“Apple is arguably one of the most technologically transformative companies today. From the first Apple computer in 1976 to the 2016 iPhone 7, the company has been consistently moving forward,” Ruth Umoh writes for CNBC. “And the company has founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, who passed away in 2011, to thank.”
MacDailyNews Take: NSS.
“The No. 1 reason Apple has seen such extraordinary success, according to a growth strategy consultant? A history of innovation,” Umoh writes. “‘Apple is constantly evolving,’ Scott Anthony, a managing partner at the growth strategy consulting firm Innosight, tells CNBC.”
“The company has a knack for pairing new technology with innovative business models, says Anthony. He points to the creation of iTunes and Apple’s App Store as two prime examples,” Umoh writes. “The company also isn’t afraid to scrap an idea and move on to the next product, he adds. ‘Apple really became Apple version two with the release of the iPod, which they really don’t even sell anymore,’ says Anthony.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Duh.
And this is why under Cook, Apple has been a massive failure.
Steve would be rolling in his grave now seeing how Cook has destroyed what he created.
Disagree. You wish you could have the growth in your operation that Apple has had with Cook.
Riding the iPhone gravy train success is the only metric in your judgement?
OK, fine. I disagree …
For the most part caretaker CEO In Chief has more non-success than success while riding the iPhone gravy train, IMHO.
SUCCESS:
* Largest market cap.
* Highest stock price.
* Dividends.
* Idle billions cash pile.
NON-SUCCESS:
* Yearly buggy half-baked software releases.
* Yearly supply chain genius featuring little or no products to sell at launch.
* Defying Steve’s mantra, taking a far left activist political position as a company employee thereby tainting all of Apple with hard left brand of intolerant politics.
* Mac neglect.
* Mac neglect GRANDE: MacPros.
* Flat iOS redesign that rendered recognizable icons to abstract and therefore unrecognizable by grandmothers and grandsons, alike.
* Dumbing down the MacOS to look like the confusing abstract iOS.
* Killing off popular software.
* Killing off legacy user software features and functions in Final Cut, Pages, etc.
* Breaking company precedent by refusing to release with no rational explanation (except we decided), Apple Watch sales numbers for a new product never done before at Apple. Seen as a backwards protective corporate move and not a progressive move.
Positively missed many, but the point is with all of Apple’s money and unprecedented success under Cook, much, much more negatives were spawned.
A frequency and depth UNHEARD of in SJ’s Apple glory days …
Jobs had many admirable qualities. He was a great product manager that stuck to his vision. He was also a tremendous snake oil salesman.
Problem was, he didn’t simply “offer” his vision, he imposed it. If he didn’t like something that meant you had to not like it too, like when my 2009 MBP was stuck with USB2 in the USB3 era. Oh, and Expresscard was removed, just because.
Steve’s Apple: more creative, closed, focused, fiercely brand preservationist (Steve would never co-brand a TV commercial…ie APPL/AT&T, parochial.
Tim’s Apple: capitalistically; more traditionally minded, diluted/broad minded, brand lenience, Apple could become the GE of technology, worldly.
I think Apple’s gargantuan status is more fitting to SC. It seems like Steve ran a tighter ship, but it then it was more like a frigate than the aircraft carrier of TC’s term.
Who’s SC?
Sorry for my mind-morphing…”SC” should be TC.
The best snake oil salesman in the world can’t make a bad product sell to the level Apple sells, and have people coming back for more. People must like the product, something about the product is working for them. You don’t like Apple products, which is fine, but hundreds of millions of others do like those products. Snake oil has nothing to do with it.
I don’t like the limitations of Apple products, not that I don’t like them for their design.
I can go on a litany of over the top claims both Jobs and Apple fans have made, but we all know where that would lead.
“magical” is always a good one, but my favorite is…
“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”-Jobs
And presenting it as if Apple had invented the concept…
I think the clothing and fashion industries must have gotten a good laugh out of that “epiphany”. Cars? Museums? You get my drift…
To go on the other extreme, and to support your point, you’ll never sell any sushi by marketing it as “cold dead fish”.
Sushi is delicious, it will sell no matter how you market it. Sell it as cold dead fish if you want, once people try it, those that like it will keep buying it. People that don’t like sushi will never buy it, even the best marketing can’t change that. Any product needs competent marketing but it sounds as if you are attributing a big portion of Apple’s success to selling snake oil, and that is ridiculous. People genuinely like the products and the products are good, so they buy the products. That seems to upset you, the term I see on some threads is ‘butthurt’ but that’s too crass, even if apt. I’ve never understood why so many people dislike or hate Apple just for existing.
I am attributing overstatements to Jobs, and he was good at it. People bought into that “aura”. Denying that is fallacy.
A very small number of people may have bought into some kind of Steve Jobs aura, but it is ridiculous to think that hundreds of millions of people are buying Apple products because of some kind of aura or snake oil. Once you buy a product it either lives up to what you expected or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t you don’t buy another. It doesn’t matter one whit what Steve Jobs or anyone else tries to pitch. People make up their own minds. Time for you to just get over it. People like Apple products, lots of people. Deal with it.
One person’s “very small number” is another’s “core of evangelists and zealots, including analysts and pundits”….
oh, and it’s the aura I’m referring to, not the products design themselves.
You’re trying to make some kind of connection between “aura” and “snake oil” and Apple’s success, not sure why because it doesn’t make any sense. No amount of snake oil can sell products at this scale with such a high rate of repeat business. Why is it so hard for you to admit that Apple makes good products that hundreds of millions of people want?
Waiting on a mea culpa from AC? Hell will freeze over first …
I already said I’m not going to go on a litany of his bullshit statements. He was a bullshiter, polite term, snake oil salesman.
“No amount of snake oil can sell products at this scale with such a high rate of repeat business. Why is it so hard for you to admit that Apple makes good products that hundreds of millions of people want?”
You are so far off the mark regarding Steve. Your credibility is at an all time low. Congrats …
@GeoB
As low as you may say my credibility is, it’s still miles higher than the notion of you being a a first name basis with Jobs.
Snake oil …
“… but it is ridiculous to think that hundreds of millions of people are buying Apple products because of some kind of aura or snake oil.”
Precisely! Your argument is spot on …
Of ourse Jobs was massivly instumentsl in Apples success.. that not news..
But one should not disregard the team and the talent at Apple!.. a lot of good ideas stem from these brains.
Jobs was originally adamently against the App store….. he had to be convinced to change his mind .
Steve understood he couldn’t live forever, but wanted Apple to do so.
People forget that Steve hired a PHd to work with him to set up the “Apple University” to be able to provide a foundation for new employees to the guiding principles needed for long term success.
Every politician in the D.C. Swamp should be required to get an Apple University degree before cashing their first people’s paycheck … 😈
Why, you got something against a real school?
Why, you got something against Higher Education?
I can’t tell if you know what that is, especially when you tout a corporate indoctrination “University. Yeah, they get peer reviewed….
Yeah right, like there is no indoctrination in public education …
Same with Disney….
Cartoon movie company old school tech. Not in Apple’s league …