Do you think Steve Jobs would be happy with what Apple is doing now? 🤔

Amrith
27 replies
@abadesi and I were wondering if the direction Apple is headed in right now would be something Steve would’ve liked and it’s been hard to come up with reasons to say yes. What do you think?

Replies

Andrew Falchook
Jobs would be specifically frustrated with the state of Apple TV+, especially after having led Pixar to reshape the animation industry. Spending $300M on 'The Morning Show' is appalling compared to the minuscule amount of market interest it has drawn. Disney CEO Bob Iger believes Jobs would have acquired/partnered up with Disney if he was still running the company today.
Justin E. Harris
@falchook yeah, Disney's CEO leaving Apple's board reminds me of Google's CEO left Apple's board. Not a win/win for both companies.
Abadesi
I love Apple but I don't get why there has to be a new iPhone every year. It's becoming a bit of a parody now - will they just keep adding cameras until there's no space left? I'd love to see them focus on new product lines or longer product release cycles with more thoughtful changes.
Amrith
@abadesi i’d love to hear an argument for “yes" tbh
Justin E. Harris
@abadesi @amrith As a video creator, I'm impressed with the new camera upgrades each year.
Jesús Vivas
I really miss the innovation that Jobs offered. Now is just a couple of changes to sell more each year. They are decreasing their value proposal "Think different"
Rick Somar
Elon Musk replace that open space for innovation and marketing, not Tim.
Dom
I think Tim Cook is a great leader and Apple wouldn't be where they are today without him, but I can't help to wonder how different the company would look like with Steve. Would he be happy, I don't know – probably. But especially iPhones and Macbooks are just getting dragged along, I'm sure iPads would play a bigger role.
Randolph
I think it's hard to live up to Jobs. From what I've seen, the company isn't what it used to be. (Rising number of issues — ie: keyboards/touch bars — and lack of intensity or out of box concepts) Wouldn't say it's Cook's fault, though. Working under Jobs was probably a starry eyed experience; He really kicked off a lot of innovation in tech. Now, you throw in anyone else (Cook) and the passion from employees dwindles — the vision fades away.
Aleix Miol
I think so. Apple is pretty much the same company it used to be. Nothing different in its approach, values, and products. The point here is that disruptive innovation happens now and then, and Apple has disrupted pretty much all the markets that have been involved in for the last 20 years. It is time to reap the sown and maintain the company ready and in place for the next disruptive possibilities. On the contrary, what I believe is that Steve would NOT be happy with the super critic people with the company. Apple is an example in so many ways. I think we all benchmark it against ”what could it have been If Steve was still alive.” But that’s all in our mind. Instead, benchmark it against Samsung, Microsoft, and the rest, and none of them is a better company overall than Apple. We’re talking about a company that still builds fantastic products and that manages to capture, alone, 70%-80% of the benefit of the global Cellphone category. Global! Instead, I would argue that Apple is one of the few companies that has managed to survive the loss of a leader that meant so much to them. Other companies with such strong, meaningful, and unique leaders tend to collapse when the leader is gone. And in this case, albeit some bad product launches (btw, antennagate anyone?), the company is still in fantastic shape.
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Garet McKinley
@aleixmiol If I'm being honest, I don't think Jobs would be happy with the dongle-hell that happened with MacBooks. Jobs always tried to push forward with new ports and methodologies, but only when appropriate. The iPad pro is far and away the best innovation Apple has made post-Jobs (IMO)
Julian Benegas
Well, if you see the improvements from one year to the other, you may not see their innovations. But if you compare, say, iPhone 11 with iPhone 8, it's a HUGE improvement (and it was released in 2017!) Apple Watch was huge. iPad Pro was huge. I like what they are doing with software and subscription services. Of course, with Steve Jobs Apple would be better. It's freaking Steve Jobs... But still, Apple is doing great.
J
Leading the pack when it comes to consumer adoption of new tech, brand awareness, and sales? I think he'd be more than happy.
Tunde Abdulahi
If you are Steve will you be happy... LOL!
Daniel Shepherd
I'm pretty sure apple has reduced the volume on the iPhone 6S and probably other older models to force users to upgrade or buy those ear pod things - I can't hear phone calls anymore and neither can my friend who has the same phone. There was the other case of older phones being made to run slow deliberately. I don't feel Steve Jobs would have approved of these kinds of tactics
