By SteveJack
I was going to call this article, “What happens when Steve Jobs retires?” or “Apple after Steve Jobs,” in deference to taste, but then I decided that I wanted as many people to read it as possible, so… I succumbed. I just want you to know that I felt a pang of guilt typing that headline on a Mac.
Steve Jobs is Apple. Apple is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs without Apple still managed to produce the foundation for what Apple became NeXT (after they paid him $400 million) while, in his spare time, heading a movie studio that only produces runaway box office hits. Apple without Steve Jobs produces Performas.
As a very minor Apple stockholder, I get the proxy statements, I check off the “yes” boxes to give Steve jets, millions of options, jet fuel, more options, whatever he wants, and I wonder what in the hell happens if Steve gets hit by a bus biking on over to the Palo Alto Apple Store some Saturday.
Steve Jobs is 48 years old. Reportedly, he is a vegan and in very good health. May he live to be one hundred! May he live forever, but that’s probably unlikely. So, I’m back to the beginning; what happens when Steve Jobs dies? Or, a bit more hopefully, when he doesn’t feel like leading Apple Computer, Inc. anymore and decides to kick back and relax? Since Jobs returned to lead Apple, every Apple shareholder, employee, and avid company watcher has asked themselves this question at some point, “whither Steve Jobs?”
Pixar has John Lasseter and a crop of young, talented directors to carry on post-Steve. But, who will lead Apple? Is Steve grooming someone, yet? Is it too early to worry about it? And what about that bus, God forbid?
I mean, come on, we all lived through the Scully, Spindler, and Amelio years; Apple barely did. On the face of it, the closest Apple has to a successor-in-grooming is Phil Schiller. No offense, Phil, but the RDF hasn’t rubbed off. Leading Apple is a very tricky proposition. Only one man so far has pulled it off successfully. Twice. The key ingredients seem to be a quest for perfection, a passion for the technology and the company, and the ability to relate Apple’s ideas to the world with style. Jobs is truly the charismatic force that propels Apple forward in the face of tremendous odds.
Right now, it looks like Apple’s best hope, and a very good one at that, is Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Vice President of Industrial Design, the London Design Museum’s “2003 Designer of the Year,” and chief designer of the original and current iMacs, iPods, iBooks, PowerBooks, Power Mac G5, and more. He seems to work well with the engineers responsible for the hardware. He is obviously a meticulous genius. And he has “that certain something” which, importantly, comes across on camera and in person. Whether he has the extremely rare “vision thing” that Jobs possesses; well, that’s still an open question.
Watch Ive in the Power Mac G5 intro video. Ive first appears about 40% in, at the 2:50 mark of the 6:33 minute video. Note that he is almost wearing a black mock turtleneck already. Contrast his presentation style and enthusiasm with the other Apple presenters. Can you sense the almost Jobsian, call it Junior Jobsian, aura? Ive has “it” while all of the other Apple employees in the video are just nice people talking about a computer. And Ive should only get better with time. Could we be watching Steve Jobs’ successor, Apple’s future CEO, in the 31-year-old Ive? Watch and see if Ive begins to join Steve on stage during keynotes soon.
Jonathan Ive, Apple Computer CEO circa 2025. It has a pretty nice ring to it, doesn’t it? You heard it here first. I think Mr. Ive could pull it off. And I think Jobs thinks so, too; in about twenty years, bus drivers willing.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
Well, I aw the word clones mentioned, but not in the context I think it should be in this case. Why don’t we get the effort and research done to clone Steve? Problem solved. Continuous RDF for centuries to come.
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Actually, if you look for it, you’ll see mention of an attempt to build a G10-powered SteveJobsBot.
-Jake
I think that he will have one of his kids take over the company.
Jonathon Ive. Of Course. Apple lives because its buyers want the extreme in design, in power and in attitude in their digital world. This does need a personality to lead it through constant detractors that wait for the platform to die.
