“I’m an Apple bull. I love the devices and own the stock,” Eric Jackson writes for Forbes. “So why am I writing this post? Because nobody’s perfect and it’s actually an interesting intellectual exercise to – as a bull – go back and learn from where a company has made mistakes in the past.”
“In the case of Apple, it’s actually damn tough to find the mistakes. And I’m deliberately taking John Sculley and Gil Amelio out of the equation. I’m only talking about since Jobs return through the acquisition of NeXT – the last 16 years,” Jackson writes. “Just try to find mistakes since then. You realize just how many of their strategic decisions were bang on. iPod. Opening iTunes to PCs. Retail stores. iPhone. App Store. iPad.”
Jackson writes, “Yet, there are mistakes… What’s not on this mistake list is something like paying a dividend (doesn’t matter and probably brings in more investors to the stock), appointing Tim Cook as CEO instead of the ghost of Steve Jobs (Cook is a fantastic CEO), or pushing Siri through ads (it’s great and will get exponentially better over the next 5 years).”
Apple’s 10 biggest mistakes since Steve Jobs returned:
1. Allowing Eric Schmidt to stick his nose into the tent.
MacDailyNews Take: Hoo boy, no doubt. Jobs got rolled big time twice by weaselly moles. First, by Bill Gates, then by Eric T. Mole. Like Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” What a blind spot: Jobs made the same colossal mistake – twice!
2. Helping Google build a beachhead in mobile.
3. Not buying Twitter yet.
4. Partnering with Facebook.
5. Being so reluctant to spend the cash hoard on acquisitions.
6. Not buying Motorola.
7. Not allowing easy sharing of photos and videos.
8. Relying on being a fast follower for non-core products.
9. Waiting so long to update iTunes.
10. Allowing Samsung to be the perceived innovative leader with smart phone features.
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: #2 goes with #1. #3: maybe. #4: Nobody really knows the details of the Facebook integration deal; what Apple gets, if anything, and so forth. #5: Discipline is a good thing. #6: Where would Google be today without Motorola? They’d own RIM. Apple was right not to bother with Moto. #7: Totally agree. #8: Perhaps. #9: Agree. #10: WTF really perceives that fallacy?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
Many of these items have the ring of truth in them. Some are just fairytales.
Actually, from #5 to #10 are no mistakes.
The list could be only 5 items long and end with:
#5: Keeping Samsung as a supplier for so long.
Although it is very understandable the difficulties of replacing such a huge piece of the supply chain.
I like the preamble in the article but not the actual list, which reads like a nit-picky list of “well I would have done this instead …”
Every item except for the first is extremely debatable.
#10 I don’t know how many could perceive Samsung as a LEADER with smart phone features, but the non-tech savvy could easily see all these Samsung phones with different features, some of which are good, and say “innovator”. We just see them shotgunning, and when you shotgun there is a chance you’ll hit something. But I don’t know how Apple could change this perception since they aren’t going to release a bunch different phones, only the right phone when it’s ready.
you are right.
samsung is using a shotgun strategy but by doing so it spends more money. Apple takes 70+ % of the smartphone profits, Samsung takes about 10%. So with one phone (less R&D, more streamlined manufacturing, bulk orders, easier shipping retailing etc) Apple makes a lot more profit. Apple just hits the ‘sweet spot best device in category’ and sticks with it.
As for REALITY vs PERCEPTION we can see it from actual customer polls, example iPhone has won the JD Powers survey of phone users 8 times in a row. The most recent one shows iPhone trashing Samsung. IPhone has 5 circles (like 5 stars) while Samsung has three.
As the poll is of actual users it seems that when you BUY the phone and use it PERCEPTION turns to REALITY! lol.
11. hockey puck mouse
1
hey hey, i actually like it. To be honest, with the plastic extension that Macally made the hockey puck mouse not bad. The only crappy thing about the hockey puck was that the USB connector could have been about 2 inches longer. Without the Macally plastic extension, after an
hour, can we say carpal tunnel syndrome?
I liked it too. Now its trackpad all the way.
