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Posted on November 4th, 2008 by Darien Graham-Smith
What Apple gets right
I seem to have acquired a reputation as an Apple hater. This, I contend, is a gross mischaracterisation.
Admittedly, I do hate the playpen philosophy that seems to underpin their products. And it drives me nuts the way their consumer devices are so limited they feel like shareware. (“This iPhone can only be synchronised with one PC and only supports one video codec. Register now to remove these restrictions and get support for MMS, copy and paste, custom message alerts and more!”)
But I’m also frequently struck by just how much the company gets right – by the signature strokes of inspiration that set Apple devices apart from the competition. I’ve been mulling this over since I was called upon to stick up for the MacBook Pro in a recent podcast; and I’ve come up with five core strengths that define Apple, and which I wish other manufacturers would emulate.
1. Aesthetics
The Apple brand is synonymous with stylish design, turning heads for more than a decade with striking artefacts such as the futuristic G4 Cube, the jaunty anglepoise iMac and the industrial Mac Pro. It’s hard to think of even one equally iconic design that’s come out of the PC world in that same period.
All right, some of their ideas are a matter of taste – I thought the original clamshell iBook and the blue and white Power Macintosh G3 looked like cheap toys. And shiny chrome is never a guarantee of a smooth ride. But ceteris paribus would you prefer to have a generic PC on your desk or a design classic?
2. Consistency
Consistency is a basic tenet of usability, but in the tech world it’s in short supply. Microsoft has historically proved allergic to leaving well alone, with almost every new version of Windows bringing arbitrary changes to trip up innocent users. Linux, in the absence of a single controlling body, is worse.
But since the big switch to Mac OS X, Apple has done a remarkable job of maintaining a consistent set of simple controls across the user interface, and even to a considerable extent between versions. This helps the user quickly come to feel “in control” of the computer, and alleviates the fear of trying to do new things with it.
There’s consistency across devices, too: themed colour schemes, typefaces, icons and so forth bring disparate devices such as the Mac, iPod, iPhone and Apple TV into a family, and give Apple users confidence to invest in further Apple products.
And as a bonus, this strong lead filters down to developers. Windows applications habitually ride rough-shod over Microsoft’s interface guidelines, but for third-party OS X developers it’s a point of pride when their applications fit seamlessly into the Apple environment.
3. Naming
Last month in PC Pro we reviewed the Sony VAIO VGC-RT1SU, the Advent 5511 and the Dell Latitude E6400. What sort of computers are these? Who are they suitable for? It’s impossible to say without diving into the technical details, as their obscure names tell you almost nothing about the hardware.
Whereas with Apple computers you know just what to expect. By strictly defining and branding its categories, Apple boils the bewildering array of options down to a simple, easily-understood choice. You know which Mac is the right one for you.
4. Innovation
Despite its emphasis on consistency, Apple hates to rest on its laurels: with almost every product it débuts some unique new feature. An obvious example is the click-wheel on the iPod, which deserves a large portion of the credit for the device’s success. Others include the Time Machine backup system in OS X 10.5 and the “swipe to scroll” system used in the iPhone and the iPod touch.
It all adds up to a range of devices with genuinely distinctive personalities – a breath of fresh air after the ranks of identikit PCs that parade daily through our labs.
5. Surprises
Coming up with new ideas is great, but it’s also important how you handle them. When Apple has something new to show off, it doesn’t dribble out news for a year in advance until we’re bored of the product before we even see it. It holds its corporate tongue until units are all but rolling off the production line; and then, and only then, does Steve Jobs get up on stage and surprise us with a fait accompli.
As a result, when Steve opens his mouth, we hang on his every word because we never know how big the announcement’s going to be. It might just be a footling iTunes update, but it could equally be a revolutionary new device. The sheer anticipation gets us excited about even the most humdrum developments, and magnifies genuine surprises into epochal events. It makes us care about Apple products.
Steve knows it’s sleight of hand, of course, and so do I; yet I still fall for it. He gets away with it because every so often he does unveil something genuinely exciting – often enough to keep us coming back for more, no matter how much we supposedly hate Apple.
