What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [121]
Consider: Apple flouts Jarvis’ First Law. Hand over control to the customer? You must be joking. Steve Jobs controls all—and we want him to. It is thanks to his brilliant and single-minded vision and grumpy passion for perfection that his products work so well. Microsoft’s products, by contrast, operate as if they were designed by warring committees. Google’s products, though far more functional than Microsoft’s and built with considerable input from users, appear to have been designed by a computer (I await the aesthetic algorithm).
Apple is the opposite of collaborative. It’s not that it doesn’t care what we think. After a product comes out, Apple has learned to fix its mistakes—quietly. The first iPhone’s headphone jack was recessed in the case to make it look prettier, but that also made it incompatible with all plugs but Apple’s own. In the next iPhone, the problem was fixed. Make mistakes well? Apple makes them quietly. Apple has apologized—most recently for its botched MobileMe launch—but mea culpas are rare.
Apple is a cult company and its customers are its best marketers—that much is Googley. Apple customers have made commercials for its products, they love them so. But Apple still spends a fortune in advertising, imbuing the brand with more cool because its commercials are as well-designed and well-executed as its products. Its most effective advertisement of all is Jobs’ keynote lecture and demonstration at Apple conferences. The company could not be more one-way and less interactive.
Apple is the farthest thing from transparent. It has sued bloggers for ferreting out and revealing its secrets. Attacking its own fans was unbloggy and uncool, but Apple didn’t care about the bad publicity. It’s Apple.
Apple abhors openness. That’s another reason its products work so well, because it controls what can run on them, how it runs, and how it makes money. When the iPhone came out, there were many complaints from open-minded geeks about not being able to install their own programs. Then with the next iPhone, Apple created a closed app store with lots of choices. The complainers kept themselves busy trying out new toys, and many said it was a pleasure to see applications that had been screened for quality, unlike the software fleamarket that Facebook and MySpace had become.
Apple’s closed way of doing business is one of its advantages. While the rest of the online world was merrily destroying the music business with openness, Apple created the secure means for fans to buy billions of songs legally and happily.
Apple does, however, support open-source software, bragging on its site that it contributes to dozens of pools of code. That is a good business decision. Apple based its operating system on Unix rather than trying to make one itself; it’s cleaner, far more reliable, and simpler than Windows. Apple’s not stupid.
Apple does not think distributed. It makes us come to worship at its altar.
Apple does not manage abundance. It creates scarcity. Witness the fanatics who camped out overnight to get each version of the iPhone. According to blog reports, the company cut off sales of the phones on the first day with devices still in stock so there would be lines again the second day. Apple makes its own mobs.
Atoms? Apple has no problem with them. iTunes drives customers to buy more Apple hardware.
Free as a business model? The gift economy? Apple is not generous. It charges a premium for its quality.
Apple follows just a few Google rules. Lord knows, it innovates. And nobody’s better at simplifying tasks and design.
How does Apple do it? How does it get away with operating this way even as every other company and industry is forced to redefine itself? It’s just that good. Its vision is that strong and its products even better. I left Apple once, in the 1990s, before Steve Jobs returned to the company, when I suffered through a string of bad laptops. But when I’d had it with Dell, I returned to Apple and now everyone in my family has a Mac (plus one new Dell); we have three iPhones; we have lots of iPods; I lobbied