Jonathon Ive if backed with equally agressive and creative market growth experts, can pull it off.
Are you listening Apple?
Quality design, 100% compatibility in any networked managed environment and core majority apps are fundamental, but price must be easy for the accounting mug executive to say, lets go Apple this round of replacements.
K
Jonathon Ive. Of Course. Apple lives because its buyers want the extreme in design, in power and in attitude in their digital world. This does need a personality to lead it through constant detractors that wait for the platform to die.
Jonathon Ive if backed with equally agressive and creative market growth experts, can pull it off.
Are you listening Apple?
Quality design, 100% compatibility in any networked managed environment and core majority apps are fundamental, but price must be easy for the accounting mug executive to say, lets go Apple this round of replacements.
K
Apple is a game SJ started. If the King is gone, the game will end.
Nah, if Steve dies, then Apple dies. Once Apple the company dies, the computer itself will live on.
Just look at Amiga users! They still have ‘user groups’ and ‘trade shows’ for the ages old (and might I mention DEAD) Amiga platform! They even tried to get some extra life out of it by getting certain Amiga computers to run OS 8 being they had similar processors and logic board architectures to the Macintosh Quadra series.
huh?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> That’s when Steve will “phone home” and ask GOD to take us back to Heaven, telling Him: “You created me, I created the Apple and Jesus saved our sins! Get us out of here! now! amin” …
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1. Don’t delude yourselves! There won’t be any other Apple’s CEO. And
2. don’t think too far into the future!
… or something like that
Jake,
you say several posts up, “The majority of those that don’t buy Apple don’t even know how much better they really are. Most think they are inferior in every way.”
I don’t think that’s true. From my personal experience (which of course may be limited) I’d say that the majority of PC users have a fairly good opinion of Apple.
The situation has been improving in the past year or three. I don’t have the resources to verify my suspicion, but I suspect that a slight majority are still oblivious.
-Jake
Um, I don’t know if “oblivious” is the right word. I don’t think it has a lot to do with knowledge. I thought of a friend of mine, who once said: “Then there are those Apples, they are supposed to be better.” In my experience, this pretty much sums up what the average PC user thinks about the Macintosh.
I tried to come up with a better word, but I settled on that one. You’re completely right that there are lots of people who know enough to say “they are supposed to be better.” But is that enough? Supposed to be better?
I’d say we could break the population down into the following main categories (I’ve estimated the sizes of these categories based on people I know):
1. I use a Mac (3%)
2. I’d like a Mac, I know what they can do (5%)
3. I’ve heard that Macs are better (20%)
4. I’ve know someone that uses a Mac, but I don’t know anything about it. (40%)
5. Macs suck / Macs can’t do what I need to do. (30%)
Note again that the percentages are my ESTIMATES based on people I know. Feel free to add categories or suggest different percentages.
I find that Linux users make up a good portion of group #2. Lots of members of #2 would get a Mac in a heartbeat if they didn’t cost so much.
Group #5 used to be much bigger than #3 and #4 — this is the improvement I mentioned.
-Jake
Personally, I’ve never met anyone from 2, and hardly from five (in person, I mean), except maybe one lady who was convinced that Macs couldn’t display a folder in list view, and she hated those icons.
Actual statements I remember, some of them heavily summarized:
“Ah, those Apples, do they still exist?”
“Then there are those Apples, they are supposed to be better.”
“Macintoshs were my first computer experience in 1990,
it’s a fond memory.”
“I was an Atari user, so it would have been natural to switch to a Mac when they ceased to exist. But I was really disgusted at their high-price policy, and found that Winows 3.1 had everything I needed.”
I’ve seen a whole newsgroup dedicated to old (and I mean really old) PC software suddenly get into an old Mac frenzy. One of the regulars got an old Mac, and requested something in a by-group reserved for such off-topic things. Suddenly all the other regulars followed suit, and that by-group was full of ancient Mac software.