15 Responses to “ What Apple gets right ”
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November 4th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
That iPhone limitation must be PC specific – my iPhones(2G and 3G – sad or what?) sync with more than one host, though all my hosts are Macs.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Apple’s documentation suggests that if you turn on “manage music and videos manually” then you can use the iPhone with more than one PC. But even with this option selected, every time I plug it into a different PC iTunes insists on completely wiping my iPhone before letting me access it!
November 4th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
“And as a bonus, this strong lead filters down to developers. Windows applications habitually ride rough-shod over Microsoft’s interface guidelines, but for third-party OS X developers it’s a point of pride when their applications fit seamlessly into the Apple environment.”
Now it’s interesting that you should say that. Recently I’ve been using a Mac a fair bit (which i don’t normally), and have been somewhat amused to note that while Microsoft follows Apple’s stylistic guidelines for its Mac version of Office, Apple doesn’t follow Windows guidelines for its Windows products – both iTunes and the Windows version of Safari use the OS X styling as far as it’s possible to do in Windows.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I have to disagree with point 3, Darien. It’s very easy to keep to a simplistic naming convention when you only offer about three products and only innovate at regular but distant intervals to keep the insane Apple upgrade cycle turning.
Personally I’d prefer a major manufacturer to release models that suit every possible need, and to innovate whenever possible. Once I’ve bought one I couldn’t really care less what name it was given in the shop, it can be the Sony Darien for all I care – it’s the laptop itself I was buying, not its branding.
Come to think of it, I also disagree with points 1, 2, 4 and 5, but that’s for another time.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:08 am
David, I think the garbled mess of alphabet soup that is most PC manufacturer’s naming convention betrays an underlying issue, which is that an awful lot of products in any given manufacturer’s product range are extremely similar.
Reviews in this very publication often make clear the near-identity of two products in the line – the Z11WN/B is like the TZ3, only lighter; or the VGN-Z21MN/B is like the VGN-Z11MN/B, only bigger. Much of the time, it seems to me that manufacturers shove in a bit more memory or a new graphics card, spray the chassis red and call it a new release. So many slight variables between models make the market confusing (for me, at least) and I think this underlies the baffling naming conventions.
I think Apple are actually quite wise to only release one new product every year or so, name it effectively and watch it do its job in the market. I think you know what you’re going to get, and what you’re going to get is a clearly new product rather than an existing product with a slight tinker. I’m going to call that a good thing.
November 6th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Less choice is less confusing.
November 6th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I also disagree with point three as not being an apple aficionado I don’t slavishly memorise the spec and capabilities of each machine in the range, same as with any other PC manufacturer. if I need a PC I’ll do some (maybe a lot of) research before buying one to see which is the most cost effective machine for the requirements I have. This is something I feel most Apple users wouldn’t bother about as linking in with point one all they really care about is appearance, image and style not substance, something which is unfortunately permeating our society with increasing prevalence.
November 6th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Despite not being too keen on Apple myself I actually agree with most of the points !
However you missed out marketing- they do this better than anything. “The AppStore- genius !”. Ummm… Nokia have had the software market for years- surely it’s just a well-hyped version of the same thing ? And the problem I find with Apple is that they aren’t streets ahead; when I actually use an Apple I don’t find they’ve saved me years of effort or that they’re considerably quicker than an equivalent PC, and integrating into an AD domain is getting better but still causes nightmares.
As far as the naming conventions.. yes, PC manufacturers are rubbish. Dell’s server line is reasonably easy to figure out- everything is a PowerVault, and the family numbers sensibly start with the number of U’s the server takes up- 1950 (1U), 2950 (2U) etc etc. At the end of the day, I build my own PCs anyway so don’t really care !
November 6th, 2008 at 11:56 am
I meant PowerEdge….
