the big apple
I know I’m swimming against the tide of public opinion on this one, but I just don’t get the amount of praise, often bordering on zealot-like worship, that is lauded upon Steve Jobs and his company, Apple.
Back in the day, we were retained by the company when they set up an office in Stockley Park to flog the supposedly superior object-oriented development environment, NeXTstep and the accompanying sleek black hardware box, NeXTstation. Needless to say, the graphics capability was awesome and what it couldn’t do with pictures wasn’t worth doing but guess what, no business bought any. If the terms of business was anything like the contract of employment then I can see why. Issued directly from the hand of the great man himself the CoE contained such phrases as ‘I would be stupid not to accept this insanely great and fantastic offer of employment’ and ‘working for Apple is the best thing that could ever have happened to me’.
Awesome, if you’re a geeky teenager starting out in your career but it was a difficult task to get the relevant Managing & Sales Directors to take it seriously. When, in 1997, PC tycoon (and geeky techy young man himself) Michael Dell was asked what he would do with his ailing rival he sharply shot back “shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” And he wasn’t joking.
To Jobs’ credit he’s performed a cracking turnaround since then with the iMac, iPod and iPhone (I’m going to retain judgement on the iPad) reinventing many of the markets they’ve entered and dominated. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: in all cases Apple did not actually invent these products he merely redesigned and repositioned them. Apple was not the first to make a mouse work with a computer; they were not the first with adjustable working windows; Steve Jobs certainly didn’t invent the MP3 player and, believe it or not, iTunes was initially seen as old-hat when it was launched. What Apple did however do is that they turned them into objects of desire: beautiful, pure and minimalist and something we had to own. Even though I don’t. Yet.
With a zen-like West Coast cool gained from his time on an ashram and ubiquitous black turtle neck and worn jeans, Jobs loves to give the impression that Apple are something very different than his competitors, principally his old enemy, Bill’s Microsoft. But don’t be fooled for one second, Apple is as sharp, savvy and cut-throat as any company. It’s 46,000 employees approach their tasks with a zeal usually associated with demonic cults and with all manufacturing outsourced to (strongly rumoured) Asian and Far Eastern sweatshops, they are able to keep close control of costs whilst guaranteeing phenomenally high productivity.
By all means buy his product but let’s keep it in some perspective. These are bright baubles, trinkets and toys and our wonderment is better served elsewhere.