And I noticed that websites dedicated to old Mac games are often run by PC people.
As for your categories, I guess I’d agree to the numbers for the first two, set the last to far less, maybe 5-10%,
and divide the rest evenly or maybe 20-40-20 between
“heard they are better”, “don’t know and don’t care”, and “Apple? What’s that?”
Plenty of intelligent pc users know that macs are quite useful, somewhat more reliable, and offer a more pleasing experience. They just don’t want to bother with the higher price, incompatability with software they already own, and the stigma of owning one. Call it catagory 6 or whatever, and make a guess at the percentage of people in the catagory, but do realise that they are the people with money to throw down on new machines……..and don’t switch. Really, why bother when you can do what you need to with a pc at a third the price. At least when you drive a BMW you are outside showing it off!
I think a very big difference between Mac users and PC users is that the latter usually don’t have loyalties of any kind. Many, at least in my generation, have precious experiences with and fond memories of other systems (which may well include the Macintosh), and many see themselves as PC users by chance rather than by choice. And when buying new hardware, the argument “I’m using brand X now, and made good experiences, so I’ll buy it again” is the least likely to make the decision. There is a high probability that it will not turn up at all.
All this could be fertile ground for a switch campaign, but there are lots of obstacles:
– Macs are sold in seperate shops. First-time buyers will rarely go to dedicated computer stores, and it does not necessarily inspire trust in PC users who are used to brand-independent dealers.
– No double-booting with Windows. I am well aware of the technical issues, but there were double-booting Macs years ago, and alone buying VPC, insuring that it runs smoothly and with the least performance drop possible, and bundling it with a dedicated “switch machine” might have helped a lot.
– Macintosh advocacy pages that are designed more to scare away than to encourage potential switchers. I can tell you from experience that it takes a lot of determination to wade through all these insults and empty phrases to get to a few bare facts. And being told that everything that annoys you in Windows is really an Apple invention isn’t all that encouraging either.
– Apple advertising that seems to be targeted mainly at the existing user base as well and never adresses those issues that really bother PC users. For example, as far as I know Apple is not a member of the TCPA, but they never exploit this fact in their advertising.
Jon,
about the stigma, who is really still stigmatizing Mac owners? The Unix hackers are all mollified by OS X and Darwin, and those script kiddies and 133+ H4X0R types – I mean, who takes them serious?
Speculative nonsense. Henry Ford is dead, Edison is dead and Steve will die. It is likely he will take his fortune and kick back long before then. So that begs the question…so what? I praise Apple and Mr. Jobs for not inflicting the crap Gates has on my computing experience. Can Apple move forward should he go? If they continue to inovate and respect their consumers; I suppose they will. As long as they continue to adopt this policy with their products and continue to inovate thoughtfully, they will always have a sale here.
Hi Theodor, the stigma I was referring to, and remember I am talking about intelligent pc users, is the one mac owners take on when they shell out 3 or 4 times more than they need to to buy an equivelent speed/functionality pc. It seems rationalizing is a nearly inevitable consequence, ala Jake’s endless, but uncompelling, BMW comparison.
Excellent point about Apple’s advertising btw……..it really does seem to be aimed at the converts instead of the potential switchers. Personally I think that Steve has another, more personal, agenda, and that raising market share really does not matter. That is one logical conclusion to Apple’s hit and miss, ignore the obvious, marketing plan.
Jon,
I think you have an excellent point here. The more I think about it the more I come to the conclusion that Apple has little to gain and a lot to lose by leaving its niche and becoming mainstream.
Ten years ago there may have been a real struggle for market domination, but after all, it was mainly about who would compromise the integrity of their platform first. The PC got the market, but the Mac remained Mac.
Apple’s customer base may be small, but it is loyal and devout to an extent that is nearly unheard-of in the industry. Only the Amiga comes to mind.
