Jobs’ user-centric approach has undoubtedly been adopted by the company, but CEO Tim Cook may be leading it off the road previously paved by his predecessor.
“While Apple remains a top performing brand, there is a growing perception that it is no longer redefining technology for consumers,” claimed a 2014 Milward Brown Brandz report.
It’s not the first time that such concerns have been raised.
In 2013 it was reported that Cook was feeling increased pressure from Apple’s board due to a perceived lack of innovation under his tenure. Apart from the iPad mini, its products have been refreshes of existing devices.
Saxonbury & Kent founder Dominic Kichin has been convinced that the proof lies in the release of the new MacBook. He revealed that he was slightly disturbed by its features.
One of the changes to the MacBook was the removal of its magnetic charger, which had only been removed because of its large size.
But why does the Macbook need to be thinner Kichen added. “Don’t we have the MacAir for that
Kitchins concern is that Apple is simply innovating because they can and that user experience has nothing to do with it. This is something which has toppled many businesses when they were at their peak.
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According to Andre Spicer from the CASS Business School, Apple has lost its title of industry leader and chief innovator for a number of reasons.
He said: Whats been interesting with Apple in the last few years is that under Cook, the company has moved very much from being the leader in the industry, to following many industry trends.
Upon unveiling the iPhone 6, 6Plus and iWatch, industry experts were unimpressed as the market had long been dominated by Samsung and Sony. Both companies’ teams had already delved into other areas such as virtual reality headsets, suggesting that Apple is playing catch-up.
Spicer suggested that Apple bosses have fallen behind because they may have forgotten what brought them success. Remember Jobs’ mantra It seems Cook may have taken a large side step along the way.
In an book written by Scott Berkun, Ten Myths of Innovation, he explained that humans hate change as conformity is deep in our biology .
Berkun added: The history of breakthroughs is a tale of persistence against rejection. Much of what makes a successful innovator is their ability to persuade and convince conservative people of the merits of their ideas, a very different skill from creativity itself.
Apples innovation may have stemmed from Jobs’ ability to not only cater to exactly what consumers wanted, but to entice them into accepting the idea behind the product. Jobs was famous for his pitches and power of persuasion.
Hartmut Esslinger, who worked with Jobs to establish a design language for Macintosh, suggested that “Apple is mostly gone”.
He said: “The Apple of today resembles Sony of the 1980s“.
Although the Apple of today still has great design at its core, “it must maintain [its] previous passion to speed up its innovation again.
But Apple is far from the only company to have fallen into such this trap.
Read on to find out what you can learn from Coke, Microsoft and Samsung…
Image: Shutterstock
As far back as the 1900s, Pepsi and Coca-Cola have been waging war. However, 1985 saw Coke tip the scale to its rival. If they had been playing football, it would have been an own goal.
It caused controversy when it changed the formula of its core Coca-Cola product and rebranded it “New! Coke”. The reasoning behind the new product launch was because it scored higher in taste tests than either Coke or Pepsi. However, it couldnt have two directly competing products on the shelves at the same time. It therefore decided to scrap the original Coca-Cola and introduced New Coke in its place.
The biggest mistake Coke made was failing to understand what the drink meant to its customers.
Coca-Cola was an experience, it stood for something in the eyes of the consumer.
Of course, this led to a firestorm of protests. Within a few months Coca-Cola was forced to bring back the original formula.
Coca-Cola learnt this lesson, and youll notice that much of their marketing today is about the experience of drinking Coca-Cola,” said Kichin.
Then there’s the disaster of Microsofts Windows Vista.
Vista was created in order to improve security, yet its features were not much better than the previous versions of Windows. Vista was also not compatible with a number of older PCs, which limited the number of users who were likely to upgrade from Windows XP.
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Many analysts claimed that Vista also ran more slowly than XP. All of these factors prevented Vista from being viewed as a better option compared to its predecessors.
Vista drove many would-be PC users to the iMac and MacBook laptops. Apple was smart enough to seize the moment with the amazing Im a Mac and Im a PC” adverts.
Microsoft is now starting to learn that customers look for an experience over features or innovation.
For example, in a video heralding the release of Windows 10, the word experience is mentioned over 20 times.
However, Kichin claimed that possibly one of the biggest mistakes to grace the tech scene has been the new Samsung Galaxy 6.
“Previously, Samsung and its customers would often brag to Apple users about the ability to add hardware features to their smartphones something you could not do with Apple products,” he said. “Additional memory and replaceable batteries were all features that Samsung customers were proud of.”
Samsung has decided to erase these features from the new Samsung Galaxy 6 and create a static phone, like the Apple iPhone.
According to Kichin the problem is twofold:
- Loyal Samsung customers are “so upset with this move that many are now looking for other Android smartphones” where they can add additional memory and replace the battery; and
- Apple customers do not use smart phones because of their hardware features, they use it because of their software features. There’s a limited chance in persuading them to join the other side.
Many great companies have become average at the peak of their success. They decided to innovate for the sake of innovating rather than think about the users experience. Every business owner, big or small, should learn from the mistakes of these giants.
“If they arent immune to over innovation then imagine what it could do to your business Kichin added.
Every time you consider launching a new product or tweaking an existing one think about the end user.
