My Take on Leander’s Piece AKA Apple Is Evil
My reaction isn’t as angry as Jon Gruber’s over at Daring Fireball. However, when you put aside that anger one can’t help but agree with Jon’s assessment of Leander Kahney’s piece in Wired, “How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong.” Leander’s article is a curious one for him, because he is usually so spot on when it comes to Apple. But this article is just....odd, especially as the cover piece of Wired.
Google Isn’t Nice
In Leander’s piece Google comes across as this kind of lah-lah place where no one does any evil (their corporate moniker, after all, is Do No Evil, so that must be so, right?!) Wrong. Google, like Apple is a business, not a philanthropy. Not that they are evil, they aren’t, but neither is Apple for taking a different approach to product development.
In Leander’s world secrecy is somehow a bad thing. But almost every business requires some level of confidentiality in order to function. Is Wired transparent about its business plans? About what features and products it plans to release? Of course not. Indeed the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is defacto standard for any conversation in the corporate world. The reason is is because there is business value in the ideas a company has. There is for Apple, and there is for Google. This is not evil.
Think Secret Wasn’t Just a Fan Site
Leander also paints a picture of Nick Cearlo of Think Secret as victim of Apple evil empire. Not so. Sure Nick may have started out the site as a hobby but it soon grew into a serious business. Anyone with even a basic understand of online advertising knows that given his site’s popularity this wasn’t just a hobby site. He was making some serious money. And he was making it by republishing confidential secrets broken by people who had probably signed NDAs. Notice that Apple has not gone after Jon Gruber or myself. This isn’t because Apple likes the blogosphere, they very may well not. But Jon and I aren’t revealing trade secrets. We are not profiting from people breaking the rules. Nick could have chosen to express his interest in Apple in a way that didn’t breach confidentiality contracts. He chose otherwise. This doesn’t make Apple evil. Yes, we may disagree with the company, but still going after Think Secret was well within it’s rights.
One of Apple competitive advantages comes from its ability to surprise and delight the marketplace. It is a key business advantage (and not only because of all the press it gets) and Apple must fight to preserve it.
As for Leander’s issues with the cliche of Steve Jobs the micromanager, again, this is not evil. Apple is not some sort of prison-camp where people have to work. I know people who work at Apple, and they are energized and excited by what they do. I’m certain there are people who hate working their too, just like any other company. But something tells me that the teams who worked on the iPod, iPhone, and the Mac are pretty darn proud of what they did.
Probably the most unfortunate thing about Leander’s piece is that is, at best, a superficial look at Apple. A cover piece of Wired is such an opportunity. And a piece that panders to cliché’s about the firm is an unfortunate waste of such exposure.
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
There is no correlation between Jobs being a dink and his being successful. I never said there was. You, however, claim that he can’t be a dink and be a business success.
You flip-flop from your defense of Steve to your defense of Apple. I like what Apple makes, too, that is why I buy it. Like you, I can tolerate the “manager’s funky way of wearing his suits.” I can separate the product from the producer. But his $21 billion in cash doesn’t impress me, except in that only a dink would shamelessly assemble such a hoard of wealth. That too is “part of what they are.”
You think of yourself as one of “million Mac soldiers” since you obviously have the Big Brother groupthink syndrome. I think for a while I had it myself, too, but I finally got free.
Ah the irony that Jobs is the brute in the 1984 commercial, and “millions” are the automaton sitting and watching reverently.
Steve, btw, does have a blind admiration for the artists.
Anyway, you are convinced that you live in the best of all possible worlds because you listen to the best music, eat at the best restaurants and use the best computer, right?
What was it that Goethe said? “There are none so helplessly enslaved as those who falsely believe themselves to be free.”
Steve Jobs is a dink
His hoard of wealth is proof that he is a dink
Computers are a tool
Apple makes decent computers, but they could be better
Anybody who thinks ATR and Piper Jaffray are “expert analysts” is thoroughly brainwashed.
Think Different, my friend. You don’t sound like an infidel to me, you sound like a True Believer.
Ring the bell. Orwell wins again.
Steve, btw, does have a blind admiration for the artists. -Mr. Consilvio.
That my friend… is news to me.
Ah, Goethe, it has been many years but Robert Frost’s greatest: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the ‘one less traveled’ by, And that has made all the difference.
One road chosen by 90% of the masses. The other, the “one less traveled” by and chosen by those few who dared to be “infidels” of the MS monoculture and we have been vindicated.
Thank you Steve Jobs for your design mastery, business chops, and people manners. I hope you stay on with Apple forever or until we perfect human physiological-emotional cloning.
