Thinner, faster, lighter ,longer ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ... sorry nodded off there ... Apple keynotes without Steve Jobs are not what they used to be. Watching Johnny Ives and co, you find yourself asking if they are deliberately being so self appreciative and narcissistic, what we in these here parts call sarcastic, for no one not even the inventor of the wheel or the creator of mankind ( if there is one ) could be that proud of themselves. It is a given that many people considered Steve Jobs keynotes almost religious experiences but then the guy had Messianic fervour if not talent, he was the finest salesman of modern times. When you hear Ives et al trying to ape that raw enthusiasm it just comes off wrong. We are into the 6th gen of iPhone and so used to the Apple mantra of how the iPhone and ergo Apple is better than life itself, and apparently the object you use most in your (sad before Apple ) life. Try to watch that video re the iPhone 5 on the Apple site keeping a straight face. Should SNL or Jimmy Fallon not be parodying these Apple Keynotes by now...? Are Apple Keynotes already parodying themselves or their customers?
Still iPhone 5 is here and will sell millions, but looking at Apple over the last 2 years I have to say that this will be Apple's last hurrah unless something drastic is done. But first let us consider what made Apple ...the greatest valued brand in the world.. and then we can consider how they strayed from the path...For all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again..
In the world of tech, evolution is everything ....almost .. there is another divine principal: that of need. For years now Apple have hit the sweet spot of combining evolving tech ( every year or so) with the need that they above all recognised amongst users for mobile multipurpose devices namely smart phones.
Not so long ago whilst travelling we would be lugging around heavy SLR cameras , searching for film ( of the right kind) , walking into hotels or libraries to send emails or check a social media free pre Google Chrome web . It was on one such expedition that I wondered why there was no device that could do all of the above but from the palm of my hand and totally wifi too . Well ok that was around 17 years ago , many years I waited until Apple hit with the iPhone .. they created far more than an App delivery service they suddenly let me do all the things I wanted to all those years ago.
Apple married constant evolution of tech with the need amongst users that no one till that point had bothered with.That Apple took and created the smart phone and tablet space was both inevitable and deserved. Nokia and the others too deserved what they got for stagnating technology ..ignoring the principal of tech evolution and also ignoring what users needed . You could say Nokia and Motorola only exist today thanks to Microsoft and Google inflating their flats...for now...
Any company, however dominant, falls and fails once it starts to ignore either of both these 2 divine principals, you can trace those falls from IBM ( circa Big Blue) through to the mobile phone giants above, to the now ailing once giant console platform holders Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
Right now what worries me about Apple is they are slowing down the tech evolution whilst also continuing to ignore the true needs of the many.
This year I would have expected Apple to release touch enabled laptops and notebooks , as well as desktops to counter the Windows 8 onslaught. Consumers have a need, largely thanks to Apple for touch on everything they use from cameras to desktops. But Apple refuse to acknowledge that need or evolve technology to the point where this years Retina display Macbook Pro was missing all of the multitouch cheaper and faster Windows 8 machines will have in a few weeks time.
We are several generations into tablets and smart phones now, Windows 8 will own the tablet space come October and Apple have released nothing to counter it. On the phone front Android uptake and usage will more than combat the iTunes walled garden.
Millions will be installing Windows 8 on Apple devices when Apple should have merged iOS and OSX whatever to counter the Windows 8 onslaught.
And increasingly people feel the need, the need to be freed from these walled gardens .. as a certain Tiger Blooded Hollywood celeb demonstrated recently by throwing and lodging his iPad in a wall ....
Watching Ives et al , Apple is a company that seems blissfully unaware what the users want. In fact most of the keynote is telling you what you want .. this may have worked with Steve around but cannot continue without him.
Apple needs new wizards, hungry and foolish like Steve would have wanted. If the iPhone 5 is what Apple can achieve it is also all it can achieve with the current status quo. Although the money will come in the innovation is leaving, gone maybe .... forever?
Six generations into iPhone the new iPhone 5 does not do Flash,Java, HTML5 or the full web , or allow you outside of the iTunes walled garden. Whatever the flashier engineering , it is 6 generations later still not fulfilling the original claim of providing a mobile Internet device with a full Internet experience.
And thus the field is wide open for someone to fulfil this need and evolve the tech to allow it to be delivered. We are at a stage where our phones should not just be cuter dumbed down versions of our PC they should be our PC and for that we need the full PC experience free of walled gardens , app stores and gimped browser experiences. What is the point of my Retina display iPad with a higher resolution than all my laptops when it cannot open two browser windows side by side or let me type this blogger entry ? The same goes for the iPhone 5 ..
The coming upgrades of Android phones, especially from a riled Samsung, Microsoft pushing Windows Phone 8 using Nokia and Google pushing Android through Motorola are really going to give the iPhone 5 a real headache. We may see an iPhone 5s far sooner than we saw a 4s after the release of the iPhone 4. Let's hope it has more time spent on it's substance rather than design.
And what if users fed up with contracts and apps just opt for Windows 8 or Linux Wifi tablets with skype and escape the Android, iOS and Windows 8 walled gardens altogether...
Those shares may rise over the coming weeks but this is the zenith for Apple , just like other tech giants Apple continues to slow the evolution of technology and ignore the actual needs of its customer to it's own peril..
The greatest dangers for Apple are that it is surrounded by a sycophantic press and PR system , over zealous pride in itself that is often commented as arrogance. This is a recipe for disaster , just like surrounding yourself with friends that tell you always look great , there is a fall coming . There will be criticism of the iPhone 5, but it will be drowned out by the sycophantic touch screen tapping of an entire industry built up around hyping Apple.
I would suggest something radical to the CEO of Apple , just as you replace and replenish new iterations of hardware , this is a time to replace and replenish your designers and thinkers , so your products truly evolve and fill the needs of users. After all as powerful as the Apple brand is you could sell plastic cups tied with a piece of string as iPhone 6 and it would still sell millions . So why not be brave shake the tree lose a few bad Apples and inject some new thinking and put out to pasture Sir Johnny et al because it is starting to look stale 6 generations of iPhone later and you are leaving yourself wide open to competition.
Legal actions against Samsung and others will not halt their eventual dominance of the smart phone market .. producing a truly innovative product will.
That is not going to come from the current design team. And it certainly won't be in the form of the iPhone 5 which the quote above this post sums up perfectly... with the emphasis on the "so much less too" ..
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