“Much has been written about the brilliance of Steve Jobs and the iconic company that he built,” Paul Spiegelman writes for Inc. “Many say that it was Steve Job’s laser focus on the beauty and simplicity of product design that was the key to Apple’s success.”
“Of course, Tim Cook’s the new sheriff in town at Apple, and he is doing things that were blind spots during the Jobs era,” Spiegelman writes. “He’s focusing on people. As far-fetched as it might seem, I believe that strategy will contribute to Apple making even more money than it already has. (Of course, plenty of Apple engineers will also continue to make cool stuff.) ”
Spiegelman writes, “I applaud Tim Cook for the small changes he is making, not because he wants to be different than Jobs, but because it is how he is wired, and he knows it is the right thing to do. I’d bet we’ll see it’s good for Apple’s business too.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: In the full article, Spiegelman credits Cook for “praising employees in public” as if it’s something new. The late, great Steve Jobs praised and thanked Apple employees in public many times.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Scott M.” for the heads up.]
SJ chose well. and something big is going on because Schmidt has been pretty hostile of late.
2013 Epic Google vs Apple war. Run for the hills
Well, he’d better pay some attention to youth culture.
I just visited a middle school here in L.A. Wealthy neighborhood. Network consulting.
As I looked around, I saw SAM-FFING-SUNG phones everywhere. The IT director says the change was gradual, then it blew up this year. One day it was 3 iPhones for every Android device, and now there’s barely an iPhone in sight. The faculty and staff have iPhones, but the kids… they’ve gone Android crazy.
It suits the youth culture. Piracy is easy. You can install anything you want. Parents are clueless, have no idea what’s going on with the phones.
I asked one kid, about his phone. Why? He said, “iPhones suck!” He went on to tell me about all the crap he does with his Samsung, mostly lots of UI tricks, but that mindshare has been stolen.
mindshare?
While I’m not disputing what you saw, I live in LA and my work gets me around the greater LA area. Whether I’m in culver City, walking along Wilshire, in a Starbucks or on the bus, the iPhone penetration is mich, much higher than what some reoprts have indicated. I worked at a Fedex Office on Wilshire for the summer, and I did see plenty of Android phones, but the iPhone count was noticeably higher.
Did the kids really go Android Crazy or did their parents go BOGO free crazy?
If your parents buy the cheap shit, then the good shit becomes “iPhones Suck!”. Reminds of the ‘Dude you gotta a Dell’ advert
My kid was all Android crazy, after using one for a few years he says it’s “shit” and can’t wait for his contract to be up to buy an iPhone 5. I can’t wait either, sick of hearing him complain every day but I’m not paying the money penalty of an early upgrade. He made his choice, I warned him. So suffer for another half a year.
Know what you mean – I’ve had three friends gone over to Samsung, largely because of the bigger screen, newness, and it has to be said, a hefty slug of gleaming consumer style, so appealing to ladies who lunch.
Also had a grumpy old man of an IT repair guy drone about the benefits of his SS keyboard – mind you, the model he was slobbering over was too big for my breast pocket and I told him so.
I think it’s maybe time for some cheapo iPhones, and definitely a range in iPod-style eye-candy shades.
It kills me to say it but I am seeing SS excitement on the right coast too. My very stylish friend in NYC who owns iMac and MBP is about to get a SS phone because of the bigger screen. I tried to talk her out of it but I’m not sure if I succeeded.
Yeah, people always say the big screen is great, but frankly it’s not that much smaller than an iPad mini, which I’d rather carry around. I wonder how soon it will be until Samsung releases a phone with a 6″ or 7″ screen.
Those increase of Samsung phones could have been driven by iPhone unavailability. Maybe there are plenty of consumers who really don’t like waiting for their products. I can also understand there would be consumers who like larger displays, too. Still, we’ll need to see if those consumers will stick with Samsung smartphones year after year.
As Wall Street continues to say, consumers favor cheap over expensive and so cheap eventually becomes the winner. I dispute that, but I don’t particularly aspire to cheap products. I’ll just wait and save up my money to buy something of higher-quality. Even as an Apple shareholder, I don’t want to see Apple producing lower-quality products and I like their older model price reduction strategy. I think Wall Street is too hung up on short-term gains over long-term strategy.
I think you are correct about the unavailability of the iPhone driving some Samsung and Android phone sales. But there’s no denying that many people like a larger screen. And the comments about younger buyers liking Android phones rings true with what I see every day also. These things can’t be denied. Just because I like my iPhone doesn’t mean that I don’t wish the screen was larger. I do. In particular, after using iPads since 2010. I guess it’s the contrast between the two screens? But I definitely notice it now. I’m not sure if I would like to carry a larger phone? I don’t know if it would fit comfortably in my pocket? But I believe that it would and I believe Apple will make a larger screen although it sounds like the next phone will be a 5S with the same form factor. That could be a mistake? That will put them at least six months further from a larger screen if they so choose. I chose the iPhone because I’ve been with Apple forever. I make my living with Mac pros. So I trust the quality of everything Apple. And I like the closed ecosystem. All my stuff networks and I’m very happy. But there is no denying that there is real competition out there now. Maybe they stole it maybe they didn’t? Maybe they copied it ? But it’s too late to put the cork back in the bottle. Apple fans and fanboys simply need to understand that all the other companies are not going to just keep striking out. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that Apple made a huge mistake when they confined themselves to a AT&T exclusively. It allowed the Android phones to get a foothold and really take off. Apple needs China Mobile. They need it badly and they need it soon. And while we may buy Apple products because they’re the best, most of the world tries to save money whenever it can. And phones and computers don’t have to be the best for most of those folks. I certainly can’t fault any of them for that.
It is all about the screen and Samsung while it hurts me to say it produce some amazingly thin large display phones and the Google eco system is starting to look like a real contender.
Apple can and frankly should push out a nice 4.85 to 5.15 inch display iPhone and give Droids a run for their money. I took a peek at the S3 and the Note 2 earlier this week and both while not sporting any metal look and feel pretty darn good in the hand and quad 4 cpu 2 gigs of ram etc… does attract the geeky user.
Apple needs to do great products period. The iphone 5 is a thousand years ahead of anything out there. If you are a teen or older that says otherwise you are just lying to yourself or are really stupid uneducated or simply dont give a shit if u drive a toyota or a ferrari. Thats the bottom line. There is no competition. what there is are many people who dont want or cant have the best.