For you, Mr. Consilvio, you’re alright in my book. Keep buying Mac. Keep being a realist and sense of good and evil in the tech world. I do admire that although we may not see things eye to eye. Keep contributing to this forum. Count on me to walk in your path in the “road less traveled by”.
On the weekend of the launch of the Mac, Steve Jobs sent his design team to New York to give a Mac to Mick Jagger. Mick had no idea what it was, seemed high, and could care less, but his daughter loved it.
Why oh why would Jobs send his team to do that? Because Jobs wants Apple to be famous and loved and “great by association” (which is the root core of groupthink.) Just as we can be “great by association” by using Mac’s, smoking the right cigarettes, belonging to the right club, political party, church, sports team, etc. We are (self) branded intellectually like cattle, and even those who want to brand us are themselves branded to others.
I find it so ironic that Apple is now successful by appealing to the lowest common denominator, when he used to be so proud of his elitism. I am not sure one is better than the other, but it is an observable shift. I think when Apple dropped Computer from its name, it was the ultimate sign of an identity crisis.
My first Mac I bought from Sculley, who seemed to understand that the computer was a toaster. I think a computer is more likely to be in between a toaster and what Steve Jobs thinks it is. I couldn’t imagine my life without a toaster anymore, but a computer is still a perk. Computers cost more and don’t last as long, and that is in large measure Steve Jobs fault for the way he designs them.
I find it so ironic that Apple is now successful by appealing to the lowest common denominator, when he used to be so proud of his elitism. Steve C.
That “not invented here” syndrome vanished when SJ swallowed a big lump and accepted Bill’s token $100 million investment that came with the Mac Office + IE on Mac deal at the Macworld 1998. The end result, PCI & AGP local buses, USB (thank you iMac), S/ATA drives, ATX-derived mainboards, and yes, Intel processors, have been very succesful in making the Mac as potent as any.
These days, SJ’s “eliticism” has only moved from there towards the innate form and functions of his Mac, OS, mobile devices, and creative apps. SJ’s “eliticism” has never really been extinguished though, only shifted to other genuine interests and “hobbies”.
Back to the SJ-to-Mick back rub. Giving out gifts for potential marketing endorsements such as your Mick Jagger example above happens all the time. What do they call people like these in DC? Ah, lobbyists.
OK, so, big deal! SJ knows how to play the PR game early on for Apple and for himself. Some even claim that he’s already approaching deity status in this regard, as far as the tech world is concerned. I say he’s just too damn shrewd a business man.
You say he should be more down-to-earth, approachable, smiles a lot, kind of person. But if I were an investor (and I am) I wouldn’t want him to change any for keepsakes. Apple and the Mac grew because of him and I have no problem with that.
My first Mac I bought from Sculley, who seemed to understand that the computer was a toaster.
That completely explains what happened to Apple in the Sculley era.
But I disagree with your: Computers cost more and don’t last as long, and that is in large measure Steve Jobs fault for the way he designs them conclusions. I have also owned Macs prior to and after SJ’s second coming. All lasted very much longer than the typical recycle period of PCs (3-5 years average).
I still have the very last pre-Steve Performa 6400 tower and the first SJ Mac, the Bondi Blue iMac, sqeaking the happy Mac startup chord.
We’re talking 10+ years on average and they still work albeit not OSX Leopard goodness any longer but they still work. Anyone still using Win95? 98? Me? Thought so. I still use them old Macs as Halloween cameos yearly and lab (garage) research duties ever since their prime had passed.
I agree the numerical desperation of needing to ask Bill Gates for help was a watershed moment. The old “if you can’t beat them, join them” scenario, which really marked the end of Think Different. “Even the purest of romantics must compromise.”
My complaint about the hardware design is that it could be easily framed so every computer was upgradeable. I too have gotten long service from my Macs, but each purchase seems to be with dwindling returns, and there is no upgrade path. Like the auto manufacturers, more time is spent on selling the next new car than keeping the old cars running. It is typical short-sighted capitalism, which of course is caused by the greedy expectations of the investors.
If you really loved Apple, you would not be an investor, since you are bleeding them. Also, it is an insider game, and you are getting ripped off anyway. Plus, the reason for high prices is because of people investing. Rather than protecting your money you are devaluing the money itself by accelerating inflation.
I certainly agree that Steve Jobs is shrewd, which is why I call him a dink. Scrooge was shrewd too, and he was a dink, too. If you loved mankind, then you would not be an investor at all, since owning stocks is slavery by proxy. For you to get paid without working, then somebody must be working without getting paid. (There is, afterall, a motive behind 9/11, even though most Americans refuse to accept any responsibility for what is wrong in the world.)