So Apple probably does well in targeting their ads mainly at their existing user base. And if these ads occasionally piss off PC users, which might or might not be potential switchers, it’s not so bad either.
Being a persecuted but superior minority is part of the Macintosh identity. Persecuted minorities tend to stick together, and they tend to stick to their leaders, a fact which must be welcome to Steve Jobs both from an economic as from a personal point of view.
So it might be well in Apple’s best interest not to let opinion become too good in the general public.
Theodor,
I agree on almost all counts. However, I would argue that if 50% (or 90%, or whatever) of computer buyers suddenly decided that buying a Mac was the right idea, feeling that the superiority (real or perceived) was worth the extra cost, this is not against Apple’s best interests. Seems to me like it would just provide an even larger cash flow for them to dump into R&D, to stay even further ahead of the PC game.
The important thing is, if Apple does try to increase market share, that it does not alienate the people in the niche in doing so. For instance, if they started using cheap parts to decrease costs, in an effort to become price competitive with PCs, that would alienate many Mac fans, while some PC users might be attracted to a lower-cost Mac. But if they decide to start advertising differently, in an effort to get more attention from PC users, I doubt that any existing Mac fans would feel alienated.
-Jake
Jake,
an avalanche like this would kill Apple on the spot. It would kill any company. Even if just five million people worldwide decided they want a Mac, and they want it now (as the result of a real good ad campaign maybe), it might cause Apple more chagrin then gain. To satisfy this demand within a reasonable time, they would have to double or better treble their capacity: an enormous investment. Suppliers might take advantage of Apple’s plight and raise their prices, and if Apple followed suit, which would be entirely justified from the point of view of market mechanics, they *would* alienate their existing user base.
No, as a manufacturer you want slow, steady increases, not sudden booms; sudden booms spell trouble.
But there is another aspect: Now, being a Mac user means membership in an exclusive club. Open the doors too wide, and you might not like what comes in. Compare Steve Jack’s column on Mac users and Mac whiners from October last year. In the above example, how many of those five million would probably be in the whiner category?
Gaining new market shares without alienating the existing customer base is often difficult. The PC industry decided long ago they didn’t care. For them, it worked out well, though they still care more about their customers than meets Bill Gates’ approval.
As for the ads, I think they fulfill their function. They reassure the existing user base, inspire new faith, while leaving the recruiting mainly to word of mouth. This may seem unorthodox, but it’s what made MLM great.
Despite the fact that I said “suddenly”, I didn’t mean that everyone would change their mind and order a new Mac at the same time. Agreed, that would cause all kinds of manufacturing problems.
-Jake
So macs are better, but they can’t be built fast enough, so the advertising is deliberately underachieving, yet Apple’s recent path is to lower prices while improving speed, obviously to compete with pc’s.
You guys are worried about Steve dying? How could it get worse?
Apple hasn’t done much to change CPU prices in a couple years. They’ve been just releasing new models at the same prices for a long time. The G5’s have stepped up the prices a bit — the entry level model is now $1999, whereas a few months ago the entry level Power Mac G4 was $1699. Their displays have become a lot cheaper (the 23″ Cinema HD started out at $3499!), but that’s about it.
Apple isn’t having any problems keeping up with current demand. The G5 has been a bit slow to ramp up, but there’s no surprise there. The production difficulties were a hypothetical situation (brought up by mistake, actually) in which the majority of the world would decide that they wanted Macs all at once, and overwhelm Apple with a quarter billion orders all at once.
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-Jake
Somehow this all reminds me of a joke we had here in Austria twenty years ago:
“The government party is working hard on losing the next election. But the opposition will thwart their plans.”
For years now, Microsoft has ensured that each new product is more obnoxious and annoying than the previous one. To a lesser degree, the PC industry has done the same thing to the hardware we can buy.
And all Apple and the Macintosh community have to say to this is “We were obnoxious and annoying first! Wintel is just copying from us!”
Sad, really sad.