True, market-changing, life-changing innovation comes from three key elements: passion, patience and pressure. Apple is the poster child for this view of innovation. Especially now. Especially when Apple is simply selling millions of profitable iPhones and MacBooks and iPads, quarter after quarter — after quarter — with few truly “new” products to show off. To create something groundbreaking and new, like a touchscreen-only smartphone, you need passion.
Everyone spoke of how adeptly he ran Apple while Steve Jobs was away on medical leave. And that may well be the case. But even while Jobs was away, JOBS was steering the company's creativity and driving its creatives to excel. Apple needs someone who has the strength to run a highly creative company. He may be a great logistics guy with incredible work ethic, but Apple needs someone to put on their big BOY pants. It's become all too obvious that Cook just isn't the man to run Apple.
Thanks for extending the conversation. Excellent points. I sure didn't mean for this column to come off as a lamentation on the loss of Steve Jobs -- in case that is what is coming off most strongly. The key to me is more about this:
Sometimes it's the voids in production that are most telling: Sometimes what you CAN produce -- but choose NOT to -- shows real willpower that leads to fantastic products.
But to do that successfully, a company has to have passion, patience, and pressure. All of which will come to a head to bring us a great set of products from Apple in 2014 -- despite the so-called lack of mind-blowing new products lately.
You are quite wrong about Apple not needing the 5c. This is a meme repeated by the financial press until everyone believed it. Apple didn't want to explain why they couldn't just sell the 5 and 5s like before when they introduced the 5 and left the 4s around as a backstop. Apple simply did not have enough of the expensive aluminum cutting machines that they used to make the iPhone 5 and 5s to make half again as many phones when the 5s went on sale. The 5c was a 5 with color added and a much less expensive and easier to produce plastic frame. The lower cost was necessary because the iPhone 5 introduction coincided with Apple's dropping margins on their marque product. The 5s launch could not happen without freeing up the machines used to make the 5 by making the 5c on different machines.
So many articles lamenting the loss of Steve Jobs and it's (supposed) affect on Apple.
The reality is that Apple has been doing well both financially and in producing innovative products (a few examples: new Mac Pro, CarPlay, the 64-bit A7, etc.) since Steve Jobs' death.
Can anyone at Apple be the "new Steve Jobs"? Of course not. He, like everyone else on the planet was unique.
But the reality (again) is that Steve Jobs was not the entire company. He was a great presenter, and a tough manager, but he DID NOT design, engineer, market, or optimize production of Apple's products. ALL of those things were done by other people in the company, and those people have continued doing great things in Mr. Jobs' absence.
Is Tim Cook another Steve Jobs? Of course not! But the reverse is also true!
Tim Cook, like other top managers at Apple, have their areas of expertise. What makes Tim Cook an excellent CEO is that he knows, and has eloquently stated on many occasions, what Apple's directives have been and continue to be. He also fully trusts his managers (like Jon Ive) to do the best work possible with minimal interference.
It is foolish for people to ask, as some have been doing, if Apple can survive without Steve Jobs when the facts of the company's financial and innovative successes unequivalently show that not only has Apple been surviving, but also flourishing.
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Apple's Story: Passion, Patience and Pressure
Posted by: Chris Maxcer April 25, 2014 06:38 AMTrue, market-changing, life-changing innovation comes from three key elements: passion, patience and pressure. Apple is the poster child for this view of innovation. Especially now. Especially when Apple is simply selling millions of profitable iPhones and MacBooks and iPads, quarter after quarter — after quarter — with few truly “new” products to show off. To create something groundbreaking and new, like a touchscreen-only smartphone, you need passion.
Thanks for extending the conversation. Excellent points. I sure didn't mean for this column to come off as a lamentation on the loss of Steve Jobs -- in case that is what is coming off most strongly. The key to me is more about this:
Sometimes it's the voids in production that are most telling: Sometimes what you CAN produce -- but choose NOT to -- shows real willpower that leads to fantastic products.
But to do that successfully, a company has to have passion, patience, and pressure. All of which will come to a head to bring us a great set of products from Apple in 2014 -- despite the so-called lack of mind-blowing new products lately.
--CM
The reality is that Apple has been doing well both financially and in producing innovative products (a few examples: new Mac Pro, CarPlay, the 64-bit A7, etc.) since Steve Jobs' death.
Can anyone at Apple be the "new Steve Jobs"? Of course not. He, like everyone else on the planet was unique.
But the reality (again) is that Steve Jobs was not the entire company. He was a great presenter, and a tough manager, but he DID NOT design, engineer, market, or optimize production of Apple's products. ALL of those things were done by other people in the company, and those people have continued doing great things in Mr. Jobs' absence.
Is Tim Cook another Steve Jobs? Of course not! But the reverse is also true!
Tim Cook, like other top managers at Apple, have their areas of expertise. What makes Tim Cook an excellent CEO is that he knows, and has eloquently stated on many occasions, what Apple's directives have been and continue to be. He also fully trusts his managers (like Jon Ive) to do the best work possible with minimal interference.
It is foolish for people to ask, as some have been doing, if Apple can survive without Steve Jobs when the facts of the company's financial and innovative successes unequivalently show that not only has Apple been surviving, but also flourishing.