What Would Apple Do? E-Book

Dirk Beckmann

• Herausgeber: Biteback Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 127

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In 2011, Apple officially became the most valuable company of all time. iPod, iPad, iTunes, App Store... the list goes on. Apple's must-have products add up to one giant success story. So what's their secret? What makes Apple the most innovative company on the planet? The answer: Apple does exactly the opposite of what any other company would do. Unlike the competition, Apple develops devices and programs by concentrating on a small number of functions. Forget complex market analyses. Forget asking customers to help develop products. And, unlike Google and other internet giants, it wants you to pay for them. Apple combines traditional business thinking with the endless opportunities of the digital age. In this brave new world where brands and products are dragged into the opinion marketplace, What Would Apple Do? (short and sweet, just how Apple would do a book) brilliantly and concisely reveals how you can learn from Apple to develop compelling business ideas and market them successfully.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title Page

Author’s Note

Preface

Introduction

What You Can Learn From Apple

Mindset

Saying No

Being Pragmatic

Solving Problems

Cultivating Inventiveness

A Passion for Detail

Being the Best

Taking Control

Product Development

Thinking like a Designer

Observing

Iteration

Building Prototypes

Working like a Start-up

Building Platforms

Communication

Designing

Believing

Putting the Product in the Spotlight

Sending a Clear Message

Supporting Individuality

Initial Conclusions

What Would Apple Do?

An Apple Car

A Kitchen by Apple

An Apple TV

An E-Learning Platform from Apple

An Apple Travel Agent

An Apple Toy System

An Apple Newspaper Publisher

Epilogue

Thanks

About the Author

Copyright

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book is not meant to be a technical work and it is not an insider story. I am not connected to Apple in any way, and have neither worked for Apple nor received any payment or gratification.

I have a blog (www.what-would-apple-do.com) on which I post occasional interesting pieces of news regarding this book and Apple in general.

Dirk Beckmann

June 2013

PREFACE

When I started work on the German version of this book in 2010, the iPad had just been launched. Steve Jobs was at the peak of his creativity and Apple had not quite yet become the most valuable listed company in the world.

With the iPad, Apple pulled off a coup that equalled or even surpassed the launch of the Macintosh in 1984. With the iPad, Apple heralded the post-PC era. Of course, the device was at first ridiculed by industry experts. But Apple already had the market clout to convince its customers – practically overnight – that when it came to writing emails, reading or surfing the Net, the cumbersome PC had had its day.

Now, in mid-2013, the world has changed yet again. Apple is the world’s most valuable listed company and Steve Jobs is no longer with us. The market has been flooded with books about the Apple founder, among them a particularly worthwhile biography by Walter Isaacson.

In the last two years, Apple has not been able to herald any new revolution comparable to the creation of the post-PC era, and has concentrated instead on consolidating its market dominance. Some experts claim that Apple has become a ‘supply chain company’: a firm that knows how to design desirable products, produce them cheaply in the Far East and sell them at an inflated price.

In the final quarter of 2012, Apple made around $1 billion profit per week, but was still punished by the stock exchanges. Despite growth in sales, the share price fell at an alarming rate. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of the organisation, was already warning that Apple must be careful not to lose its ‘cool factor’ as a brand.

More than once in the thirty-plus years of its existence, Apple has been pronounced dead. Now, once again, the company has a great opportunity to prove otherwise. Despite declining popularity among the so-called multipliers, early adopters and evangelists, and what hard-core fans saw as disappointing product presentations in the last two years – the company’s latest innovations failing to match the calibre of the iPad – Apple is in the pole position and is still capable of revolutionising a number of markets. This is particularly true for the television market, if the numerous rumours about an Apple TV are to be believed.

No matter what the people at Cupertino in California are conjuring up at the moment, the developments are always exciting to follow, especially if you are an entrepreneur wondering how to deal with the digital shift.

Following the German first edition, I have revised this book extensively, leaving out Google and other competitors to concentrate exclusively on Apple.