#1. Not ensuring that Steve treated his cancer early enough, instead allowing him to use some hokey holistic quackery that ended his life far too soon.
I agree. With all that wealth, he had the means to get the top notch care from the best medical team from the country. However being a man from the 60’s, his counter culture thinking worked against him until it was too late.
12. Buying Adobe.
iPod Hi-Fi
G4 Cube… I loved it, but it didn’t quite hit with the market.
The Cube is not bad. I still use it with 10.4 Tiger. Its a great internet search engine and still able to see about 50% of YouTube that does not require latest Adobe Flash. I think if more time and money spent on it, the Cube could have been a good selling product.
Grrrrrrrrrrr
FaceBook is for old people who don’t spend money on computers. It is a complete waste of time just like the CB radio was in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
Whatever pl41n b4g3l.
For sporting a toon name you sure have zero idea about tech. FB was and is mostly young people. In the last few years older crowds have started accounts but they are by no means FBs major demographic.
Stick to making my coffee.
My 16 year old niece, once an avid FB user, tells me FB is “so yesterday”.
So what’s today’s cool sh!t, according to your niece?
Oh there you go then.
Rolls eyes.
I guess that you are on FB and you are how old? Point made.
LOL. I had not made that connection, true dat. Kind of like posting stupid posts on tech site. Oh wait………. Darn it. Well played 3l3c7ro. Well played indeed.
I kind of agree. Accept I don’t know what is the current thing. It is certainly not Google + (jeepers). And Twitter is both an old things and a never thing. It’s cool, sure, but its 15 minutes are over, and it will continue as a cool niche.
Honestly, I think kids just kind of message. Whatever is easiest on their phones.
Accept. Sheesh. No more light drugs for me today.
Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s, CB radio was all the rage and now FB and Twitter have stepped up to ‘fill that void’.
FB and Twitter are just updated but lame versions of CB radio and make it possible for people to find something to do with their computers.
.11 Not buy Sylvia Saint
7. Not allowing easy sharing of photos and videos.
They had a solution. It was called ‘Gallery’. Sadly they decided to throw their integrated solution out leaving their customers hanging.
11 – Making OS X Lion and Mountain Lion behave/look like IOS.
12 – Shutting out Snow Leopard users from iCloud (some of us still need to use 1 or more PPC apps) while allowing Windows users the same access
total agreement on #11!
don’t give a care on #12. it’s cheap to host one’s own data securely on one’s own servers.
Eric Jackson writes for Forbes: “So why am I writing this post?”
Probably because you’ve had it in your slush pile for a year and today’s as good a slow news day as any.
+∞!
Forbes will publish anything these days, as long as it generates page hits.
Malcolm Forbes must be spinning in his grave.
“I’m only talking about since Jobs return”
That would include Tim Cook as CEO, and we all know what his biggest mistake was.
Reads more like a laundry list of nit-picky niggles rather than an intellectual exercise.
My list:
1. Eric T Mole
2. China labour public impression
3. MobileMe
4. The retail layoff disaster
5. Mac Pro languish
6. “Genius” commercials
7. Final Cut Pro X turmoil
The retail layoff disaster…
Final Cut Pro X turmoil…
Mac Pro languish…
Man did you peg that bunch, what a screw up.
My take:
1. Not buying out Adobe – purely for the graphics products and improving them.
2. Mac Pro languish – not “dancing with who brung ya” the professional graphics market was the backbone of the macintosh – should be treated that way.
3. Possibly the “Tim Cook culture change” -we will see if Apple becomes the monster some think it is.
Dammit. How can we forget PING!
Possibly the biggest ugliest and stupidest of ALL.
And the brilliant moves, too many to count, but here are some fabs:
1. Google Maps replaced and improved upon!
2. iBooks + iBooksAuthor aimed at education, so under the radar and potentially so world changing
3. iMessage, stick it to the orifices!
4. Aperture and iPhoto coming together and sharing libraries
5. iCloud, specifically documents
Not taking control of Steve’s healthcare. Damn.