Steve definitely has the “celebrity endorsements” thing worked out now, but he didn’t then. In some ways, Steve is always working on so many projects that he doesn’t know which one will work. The Macintosh group worked out, and so it became the company, but that was not predictable. While I think he is a dink, I also feel bad for him. Celebrities tend to be shallow prostitutes, too, who define success by numbers and money and people telling them how “good” they are. As I mentioned many posts ago, it is really a self-esteem issue. I’m not sure Leander really got to the real story about Apple or Jobs. Being entrepreneurial myself, I can see my mistakes from the inside, so I understand how Steve Jobs was seduced into believing certain things, or forced to make certain choices, just as I understand how you were seduced into investing. I really do Think Different from how I used to.
My complaint about the hardware design is that it could be easily framed so every computer was upgradeable. Steve C.
“Upgradeable” is often a misused term and varies between marketing claims. It just depends on what “upgradeable” means to you when you buy a product. You can’t blame the sales person for not detailing those “upgradeable” items were at P.o.S. (point of sale). It is too late by then. It would be like walking into a auto showroom without any clue as to what you really want in a car.
But as to the “diminishing of returns” that you mentioned. Unfortunately you have observed the derivative of a thing called technological progress. Component cost is the mother of all engineering compromises. The more integration the less the BOM or build of materials. The integrated circuit (ASICs and CPUs) was invented from this sort of thing.
Take for example, rechargeable batteries in portables. Once they were bulky and carried capacities far less than their sizes and weight would tell. That was the reasons they had to be removable so they can be conveniently replaced every hour or so of entethered use. Portable devices were not really designed to feature this convenience as novelty. Removability served a necessary function in those days. People just got used to it and expected that from every portable ever since. But SJ has other ideas, of course.
Now, forward to the iPod era. Li-Ion and Ni-Metal Hydride batteries have progressed in their development that both size, shape, and capacities per gram have been optimized that keeping them hermetically sealed from the end user is now feasible. There are other motivation for preventing a user from getting their twitchy hands from the battery compartment - namely to keep from replacing them with improperly designed or manufactured cells from who knows where. I have worked in the cellphone/smartphone industry enough to know this little known fact. Customers can be really st00p1d when it comes to replacing batteries. I can’t find the words to explain it. If you keep the cells from being tinkered with, half your customer support problems will go away that easily.
And If you meant the iMac, mini, or notebooks are not more upgradeable. That is partly true and false likewise. It’s true most components are not replaceable by neither you nor me and that is OK with me. Most folks will never attempt, do not have the need to upgrade ever, or have the inclination to ever. It’s false since the drives and memories are upgradeable, if you have the guts to open them, of course. That is the reason to buy what you can afford comes unboxing day. How many people really fill all those “drive bays” on tower PCs? Neither do I.
Steve, since you love Macs as much as I do, do yourself a favor and get a hold of yourself a Mac Pro if upgradeability is your top concern. You might even appreciate all the engineering prowess just designing the mechanicals and thermo-convection of the thing. I am still amaze at how Apple’s engineers come up with such simple solutions to common mechanical problems. Dell and HP please buy a Mac Pro and study it very well for your sakes, too.
… you would not be an investor, since you are bleeding them. Also, it is an insider game, and you are getting ripped off anyway. Plus, the reason for high prices is because of people investing. Rather than protecting your money you are devaluing the money itself by accelerating inflation. Steve C.
Off tangent, are we? I own shares of Apple when the company was in dire straits. I haven’t bought shares since but I am not complaining for my ROI on those shares have folded over many, many times. So, you can say I bought “boat anchors” of shares never imagining they will ever float like the Goodyear blimp on Superbowl day.
I do disagree with you though as to what “price” should be set for a public - again, public - company at any given time. In a market-capitalist economy, such as ours, price of anything is the perception of value+returns. Producers price their products as to their perceived value to recover their cost + a little markup. Consumers buy with their hard-earned money knowing and accepting that intrinsic value in such products.
In so doing, we must then have the power to control this “price = value” see-saw. You think it is overpriced don’t buy it. You think it is fairly priced you help yourself on one. You think it is a bargain, binge shopping time!
As to Apple’s highly perceived value accelerating inflation, well, I don’t know about that since I am not Greenspan nor Bernanke. But then, that is another topic some other day to discuss.
For you to get paid without working, then somebody must be working without getting paid. (There is, afterall, a motive behind 9/11, even though most Americans refuse to accept any responsibility for what is wrong in the world.) -Steve C.