November 6th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
And five things they get wrong …
1. Confusion through profusion.
I have been able to resist buying an iPod Touch for over a year now because every time I get close to shelling out I cannot decide which fixed memory capacity to go for. I am paralysed by being asked to make a decision for which I have no logical basis – I do not know if 8GB will feel restrictive or if 32GB will go unused and make me feel like I wasted money. One model with a memory card reader and I’d feel safe making a purchase decision!
2. Feature impoverishment.
I am told the chip used for WiFi in the new iPod Touch also supports FM Radio and Bluetooth, yet the device itself does not make either feature available to users. They clearly have the software for Bluetooth, because it is in the iPhone. The MacBook Air gratuitously omits wired Ethernet and skimps on USB ports. Why does Apple do this? Is it deliberately holding back features for future product refreshes?
3. Gratuitous difference.
I recently fell in love with the stunning design of an Apple keyboard and bought one for my PC. I’m typing on it now. I had to do some research and write my own keyboard map for it, but that was expected. Harder to take is the absence of a hash key (how do Apple people write code?) and an insert key plus a number of “magic” keys that do not generate usable keycodes.
4. Failure to build on success.
Apple’s touch screen technology on the iPod Touch and iPhone is a stunning improvement, both in hardware and software implementation, over anything else on the market. Yet they almost make a virtue out of refusing to extend it out of the specialist phone and music player markets. This technology could make a killing in the “web pad” or “web book” space with very little development effort. Think of an A4 size screen designed to sit near-flat on a desk acting as a web 2.0 terminal. Think of a pocket size clam-shell format with touch screens in both halves (like two iPod Touchs hinged together).
5. Monopolisation.
Apple is so used to being the plucky underdog in the computer market, attacking the claimed monopolistic abuses of Microsoft that it has failed to notice its own growing dominance of the digital music market. Its behaviour risks running into exactly the same legal and perception problems Microsoft experienced if it continues to refuse to open the market. Think what would have happened if Sony/Phillips had tried to control the CD market from manufacture of the player right through to retail of the disks!
November 6th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
John, on yours points…
1 – how do you decide the same for hard drive in your PC choices? Surely we all have to make such choices on every device we buy?
4 – I wouldn’t be surprised if we do see something like that soon. See Apple’s machine is working on you – you’re starting to want such a product in advance, add that to their marketing machine, and Darien’s point 5 about surprises, and you’ll be hanging on Steve Jobs’ words next year to see if he finally announces such a device.
November 6th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Andy – the point I was making with 1 is that this is a marketing choice (which in my case at least rebounds to Apple’s disadvantage). It would cost next to nothing to fit a memory card reader and might even save them money by simplifying manufacture and distribution. I guess they make a higher margin on the larger devices and even maybe hope people will buy a low capacity one, find it is too small and then buy another, but of course they are not measuring people like me who are put off purchasing at all by this factor.
A disk drive (or memory card) necessarily has to be a fixed capacity for good engineering reasons, but an iPod or a computer does not.
I hope you are right about 4, but Jobs recently made a big point of announcing Apple is not interested in the WebBook market. I bet if they do go this way, they’ll spoil it for me with some “Jobs knows best” restriction on its utility!
November 8th, 2008 at 12:26 am
The biggest advantage that Apple have is that their computers are not stuffed with different programmes that all do the same thing. For a non -technical user, this is bliss. For a technical user, it is still an advantage, as few know the difference between these programmes, or even what the point of developing them was – in fact, that is something that nobody knows, unless the answer is that they exist to confuse people.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:03 am
“The biggest advantage that Apple have is that their computers are not stuffed with different programmes that all do the same thing. For a non -technical user, this is bliss. For a technical user, it is still an advantage, as few know the difference between these programmes, or even what the point of developing them was – in fact, that is something that nobody knows, unless the answer is that they exist to confuse people.”
WTF are you talking about.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
What Apple Get Right:
1. MAKE PROFIT on all of its products and services. For a company that has less than 5 % of the worldwide market of PCs and less than 2 % of the cell phone market and with iPods making up only 14 % of its income, Apple makes 75 % of the income and 56 % of the profit of a behemoth like Microsoft. And Apple has more cash in savings ($ 24 Billion) than Microsoft ($ 20.7 Billion). This is expected to reach over $ 30 Billion in 2009.
