Source: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-anyt...not-have-approved/answer/Ian-Smyth-2?srid=NO0
(Not written by me.)
Most of these “Steve Jobs would not approve of…” posts are written by ignorant people who have no idea about the history of Apple, the history of the broader computer industry at large, the history of Tim Cook and his inner circle, and the actual technology inside of Apple’s products.
Steve Jobs was often wrong; he was not an all knowing god sent from heaven to craft a perfect company that consistently produced perfect products under his name. The self proclaimed pundits will point to the era in which John Sculley kicked Steve Jobs out (1985 - 1996) and use the many product blunders as evidence that the company is a mess without him.
But Steve Jobs had many flaws. He wanted to scrap the Apple II in favour of the Macintosh, even though the Apple II accounted for the majority of Apple’s revenue. He believed that if they could just lower the price of the Mac, people would realize that it was the future of computing and hop on board. Even though he was right about that, he was wrong about the timing; it was going to take longer than one year to convince people that they didn't need any ports other than a floppy disk tray. He was a visionary, but a poor businessman. He allowed his intuition to guide him a bit too much and away from practicality.
Which is why his years at NeXT and Pixar were so important, and why he ultimately became one of the greatest CEO’s of all time.
For the first 8 years after Jobs left Apple, he succumbed to his own worst compulsions. As CEO of NeXT and Pixar, he had two private companies that were burning through cash and not producing any commercially successful products. The NeXT cube was a remarkably beautiful desktop computer that cost much more than Jobs has promised it would, and Pixar was nowhere close to turning a profit off its animation.
But here's the remarkable thing about Steve Jobs: he learned.
He learned that he wasn't always right, and that it was more important to surround yourself with people better and smarter than you are so you could learn from them, rather than hiring people to do your bidding. He realized that innovation happens in incremental steps, and rarely all at once. He accepted that he was not the centre of the universe, and that he could be wrong.
And then he got straight back to work.
In 1993 NeXT axed it's hardware and focused its resources in on Web software using object-oriented programming, and Pixar focused its resources in on producing one feature length computer animated film.
Jobs and his colleagues took everything they'd learned over the last 8 years and applied it with immense focus to create something that was iterative on what preceded it, and that people didn't even know they wanted yet because they’d never seen something like it before.
Basically, Jobs accepted that he needed to be working at the three way intersection between visionary ideas that most people hadn't thought of yet, cutting edge technologythat was just commercially available and cost effective, and focused iteration on something that came before it, to build momentum.
This secret sauce is what allowed Toy Story to open to universal commercial and critical success in 1995, and is what made Jobs a billionaire. It's also the sauce that positioned NeXT as the perfect software company for Apple to purchase in 1997 to save its failing business, which brought Jobs back on board as an interim CEO.
Jobs took that secret sauce he'd learnt during his time in the Silicon Valley wilderness, and applied it to Apple. He homed in on four major product categories (desktop and laptop for consumers, and desktop and laptop for professionals) and simply made those four products.
Following the three way intersection I described above, next came the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010.
Technology had finally caught up to Jobs’ vision for personal computing, and his immense focus propelled Apple forward into creating products that ruled their respective categories. The iPod was the “one MP3 player to rule them all”, the iPhone the “one smartphone the rule them all”, and the iPad the “one tablet to rule them all”.
And most importantly, there was a clear intent behind every product that Apple made. The ones without clear intent (MobileMe) failed. Jobs’ 2010 iPad keynote is the best example of this, in which he pitched the iPad as a product that’s more personal than a laptop and more capable than a smartphone, and thus better suited for browsing the web, playing games, reading e-mail, watching movies, and viewing and sharing photographs.
Under Jobs, Apple only made products that had a clear reason for existing. And when a new product came along that threatened an older one (why buy an iPod when smartphones can play music too?) they cannibalized their own sales with new products (the iPhone) because if they didn't, someone else would.
Basically, Jobs and Apple learnt from their failures and became a highly adaptive organism that continuously evolved and changed, and ultimately found its place at the top of the food chain and became the most valuable company on Earth.
The problem with Apple today is that, even though the three way intersection still exists, there's no clear intent behind their products. This is evident in so many ways it would be ludicrous to list them all, but it's most evident in their inability to properly pitch and sell products at keynotes (because they themselves don't quite know why they made it) and the fragmentation and diversification of products across their respective lines.
Here's an example: why does the iPad exist?
Jobs specifically told us why it existed in January 2010. Until he died, the device was marketed to us based off those specific capabilities. The bezel around the iPad existed for a reason: so your thumb wouldn't take up screen real estate. That way you could “hold the Internet in your hands”, hold a movie, hold an e-mail, and so on. It was a deeply personal, intimate, and powerful experience.
