably, the way Apple approaches UX and content discovery), and the sense is that the author is truly trying to help spot problems, rather than (as the title suggests), point to Apple’s inevitable doom.
[H/T Shameer Mulji]
“Once in charge, one of the first things these operations/execution CEOs do is to get rid of the chaos and turbulence in the organization. Execution CEOs value stability, process and repeatable execution. On one hand that’s great for predictability, but it often starts a creative death spiral — creative people start to leave, and other executors (without the innovation talent of the old leader) are put into more senior roles — hiring more process people, which in turn forces out the remaining creative talent. This culture shift ripples down from the top and what once felt like a company on a mission to change the world now feels like another job.”
Pretty spot on.
I really didn’t care for this article. I don’t necessarily disagree with its conclusions, but I found the actual writing style very wanting.
It didn’t seem to have a lot of facts to back up positions, it read much more like opinions and feelings. I’m surprised to see social media talking it up so much. The entire Forstall portion seemed like someone that just really liked Forstall (and the contradiction that Forstall apologized for MobileMe and iOS4 but not Maps? That bit of writing seemed… odd)
I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, maybe it is. I’m sure books will (are? have?) be written about this. But Apple today is not Apple of 2007 or 1997. All three Apples are radically different. What worked then may not work today. Or maybe it will? But I don’t see how folks can read so much into the ousting of one person when no one on the outside really knows what went down and why. Not saying this is true, but what if Forstall threw a hissy fit over the flattening of the UI and basically said “either keep my iOS 6 UI or I’m walking”? Why is Cook the bad guy in this narrative? (Not saying he isn’t, just saying this article seems to draw conclusions from … alt-facts)
Many valid points I agree with here.
As of late, I can’t help wonder if Apple management enjoys using their products and how much they use them. It would seem to me they use them partially. E.g., do any of them enjoy using Siri or Maps or Apple TV or Music? Do any of them create content on their devices other than calendar entries, email, reminders, contacts, notes and the occasional letter in Pages? I doubt any of them have ever actually used iBooks Author. But I do think they use Messages quite a lot. They’re always releasing new emojis. I can only imagine how they all stood around and hi-fived one another after their last iOS launch, “great fucking emoji’s guys!”
And no, none of them actually use a Thunderbolt Display. I’d be genuinely surprised if they even allow any of the new LG monitors in Apple Campus. “You want a second or third monitor for your MBP? Fuck off we don’t make those anymore, learn to make do with your iPad Pro”.
I find it interesting that he doesn’t mention, at all, OS X and the Mac line.
Some his points are spot on. Some might be being worked on, or not. (the iOS stuff in particular). Some of the piece, though, feels like an extended “If Steve Jobs were alive….” and not only isn’t he, the post misses that Jobs isn’t replaceable. It’s not only that he had an almost unique product sense, it’s that he had founder power. Steve started Apple. He was booted, then came back and took it from the brink of death to amazing success.
That kind of authority isn’t transferable to other people no matter how good they are.
You don’t seem to realize that emoji releases aren’t created by apple — they’re new versions of the symbols which are ratified by a multi-org committee, and if your org fails to implement them users get an ugly, empty box symbol.
Nice strawman.
Yeah, but the emoji was a small part of his argument….people forget that they had almost a whole 2016 WWDC on emoji…I think that is what Caleb meant.
Apple has real problems, the products for the last few years have not been nearly up to standards, but they are not dead or dying or doomed. The worst part of it all is they can go on for decades shipping IBM-approved corporate schlock, all under the counter-culture Apple logo that used to mean something.
So If you want to critique Apple, you should be very careful to not fall into the trap of saying they are doomed, because it takes away all credibility. Instead, just detail the very real failures and problems.
And on the other hand, the people who stick their fingers in their ears and pretend that nothing has changed are even worse. Tim Cook fired the head of iOS software first thing and Apple’s software is no longer leading the industry only a few years later. The price in real dollars for all of their products has almost doubled over the past few years, even as the number of middle class people has fallen dramatically due to political corruption at the highest levels, and even as commodity choices have matured. All of the art is gone from Apple products. The iPhone has the personality of a Braun potato peeler. The user interfaces are absurd. Apple tells us Macs do not need touch screens, yet they keep inventing new workarounds for the lack of a touchscreen on the Mac. They put all the weight of porting Mac to iPad on developers and there are almost no Mac apps on iPad. Mac apps are Apple’s crown jewels but they have forgotten that again.
Check this out:
• MacBook sells much less than the MacBook Air it replaced
• MacBook Pro 2016 and MacBook Pro 2012 both sell much less than the MacBook Pro 2010
• Mac Pro trash can sells much less than cheese grater Mac Pro
… and in each case, for very significant and obvious reasons.
So there is no shortage of failure to talk about. But you have to talk about it from the perspective of an artist or designer, not finance people, because finance people are happy with the current products. A pen-based computer for business people and one without a pen for artists makes sense to business people because they think they are creative.
I’ll refer again to the Bauhaus school of design. 90% of the high end design professionals I’ve known are enamoured of Bauhaus and attempt to incorporate its principles in as much of their work as they can. 99% of actual human beings who live in the day to day world despise what Bauhaus design foists on them and tells them to “get used to”. And analyzed by any sort of objective metric the ordinary humans are correct: 90% or more of Bauhaus design is horrible for actual living (as opposed to strolling in a modern art gallery).
Jonathan Ive is clearly enamoured of Bauhaus.
So why do they market them as a major enhancement? I guess because they have so little to show for their year of hard work. I’d rather they make announcements when they are meaningful, rather than cyclical.
It’s a great thing if all you care about is commoditizing your biggest achievement and preventing the creation of anything new. Horace Dediu writes and speaks about this quite a bit.
The decline in personal-computer sales is industry-wide, no?