2. CREATE LUST AND LOYALTY FOR ITS PRODUCTS. To become such a money-making machine, Apple has to create products that people LUST FOR and are willing to pay TOP-DOLLAR. Money is not as much of an object for the Apple product user as for the user of other electronics products. Even poor people are willing to shell out bucks for the iPhone. They understand how much better the iPhone is than the competition.
3. DESIGN GREAT PRODUCTS. Design is NOT only the surface. Design is THE WHOLE THING. QUALITY is in THE WHOLE PRODUCT. Apple designs the entire product. Other companies let someone else design the software (e.g. Microsoft, Linux, Google) and even the hardware (e.g. Intel reference designs). But this make the design of the product dependent on 3rd parties who may have a different vision than your company’s vision. Design becomes patchwork. With Apple, much more than other companies, the product JUST WORKS. As Steve Jobs said, great design forces the designer to make choices of what to leave out. Apple makes the best choices of what to leave out compared to other companies.
4. ECOSYSTEM and INTEGRATION. Apple’s products are a family of products that work well with each other. Apple also strives to make its products work well with 3rd party products. It is SO NICE to be able to add a printer to a Mac. The Mac more often than not will automatically add and configure the printer. It is a breath of fresh air compared to adding a printer to Windows, and the nightmare that is Linux. Apple has also created a strong ECOSYSTEM of 3rd party products dedicated to its products. The iPod/iPhone ecosystem is a multibillion dollar market, where the manufacturers make lots of profit for creating Apple-specific products. This allows Apple’s products to integrate to a much higher degree than other companies’ products. It also allows the user to CUSTOMIZE their product to suit his or her personality. When you purchase an iPhone or iPod there is a whole universe of custom-designed products for you. Get a Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Android and there is hardly anything out there.
5. TARGET 80% OF THE MARKET. Apple’s products target the vast majority of people. They don’t target the poorest or the highest end geeks and gamers. Targeting them lowers profitability, quality, and design. Geeks want tons of complexity and customizability. But this would confuse most consumers – who want to simply do their work.
6. INNOVATION. Apple pushes the design of products farther than other companies. It invests a lot in innovation. Other companies barely do any research (e.g. Dell or other white-box makers). Apple was the one that killed the floppy disk, that championed USB, etc. Other companies blatantly copy what Apple is doing.
7. USABILITY. Apple’s products “just work” – to a greater extent than other company’s products. The integration of the product’s parts and to 3rd party products is fantastic. Yes, not every geek’s dream is there. But this brings a simplicity and quietness in work. The focus becomes GETTING WORK DONE, not endlessly tweaking the computer. Compared to Windows, working on a Mac is SO QUIET. There is no din from adware, anti-virus software, endless dialog boxes. The computer does not get in your way. There ARE NO VIRUSES. There is LESS FEAR of using the Mac than other computers. The user doesn’t have to always be a constant repairman or IT worker for their computer. It just works. It gets out of your way.
8. SURPRISE. Yes, I agree. We all love surprise. Apple gets enormous FREE ADVERTISEMENT for its products because it doesn’t talk about it for months or years until we are bored and angry that it doesn’t work as promised (e.g. Vista).
Apple’s products are NOT for everyone. They are NOT for the cheap penny-pinchers. They are NOT for the geeks that tweak endlessly.
Choosing an Apple product is simple. There are only two criterion after choosing the model you want:
1. CHOOSE THE MOST THAT YOU CAN AFFORD. Thus between a 32 gb iPod Touch and a 8 gb iPod Touch, if you can afford the 32 gb one, go for it. It’s that simple.
2. IF THERE ARE REPLACEABLE PARTS THAT ARE CHEAPER ELSEWHERE, GET THE MINIMAL CONFIGURATION OF THOSE PARTS. Thus, if you can get RAM cheaper elsewhere, that choose the Mac with the lowest configuration of the RAM, buy the RAM elsewhere and install it.