“If you felt uneasy through Apple’s keynote, you’re not alone. Something felt off. It wasn’t the features or hardware but the messaging,” Jong-Moon Kim writes for Jiggity. “Let’s review parts of the keynote that felt weak and see if Steve can make it shine.”
“The keynote starts with a real-life Prezi presentation with little substance. The most damning line comes near the beginning: ‘Where other perceive first as valuable, you value the first thing that actually matters,'” Kim writes. “Assuring people that ‘It’s not about being first, but being ‘first with meaning” reeks of being defensive,” Kim writes. “Even with companies we respect confidence—not insecurity. A Jobsian Apple would have never said something so weak.”
“There should have been one obvious, visceral reason to buy an iPhone 6. A larger screen size alone is a weak proposition for the company’s flagship product. It’s derivative of existing products and doesn’t say anything differentiated from its competition,” Kim writes. “The trouble now is that the iPhone 6 must depend on its host of secondary features to make the sale… This happens when product creators play it safe. There’s a chance the single X might be wrong. The obvious solution is to be add enough features until there’s Something for Everyone. With Steve Jobs, there was no fear. There was an unassailable, almost divine level of confidence that he had something you will love. We had a crisp, singular exactness to why we’ll be marching to the Apple Store after the keynote and buying that phone.”
“Apple iWatch: Messy. Too many options. This is such a huge blunder,” Kim writes. “Instead of a single, perfect product, we got a jumble of features and choices. There should have been just The One that people call ‘The Jesus Watch’ like the second coming. It’s easy to fall in love with The One. The iPod launched with The One. The iPhone launched with The One. The Apple Watch launched with The Sixty.”
Kim writes, “Without further ado, let’s join Steve Jobs as he introduces the new iPhone and the rumored new wearable.”
Check out Kim’s imagined Steve Jobs’ September 9, 2014 special event keynote, in which Jobs unveils only one, 4.5-inch iPhone 6, here.
Jong-Moon Kim writes about the intersection of psychology, technology and artistry. He graduated from MIT in 2010 with an B.S. and M.S. in computer science. He was the winner of the MIT Web Programming Competition in 2010. He is a Y Combinator alumnus. He is currently working as a founder at an unannounced startup.
MacDailyNews Take: There are parts of this essay that ring true and work so well (the “heartbeat” section, for example) that Apple would do well to have their keynote writers read it and incorporate some of Kim’s ideas going forward.
Other ideas, such as having only one “iWatch” (not “Apple Watch”), not so much.
[Attribution: Cult of Mac. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Tim and Phil are NOT Steve and can never be. However, this article makes me realize that Apple needs to “warm up” the human factor a bit. These items will sell anyway but there is some truth in the “simple but best notion” discussed in the article. It is how I grew to love Apple and it should remain a theme in their keynotes as Apple will continue to get fans either way.
His ideas are so weak I don’t know where to start.
Since I don’t want to waste my time to dissect it in detail: Just a couple of examples:
If Jobs had said what he imagined “Our team of smart engineers have come up with the perfect size. ” and he goes on and on about “you don’t know how much half an inch makes” ETC.
The audience would be LAUGHING their heads off because the Android makers ALREADY have approximately those sizes. So if he said that the implication is is that Apple engineers are slow, took them forever to figure out the “perfect size” which the android guys have done years back. ABSOLUTELY FLAWED SALES SPIEL.
and he said Jobs would have stated : “It’s the most natural thing in the world. To look at your wrist. ” ETC
and the Audience would be going ‘huh? There are dozens of smart watches and bands now that go on the wrist… It took apple this long to figure this out?”
Fuk me , it’ like Jobs introducing the iPhone saying “After years our engineers figured out that the best communications device is a box that comes to your ear”.
STUPID. I can go on and on with his inane logic.
Cook and team did a GREAT job. It wasn’t flawless (the U2 thing at the end was uncomfortable in my mind) but they were good and they were themselves not trying to be Steve. They got the job done.
——
Unlike Kim who is touting his credentials in Science I actually got credentials in Communications and Art. Graduated top of my class of 200 , Art director in my twenties, worked in PR and Ad firms, semi retired in my thirties to live on an island.
I think I’ll go walk my dog on the beach to forget about Kim…
This guy has his head up his ass.
It must be hard to understand the fashion implications of a watch as well as the desire for customization and selecting your own particular style when you’ve spent the last number of years at MIT looking at your Casio calculator watch.
I think the author was looking for some type of new shape, silly rabbit!
The vernacular South Korean press is full of articles like this, echoed by hundreds of astroturfing comments full of faux indignation about how SJ’s vsiosion for Apple has been perverted.. Using an imaginary Steve Jobs approach to new Apple technology has apparently become a major Samsung PR strategy.
What an idiot.
Even after reading the whole article I must say this piece is weak, very weak!
In a few points in detail there may ne some truth but in general the author didn’t get it.
1. This is totally against Jobs’ recommendation not to think about what he would have done. – How ridiculous!
This alone makes the whole article baseless.
He could have said how to make a better presentation – but not because he believes how Jobs would have done it.
2. It’s the ecosystem – stupid! You don’t have to look for the 1 feature of a piece of hardware which apparently is “killer”. And “killer” is quite different to many people. Pay certainly will become a huge success and this is not just a hardware feature but part of a larger system. NFC chips + antennas have been in fake iPhones before but without a proper system to make them useful.
3. In former times it was a logistical nightmare to have choice and may different SKUs and corporations loved to offer little choice. Now we’re approaching the age of mass customizing and actually can offer choice – which Jobs might not have liked but then we’re back at no. 1. above. And even he was not always right.
…meanwhile… record-setting preorders for iPhone 6
The 1 thing I think Jobs would have absolutely vetoed is the way they deal with the big screen issue. Real double click and the top of the screen moves down defiantly not an elegant solution.
What is “real double click”? Have you used it?
Disagree!
A horology expert says the options are smart and congratulates Apple on its understanding of the variety of needs and desires of those wearing a watch.