The text is deliberately short and focused. If there’s one thing you can learn from Apple, it’s to focus on what’s really important and to leave out the rest.

The first section of this book highlights three areas where you can learn from Apple: Apple has a special mindset, a unique way of doing things, and sells its innovative products by means of what is probably the best communication strategy in the corporate world.

The second section demonstrates how Apple methods can be applied to other industries. If the Apple mindset, development methods and communication strategy were to be used to create, for example, an automobile, it would be different to anything ever seen before. A kitchen would function in a completely different way and toys would provide a whole host of new possibilities to both parents and children.

This book is aimed at anyone who wants to develop their products or services and position themselves in the digital market. It is intended for all people who face the question of how to realign their products, services, processes and communication for the digital age.

INTRODUCTION

All received wisdom would say that there’s no way Apple could be successful because it completely ignores conventional business practices. It serves a wide variety of different markets and operates in a proprietary, integrated technical world. The investment in R&D is mind-blowing. The employees develop innovations in interdisciplinary teams with an enormous amount of effort, but then go on to find fault after fault in their own ideas. All information about new products is kept top secret (and top secret means top secret) right up to the launch. When you think about how little Apple takes ordinary business principles to heart, you realise that any potential investor would normally refuse to give this firm a single dollar.

But Apple doesn’t need investors, and it’s doing just fine without them. Since 1997, the company has been able to increase its stock value to a higher level than that of Google, Microsoft or Facebook. Since 2011, Apple has been the world’s most valuable company. With products such as iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad, Apple not only makes an enormous profit, but has also opened up completely new markets.

The Apple system takes markets by storm and represents a combination of modernity, lifestyle and quality. However, the best bit for the company and its shareholders is this: Apple is making money. The company is profitable in every field.

So what makes Apple so successful? The answer used to be: the company is blessed with a charismatic boss who seems to succeed in everything he does. Someone whose keynote speeches are the inspiration for thousands of speakers. Someone who makes one ground-breaking decision after another.

But today we know that Apple is so much more than just Steve Jobs. Apple is a concept. A concept that is well worth learning from because it represents a company with a reputation for overcoming seemingly invincible obstacles to create great new things. A company that chases up seemingly crazy ideas and will not rest until it has put them into action, and which keeps finding new opportunities to make money in the digital world. Loads of money – we’re talking (in early 2013) about $130 billion in cash.

So what makes Apple the greatest innovator in the digital world right now? How has this company, whose products are shunned by professional users as lifestyle gadgets, and often labelled as too expensive, come to be the most innovative of all technology brands? What have products such as the iPhone or the iPad got that sets them apart from their competitors? What did Apple do to become such a global phenomenon?

The way in which Apple takes business models from the analogue world and modifies them for today’s digital world has become another important keystone of its success. It creates new markets using business models that were unthinkable in the old days: a perfect example of digital evolution from a businessman’s point of view. The success of iTunes and the iPod was only possible because Apple threw out well-worn mindsets, concentrating instead on putting a brand new business model into action.

While the music industry completely failed to anticipate the digital revolution, Apple decided to talk with the record labels about developing a digital sales system for music. Lengthy discussions and a great deal of persuasion were necessary. But it worked, and today the labels generate a significant share of their income through the world’s largest music vendor – Apple. The legal and technical barriers appeared insurmountable and scared everyone else off from even trying to move in the direction that Apple was taking. No one believed that customers would ever go back to paying for something that was available for free and only a few clicks away. Before iTunes, it was practically impossible to purchase music legally from the Internet. Yet today the quick-and-easy-to-buy music files from iTunes are seen as a cheap alternative to the traditional CD. Being able to download individual songs for seventy-nine pence and purchase albums for a standard fixed price has become the norm for the entire music industry.

Like no other company, Apple knows how to get rid of any obstacles standing in the way of a project.

The ever-increasing digitalisation of the world we live and work in poses a number of questions for the future. One of the most important is how to earn money. The book you now have in your hands is intended to inspire you. It explains, from Apple, that you can learn to be successful and earn money from the digital industries.