Hey, Steve, I don’t really do politics on a tech board such as this. But I am sure one of our dear contributors - Bebox in particular - just loves to hang out with you on Politics Matters. Oops, my bad, that site doesn’t exist anymore.
Politics is just a laundry-load of crap to me.
I wasn’t talking politics, I was describing how you use your surplus cash to prey on others anonymously. (Yet, you think you are “helping” Apple by owning stocks.) Yes, it is an institutionalized and ubiquitous system, but that still doesn’t make it right or logical. Americans still keep slaves, but they are more subtle about it; so subtle that they are unaware they are even doing it, or are themselves enslaved by this system.
Anyway, I agree with much of what you said about the Mac. My next purchase will be a Mac Pro because of the ability to upgrade, the technological longevity of better components, etc. Right now I am running a dual 867 G4, and I have started doing animations, etc., and it really doesn’t have the beef to get it done, but the machine has more than enough power for what the family does. As such, it is not the machine that is “obsolete” but rather my increasing demands for the workstation. It will make a great hand-me-down.
I still don’t see why you call yourself an infidel, though. You argue in favor of complacency.
Keep in mind that Jobs sincerely believes that Apple is about changing the world and making it a better place. I agree wholeheartedly with the goal, but I do not think they have the strategy to make it possible.
I still dont see why you call yourself an infidel, though. You argue in favor of complacency.
I am a maverick, never following any accepted norm. I like to go my own way, my own road. Some think they are mavericks or infidels yet they completely lack vision, knowledge, and/or creativeness - you know who you are.
From the Free Dictrionary: an Infidel is “One who doubts or rejects a particular doctrine, system, or principle”. I am an infidel of the MS monolith and chose the then small rebellion. And a Maverick is “One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter”. MS’ Borg almost converted everyone (~95%) to think only one and in happy harmony. I doubted and aided the fading but rebellious Mac.
Although we haven’t completely won. We have gained our independence from the Borg. Better yet, we are showing the Mac really is a better way. Last, sometimes infidels and mavericks deserved to be fully satisfied of their desitiny and be complacent.
Well, enough about me. This is all SJ’s thread, after all.
SJ and countless other CEOs out there. They are mavericks and infidels by accident of nature - I supposed. CEOs may appear to abide to the teachings of their Ivy League MBA doctrines. But I can tell you for I have personal rapport with my CEO, CTO, and COO, they are never complacent. Never satisfied to what they already have and always looking for something new to conquer.
Some maverick/infidel CEOs focus financial-specific goals. That’s would characterize Mark Hurd of HP. A brilliant operations guy but too quiet and deliberate for my tastes.
Some maverick/infidel CEOs focus on image. That would be Oracle’s Lawrence Ellison. Too overpowering. I think he should be hated more than SJ.
Then comes the maverick/infidel CEO - like SJ - that are populists. All he wants to do is to give his followers the best value for their $$$ year after year. In return he rakes in the dough by the billions. Well, the populists has endowed him his reward by choice not by the end of a dual-barreled gun (hint: MS Wincrap+IE preloaded).
If SJ’s purpose in life is to “change” the world and “making it a better place” by virtue of having with us the best darn computers, portables, and software, that I still think would not be that bad at all.
I agree with your assertions though that even with this SJ business philosophy, Apple will peak below domination market share - whatever that is. But SJ’s purpose all along the way there - mind share - will be phenomenal.
If you think Apple’s marketing and buzzword might today is a bit over done, wait ‘til their market share reaches a critical mass and I personally think that is quickly approaching (around 15-20% global).
To counter the MS Borg by having just 1/5 of its size and able to trot around in circles at will. That my friend will be total vindication.
Steve and Bill were both doing the same thing at the same time. If Bill grew up to be “the Borg” then the question is “what did Steve do wrong?” While I don’t care for Windows, I actually did enjoy DOS. lol
Neither of them invented the GUI.
The computer, almost by definition, is a collaborative tool. At a minimum it needs information to be useful, but its primary function is to transform data into knowledge, and to enable deeper and richer methods of communication. Steve never really “got it” that he needs to work with other people fairly. Microsoft’s success is wholly due to the fact that Steve is a dink. Steve is still far too concerned with what the computers look like, rather than how they work. Apple continues to be arrogant and dismissive of other players in the industry. Plus, the Apple mindset is not so different than the Microsoft mindset. A borg is a borg is a borg. This is an oligarchy of two.
Steve Jobs may think he is a populist. You may think you are a populist with him, but you have already stated that politics is laundry-load of crap. How does this logic work? Can’t you see your own crap? Steve wants money and power. You invest with him because you want money and power. You are an infidel because you want Microsoft’s money and power, not because you oppose the concentration of money and power. This is a subtle but huge difference.