Yashwanth Remidi
If you consider the impact on the people, he would probably be okay with it. But with his leadership it would have been way different than what it is now.
Pierre-Baptiste Couette-Barreau
If we want to answer this question, we have to take into consideration the market the company is evolving in. And if we have a closer look to that market, we can see that almost all the market where Apple is evolving are mature market which usually give a pretty small room for improvement compared to fast evolving markets. Plus, the market has been reshaped in term of business models from hardware companies to software companies. It looks like they manage pretty well the software shift they have to make with the launch of all there service (Apple Music, Apple News, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, ...) Their future hardware products will be more focusing on supporting their software activities. Because this is where the money lies now with all the Saas solutions. They also launched a themselves into finance with the Apple Card and went 100% renewable energy and tries to use as much as possible recycled materials. It looks like they are doing pretty good from that perspective. And they are pretty innovative on their software part. I think part of Steve Jobs vision was to make powerful technology accessible to even the most non-tech people on the planet. It feels like they continue to be performing pretty well in that
HiramFromTheChi
Ah, so many things to discuss here on both sides. Gonna write these off the top of my head before I forget. For: 1. Apple has a devoted fanbase and huge moat. 2. One of the most profitable and cash-rich companies in the world. 3. Something that Apple has done that 99% of companies can’t do is go from a high growth stage (peak Jobs era) to a cash cow (Cook era) to remain steadily/increasingly profitable. 4. Despite ruffling feathers with features (no headphone jack, ugly notch at the top), competitors still copy most of what they do. Google is a perfect example. Made fun of Apple directly, then proceeded to add the notch to the Pixel. And removed the headphone jack. 5. Leader in wearable tech (Apple Watch sales are ahead by leaps and bounds right now). 6. Dominating US phone market. 7. The ecosystem - once they got you in it, you’re trapped. Many people simply unwilling to make the jump to anything else afterwards. Against: 1. No longer the innovator in design it once was. 2. Software rollouts have been messy (both iOS 13 and Catalina have had their problems since rollout). 3. Increase in hardware issues. 4. They were supposed to be the leader in voice with Siri, but now lag behind severely. 5. iPads are not gonna be able to replace your laptops, and Apple knows it. But they’re profitable, so they’ll keep selling. 6. The Apple “premium” - you can pay $6000 for a maxed out MacBook that, if built yourself, would cost around $2000. Neutral (this can be a positive or negative, depending on how you look at it): 1. Rather than being just a hardware company, it’s moved heavily into the health space, where Tim Cook has stated Apple will make most of its historical contributions. Would Jobs have gone this route? Maybe, maybe not. Am I missing anything? Let’s hear it 👇
David
I don't think he would be quite disappointed, but I also don't mind the 2019 product line up for apple.
Phillip Chaffee
Can you come up with reasons to say no or is that just as hard?
sietse schelpe
No , he tried to improve to be unique to have another view. he was hard to everybody also himself. But he always tried to have a vision. Ok the product are still good very good . But something new. i don't think we will see this from apple untill they have a new muse. For now they playing safe on numbers
Dana King
I've heard many iphone users say they ready to switch to Android. Apple is not the innovation leader it was under Job's leadership. They have too many similar products that confuse the customer and they've stopped introducing compelling or meaningful features that separate their products from the rest of a very crowded market. The die hards on the left coast will hang on, loyal to the end, but the rest of the world realizes that Apple's lack of compatibiltity with non Apple products is frustrating developers and motivating people to look outside the Apple eco system.
Bekzat Sadykov
As minimum Jobs wouldn't be happy with my MBP keyboard. Apple changed when he passed away. There is no person behind the Brand. It was always Steve — and what Apple do was what Jobs dreamed of. Now there are investment companies (just check whom the company belong) — and all they care is money and shiny financial reports. That's why you can buy a monitor iStand for $999. There are tons of places you can buy a scooter or two for this price. I guess, scooter or bicycle is even harder to develop, right?
Catie K
Previously, Apple was interested in improving and simplifying life, but now they are only interested in money.