Apple’s hit factory

10 years ago

“I’ve spent time over the last few months poring over technology and content company financials,” Jan Dawson writes for Tech.pinions “I’ve been struck by the fact Apple resembles as much as anything a movie studio, with results much lumpier than most tech companies, driven by big hits. I’ve been meaning to write something about this for ages, but never got around to it. Walt Mossberg has penned a piece making a very similar comparison, though with some important differences. My initial inclination was ‘oh well, I guess I won’t write that post after all,’ but a Twitter discussion with Brian S Hall changed my mind, because there are other ways in which Apple resembles a movie studio beyond those which Mossberg highlighted. And perhaps more than any other studio, Apple resembles Disney.”

MacDailyNews Take: Actually, Steve Jobs’ Pixar took over Disney from the inside out with John Lasseter responsible for the success of Frozen, Tangled and, of course, all of Pixar’s remarkable run of blockbuster hits.

Therefore, appropriately and rather understandably so, Steve Jobs’ Apple resembles Steve Jobs’ Pixar.

“How so? Well, there’s the obvious comparison about big hits – just as the iPhone is the biggest selling phone, Disney’s Frozen just became the biggest selling animated movie ever, as many of Disney’s previous films have before it,” Dawson writes. “But less obviously, Apple has created a business in which several product lines feed each other in a virtuous circle.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: At the end of his article, Dawson arrives at the same conclusion we did above writing, “Apple is, like Pixar, producing hit after hit after hit, however improbable that may seem. Yes, it’s theoretical Pixar will release a dud at some point, but its core values and creative process ensure it never has so far, and unless those things change it likely never will. And it’s no coincidence Steve Jobs helped found both companies.”