Jobs talked a lot about the “aura” of the human spirit that you could capture and put into a product, and I felt that in the iPad more than anything. It's software was a deeply organic reflection of that too:
It's practically inviting you to go inside it because of the three dimensional perspective the app dock and shadings give it. It's absolutely incredible. Looking at this device, I know intuitively exactly what I'm supposed to do with it. I pick it up and hold it by its bezels, and go inside the display with my finger to use it. Or, at the very least, it's inviting me to explore how it's used. It's very simple, intuitive, and focused. The intent is very clear.
Now look at the most recent iPad:
What am I supposed to do with this? The bezels are shaved for some reason, so if I hold it there my thumb will be on the screen, and the design language of the software is cold and unapproachable. The colours are harsh, and there's no sense of depth whatsoever. This looks like a delicate piece of art that I have to be very careful with. I'm not totally sure how to use it from first glance, and I don't feel particularly compelled to explore it. Also, which one do I get?
The Apple Watch is the ultimate example of this though:
What does it do? Why does it exist? What is it's intent? What problem is this product solving?
Apple surely doesn't know the answers to that. Just watch the 2014 keynote on its introduction.
With Series 2 and watchOS 3 it's definitely become more focused on fitness and notifications, but it's intent is still very much lacking. And, therefore, I'm not compelled to spend $350 on it.
So when people say “Steve Jobs would not approve of…” what they mean to say is:
“Steve Jobs would not approve of something so unfocused in its intent and reason to be.”
However, Apple is still very much sitting at the triple crossroads of vision, technology, and iteration, and so their products are forward looking, extremely capable and powerful, and growing iteratively.
However, they lack clear intent now. And, no Phil, “courage” doesn't make up for that. The decision to remove the headphone jack comes down to intent; it’s there and I agree with it, but they did a very poor job of communicating to me why they did it.
I can tell you one thing Steve Jobs would definitely not approve of: the AirPods delay. The whole intent behind the removal of the headphone jack (and other ports) is to embrace wireless technologies. And yet Apple’s native solution to that has now been delayed indefinitely from its late October release.
Jobs famously called together the MobileMe team and asked them “what the ****” it's supposed to do before scrapping it all in favour of iCloud. I’d imagine he would do the same here.
With the loss of Steve Jobs, Apple has also seemingly lost its intent. It didn't have to be that way, and I'm sure there are people quite capable of properly internalizing that (Scott Forstall comes to mind), but not Tim Cook, it seems.
This is how you introduce a new product:
You show us why it exists.
(Not written by me.)
Most of these “Steve Jobs would not approve of…” posts are written by ignorant people who have no idea about the history of Apple, the history of the broader computer industry at large, the history of Tim Cook and his inner circle, and the actual technology inside of Apple’s products.
Steve Jobs was often wrong; he was not an all knowing god sent from heaven to craft a perfect company that consistently produced perfect products under his name. The self proclaimed pundits will point to the era in which John Sculley kicked Steve Jobs out (1985 - 1996) and use the many product blunders as evidence that the company is a mess without him.
But Steve Jobs had many flaws. He wanted to scrap the Apple II in favour of the Macintosh, even though the Apple II accounted for the majority of Apple’s revenue. He believed that if they could just lower the price of the Mac, people would realize that it was the future of computing and hop on board. Even though he was right about that, he was wrong about the timing; it was going to take longer than one year to convince people that they didn't need any ports other than a floppy disk tray. He was a visionary, but a poor businessman. He allowed his intuition to guide him a bit too much and away from practicality.
Which is why his years at NeXT and Pixar were so important, and why he ultimately became one of the greatest CEO’s of all time.
For the first 8 years after Jobs left Apple, he succumbed to his own worst compulsions. As CEO of NeXT and Pixar, he had two private companies that were burning through cash and not producing any commercially successful products. The NeXT cube was a remarkably beautiful desktop computer that cost much more than Jobs has promised it would, and Pixar was nowhere close to turning a profit off its animation.
But here's the remarkable thing about Steve Jobs: he learned.
He learned that he wasn't always right, and that it was more important to surround yourself with people better and smarter than you are so you could learn from them, rather than hiring people to do your bidding. He realized that innovation happens in incremental steps, and rarely all at once. He accepted that he was not the centre of the universe, and that he could be wrong.
And then he got straight back to work.
In 1993 NeXT axed it's hardware and focused its resources in on Web software using object-oriented programming, and Pixar focused its resources in on producing one feature length computer animated film.
Jobs and his colleagues took everything they'd learned over the last 8 years and applied it with immense focus to create something that was iterative on what preceded it, and that people didn't even know they wanted yet because they’d never seen something like it before.
Basically, Jobs accepted that he needed to be working at the three way intersection between visionary ideas that most people hadn't thought of yet, cutting edge technologythat was just commercially available and cost effective, and focused iteration on something that came before it, to build momentum.