So what happens when Apple reaches critical mass? It becomes the new borg, same as the old borg. Napoleon was a populist too, and then he crowned himself emperor for life.
Vindication? Apple shot itself in the foot so many times that is why it can only trot around in circles. And really, this has nothing to do with computers. Apple makes music players, TV’s and telephones and resells other people’s content. Consciously or not, Apple has already admitted defeat when it comes to computers and software. While the product is better, they have no idea how to sell it.
Steve never really “got it” that he needs to work with other people fairly.
“Other people”, I take, to mean the enterprise people. Then, yes, that was his weakness and endep up ceding the PC to Bill’s Borg and not to SJ’s Borglet.
Today’s push to the enterprise is intriguing since SJ is implanting a trojan - the iPhone - instead of the Mac. With the iPhone’s success with consumers and a big interest with corporate executives, I have hopes SJ and Apple will eventually push the Mac in this direction again.
Will it work? Who knows but I wouldn’t bet against failure - even in the face of a slickened black wall called corporate IT. These are hardened MS Borg converts that have been assimilated years ago and forgotten how computers feel and beloved. The monoculture is their religion.
But with C-level executives and increasingly field ops (sales and marketing) folks literally running to get their hands on the iPhone or iTouch, no wonder SJ and Apple has positioned the iPlatform to provide a beachhead in the Borg’s enterprise. This is gonna be a great battle for infidels and Mac soldiers.
How does this logic work?
Technologists as populists are not about playing politics. Just make the best darn consumer devices at affordable prices and let the world come to you. Simple.
Hence the Mac, iPlatform, iApps, and Ó Boutiques for our consumption.
Bon appetit!
The computer, almost by definition, is a collaborative tool. At a minimum it needs information to be useful, but its primary function is to transform data into knowledge, and to enable deeper and richer methods of communication.
That is the primary reason the scientific, academic, and the creative communities rely on Macs for this “knowledge” creation.
These folks do not have the time to clean viruses, tinker with their Registries, and reboot everyday. No, these thinkers need to free themselves of those MS PC nuisances. No wonder, VT installed Macs in their supercomputer labs.
I agree, computers are merely glorified tools. But even a monkey wrench, however abused, do not need rebooting, defragging, nor wiping malware. They just accomplish their designed intentions without mind disruptions.
Tools must not get in between you and your passions, your creations, and those “knowledge” about to pour forth.
There is a better “monkey” wrench - the Mac.
So what happens when Apple reaches critical mass? It becomes the new borg, same as the old borg.
Critical mass, Steve, is not the same suffocating market mass as the MS Borg of ~95%. Keep that in mind.
Critical mass in business is the market mass of equilibrium and is neither 50% nor 95% market share. It is a point in its market share where the inflection, the point at which the growth curve grows to a “sustainable” inertia.
Even when that curve no longer grows or becomes flat - a la MS Borg - the inertia is enough to keep the curve at positive growth.
A negative growth company like Palm is an aberration. Palm did obtain critical mass at one point yet absurdly mismanaged by idiots after another.
Apple’s SJ better start grooming his ideal successor now.
Apple has long had sustainable inertia, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Stupid is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
The iPhone and MacBook Air are hardly Trojans, they are elitist toys made for the elitist base.
Apple lost to Microsoft because they overcharge their customers and undervalue their vendors and developers. The proof is all around us, because you have to work really hard to have a great product and lose anyway.
All they had to do was lower their price and sell more products, instead they kept the price high and sold less. They still do it, and they still cater to elitist tastes. They are not populists at all. They put all their dealers out of business, and the high-end stores are going to crash with a huge thud eventually. It is easy to compete with a company that charges too much.
Apple will inevitably spawn more and more competition; its high overhead will make them weak, and its high margins will make them attractive to compete with. It’s a lose-lose for Apple. Fortunately for Apple, most public companies are also run incompetently, too.
The real story of Apple is that the product is so good that its users won’t let them fail, no matter how badly they manage the company, and how much they are abused. And, Steve is too big a dink to even know that. I would make a good successor though. lol I have a good handle on their strengths and weaknesses, but as you can imagine, the stockholders would hate me. Their profits would be my last priority.
fyi: you have created a straw-man in your head; Microsoft. You have “politicized” your toaster. There was a time when I made a similar mistake. The people who buy PC are simply interested in the toast, not the toaster. Only a power-user knows the difference, and as the web takes over, this becomes less and less relevant, which is why Apple is chasing the smartphone and music player market. It didn’t “innovate” anything. Apple is playing copy-cat in an attempt to survive.