“This is my biggest long-term concern regarding Apple. They’ve gotten to this pinnacle by focusing on making great products for us, their customers,” John Gruber writes for Daring Fireball. “I believe Tim Cook and his executive team are consciously aware that they need to maintain that focus — that maniacal focus on great products and doing right by their customers is foundation of the machine. And while the profits continue to grow, ‘the market’ seems to agree that for Apple, this product-driven customer-first focus is aligned with shareholder value.”
“But eventually they’ll hit a dry spell. Slumps are inevitable. And I worry that eventually, during such a slump, ‘the market’ will put irresistible pressure on Apple’s future leadership to start acting more like a typical company — one that only pays lip service to creating great products and putting customers first,” Gruber writes. “For just a small taste, consider all the 2013 pieces, written at the time with straight faces, about Samsung ‘out-innovating’ Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The value of Apple University cannot be overstated.
As long as Apple continues to create products that they themselves would want to use, putting themselves in their customers’ shoes, the company will be fine. May Tim Cook’s obsession with “customer sat.” never flag.
Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves. — Steve Jobs
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]