This secret sauce is what allowed Toy Story to open to universal commercial and critical success in 1995, and is what made Jobs a billionaire. It's also the sauce that positioned NeXT as the perfect software company for Apple to purchase in 1997 to save its failing business, which brought Jobs back on board as an interim CEO.
Jobs took that secret sauce he'd learnt during his time in the Silicon Valley wilderness, and applied it to Apple. He homed in on four major product categories (desktop and laptop for consumers, and desktop and laptop for professionals) and simply made those four products.
Following the three way intersection I described above, next came the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010.
Technology had finally caught up to Jobs’ vision for personal computing, and his immense focus propelled Apple forward into creating products that ruled their respective categories. The iPod was the “one MP3 player to rule them all”, the iPhone the “one smartphone the rule them all”, and the iPad the “one tablet to rule them all”.
And most importantly, there was a clear intent behind every product that Apple made. The ones without clear intent (MobileMe) failed. Jobs’ 2010 iPad keynote is the best example of this, in which he pitched the iPad as a product that’s more personal than a laptop and more capable than a smartphone, and thus better suited for browsing the web, playing games, reading e-mail, watching movies, and viewing and sharing photographs.
Under Jobs, Apple only made products that had a clear reason for existing. And when a new product came along that threatened an older one (why buy an iPod when smartphones can play music too?) they cannibalized their own sales with new products (the iPhone) because if they didn't, someone else would.
Basically, Jobs and Apple learnt from their failures and became a highly adaptive organism that continuously evolved and changed, and ultimately found its place at the top of the food chain and became the most valuable company on Earth.
The problem with Apple today is that, even though the three way intersection still exists, there's no clear intent behind their products. This is evident in so many ways it would be ludicrous to list them all, but it's most evident in their inability to properly pitch and sell products at keynotes (because they themselves don't quite know why they made it) and the fragmentation and diversification of products across their respective lines.
Here's an example: why does the iPad exist?
Jobs specifically told us why it existed in January 2010. Until he died, the device was marketed to us based off those specific capabilities. The bezel around the iPad existed for a reason: so your thumb wouldn't take up screen real estate. That way you could “hold the Internet in your hands”, hold a movie, hold an e-mail, and so on. It was a deeply personal, intimate, and powerful experience.
Jobs talked a lot about the “aura” of the human spirit that you could capture and put into a product, and I felt that in the iPad more than anything. It's software was a deeply organic reflection of that too:
It's practically inviting you to go inside it because of the three dimensional perspective the app dock and shadings give it. It's absolutely incredible. Looking at this device, I know intuitively exactly what I'm supposed to do with it. I pick it up and hold it by its bezels, and go inside the display with my finger to use it. Or, at the very least, it's inviting me to explore how it's used. It's very simple, intuitive, and focused. The intent is very clear.
Now look at the most recent iPad:
What am I supposed to do with this? The bezels are shaved for some reason, so if I hold it there my thumb will be on the screen, and the design language of the software is cold and unapproachable. The colours are harsh, and there's no sense of depth whatsoever. This looks like a delicate piece of art that I have to be very careful with. I'm not totally sure how to use it from first glance, and I don't feel particularly compelled to explore it. Also, which one do I get?
The Apple Watch is the ultimate example of this though:
What does it do? Why does it exist? What is it's intent? What problem is this product solving?
Apple surely doesn't know the answers to that. Just watch the 2014 keynote on its introduction.
With Series 2 and watchOS 3 it's definitely become more focused on fitness and notifications, but it's intent is still very much lacking. And, therefore, I'm not compelled to spend $350 on it.
So when people say “Steve Jobs would not approve of…” what they mean to say is:
“Steve Jobs would not approve of something so unfocused in its intent and reason to be.”
However, Apple is still very much sitting at the triple crossroads of vision, technology, and iteration, and so their products are forward looking, extremely capable and powerful, and growing iteratively.
However, they lack clear intent now. And, no Phil, “courage” doesn't make up for that. The decision to remove the headphone jack comes down to intent; it’s there and I agree with it, but they did a very poor job of communicating to me why they did it.
I can tell you one thing Steve Jobs would definitely not approve of: the AirPods delay. The whole intent behind the removal of the headphone jack (and other ports) is to embrace wireless technologies. And yet Apple’s native solution to that has now been delayed indefinitely from its late October release.
Jobs famously called together the MobileMe team and asked them “what the ****” it's supposed to do before scrapping it all in favour of iCloud. I’d imagine he would do the same here.
With the loss of Steve Jobs, Apple has also seemingly lost its intent. It didn't have to be that way, and I'm sure there are people quite capable of properly internalizing that (Scott Forstall comes to mind), but not Tim Cook, it seems.
This is how you introduce a new product:
You show us why it exists.
