Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel
People who don’t like Apple products tend to not know how to explain their popularity.
In a recent InformationWeek article, this was demonstrated perfectly:
“The Apple iPhone shook things up. If you look closely at the iPhone, it’s just an ordinary phone in an extraordinary package.”
Yes, the iPhone is an ordinary flip phone with a tiny screen and horrible user interface, but without the flip, with a massive touch screen, and with a completely new user interface. Same thing. What this analyst gets wrong is to think that all of the iPhone’s allure is “the package”, and I assume that the iPhone “package” simply has inside it some normal phone software. No, this is what other companies do. Windows Vista is slow and has no redeeming features (apart from security software that nags you multiple times when you do anything) but it has a pretty nice package, the Aero user interface redesign. Vista is an ordinary OS with a candy-coated shell of a UI that was slapped on there to make it look more revolutionary and interesting. Once you get past the outer shell you see the package fall apart and the flaws make their appearance. If this was true with the iPhone then once you got past the touch screen and the flick-scrolling, nothing would work: the browser would be terrible, the Google Maps application would crash constantly, and you’d generally be disappointed. Unfortunately for analysts, this doesn’t happen, and the more time you spend with the iPhone the more you learn that the “extraordinary package” runs through to the core of the device.
The LG Voyager happens to have a touch screen, icons in similar places, but that’s all just the packaging. I’ve used an LG Voyager and as soon as you get out of touch-mode it reverts back to normal cell phone software just like all the rest. Instead of LG investing in some game-changing user experience work, they just copied the iPhone’s package and hoped to draw people in.
Apple is in the unique position to essentially launch whatever consumer product they want and have it be a hit, the only exception in recent memory was their AppleTV which may or may not get an upgrade to make it worthwhile at some point. Apple launched a music player that changed the industry, they have a 29% market share of the U.S. market for laptops, and now the iPhone has sold a few million units and is positioned to be a goliath in 2008 if they announce software and hardware upgrades for it.
Why is this happening?
My theory is that Apple’s competition still hasn’t figured out the combination of factors that people actually care about. An iPod is sleek, thin, sexy, and feature-packed. A MacBook Pro has uber-clean lines and a gigantic screen. There are no clunky plastic outsides, protruding switches, stickers on the palm rest, or horrible user experiences. Apple products are simply made to be beautiful and alluring to users, but that’s not a trait unique to Apple that has some magic formula behind it, any company who truly takes their time can do it as well. The problem is no one in Apple’s industry has put forth the effort yet, so when Apple releases a product they spent effort on, it’s a hit.
Posted December 17, 2007 with 2 Comments
david # —
Spot on. Well said, Mike.
Alex # —
Well put, but I think it’s even more basic than the competition not figuring out Apple’s formula.
The competition is not focused on the customer experience, period. Most of the phone makers are like any big and old IT project. Full of ancient things, broken things they’re working around, people who are adamant about keeping things a certain way, people who are adamant about changing things. It’s a trainwreck.
Apple came in and said “hmm… How would I want to use a cell phone… and better yet, how can we make it better, easier, and more useful for the user?”
That’s it right there. Any company that can take something existing, or create something new that makes their customer’s lives simpler, easier, and more effective will win in their market. A lot of times, they’ll create entirely new markets like Apple has done more than once. It’s not just gadgets, it can be services as well.
This is what my company works at teaching other companies to do… and it’s AMAZING how few get it now. The world is an oyster essentially. It does take work, but there are dozens of industries a new comer could start in and completely revolutionize with a few simple methods.
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