Apple stands for a digital transformation that retains the established economic way of thinking. In this way, it has every chance of becoming a pioneer providing inspiration for a wide range of business sectors. Anyone can see how single-mindedly it works to design new products and bring them to life. When you pick up an Apple product, you just know it’s something special. The reason why Apple is so good at doing what it does is because it strikes the ideal balance between the business model and technology and delivering what the customer wants.

Apple, like no other company, knows how to tap into consumer needs and desires, and this forms the foundation of its success. Yes, Apple does look at the behaviour of its customers. However, unlike most other companies Apple does not rely on market research. It creates products using simple common sense. Apple either concentrates on getting just a few functions completely right, or it creates products that are so incredibly new that they go way beyond just satisfying customer needs.

Apple wants its customers to pay a reasonable price for its products. That’s why it develops new digital business models based not only on the new opportunities and requirements of the digital world, but also on its corporate goals. With this approach, Apple can supply products that look great and are easy to use, and also earn the company money.

From its hardware to its software, Apple is simply world class. It understands better than others that technology is at its best when the user doesn’t even notice it. After all, accessible appliances are the product not just of coming up with the right concept, but also of employing brilliant technology. Silently doing its job, yet an integral part of the whole.

Companies like Apple have developed an innovation culture which is completely different to that of traditional firms because the entire company is driven by a spirit of inventiveness and not just by the R&D department. Right from the start, ideas have always been the engine for growth in the IT and Internet sectors. But far more important than the idea is how it can be turned into a finished product or service. What processes are necessary? How do the employees identify with it? Not until the idea is so easy and quick to understand that it can speak for itself will it sell successfully. If you can grasp the benefit or advantage of a product in seconds, then you are ready to spend money on it. Apple has taken this concept to heart in its innovation process. That’s why its customers are happy to pay more for fewer functions. Of course, these functions do have to be the right ones.

When you want to build up or expand a business it’s worth thinking about the way Apple does things, and taking a fresh look at both your new and current products and services with Apple’s ideas and concepts in mind.

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM APPLE

MINDSET

Apple embodies a unique mindset regarding innovative digital products. Priority is given to focusing on what really matters and on the specific usefulness of a product. In order to achieve results such as the creation of the iPhone, every employee of the company has to adopt this way of thinking. The Apple mindset is the basis on which the whole company operates, because it can provide answers to numerous questions. This mindset can thus be regarded as an element of Apple’s corporate identity.

SAYING NO

Apple believes that less is more. Instead of cramming as many features as possible into its products – something which its competitors love to do – Apple leaves out as many as possible. It makes products that are easy for the customer to understand. Visions such as the first portable computer, the lightest laptop and a computer with no mouse or keyboard are what drive Apple’s product development, not the technical possibilities.

The website www.apple.com illustrates this reduction principle particularly well: it starts with just a single message. Although Apple has an enormous need to communicate, the website welcomes the visitor with a few simple navigation points and a starting page without clutter. No shouting, no flashing lights, hardly any animations. The minimalist structure of the website concentrates on one particular product, drawing our attention, for example, to the new iPod generation or a new version of iTunes. For years, this site has had a reputation for being an inspiration to web designers and it is the template for numerous Internet presences.

If, for example, you want to build the lightest portable computer, there are problems that have to be solved. The MacBook Air offers a radical example of Apple being prepared to say no. The CD drive contained in all computers until this point was too big and too heavy to be part of the lightest laptop. Despite every user needing one from time to time, the lightest computer could only be produced without a CD drive. So a technology was created with which CD drives – usually available in other computers – could be accessed via a network. Anyone travelling with a MacBook Air who meets up with another Apple user can use this person’s CD drive. So it’s possible to install programs and load music from CDs without having to carry the necessary device around with you. A lesser firm than Apple would simply have included a CD drive and would have missed out on something completely unique: the world’s thinnest and lightest laptop.

Saying no demonstrates the art of taking decisions right at the development stage, and avoids confusing the customer with no end of settings and options. Saying no also means continually asking the question: ‘Is this thing really necessary?’