Tim Cook and Craig Federighis Apple?
Apples efforts to add geeky Android features to their own products may just be a market response an attempt by Apple to attract more Android users. However, I think it may also be an area where the current management of Tim Cook and Craig Federighi diverge from their predecessors, Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall. Steve Jobs was a purist and Im guessing he wouldnt have wanted to use scarce resources to create features that he didnt think were important to mainstream users. And make no mistake about it because this mistake IS being made all across the Technosphere many of the features Apple added on Monday are totally unnecessary to mainstream users.
One of the unique aspects of Apple has been its willingness to embrace counter-intuitive realities. For example, Apple alone seems to understand that the more you limit what a computer can do, the more likely it is that it can reliably do the things it can do. Another example is choice. Apple knows that simplifying a product has nothing to do with eliminating features and everything to do with eliminating the burden of decision making from its users.
Apple is doing the things we told ourselves theyd never do in their stubbornness. ~ Gabriel Visser (@gvssr)
This is, of course, heresy to the Technoratti. We live in our own little geeky bubble and dont realize that the features we clamor for most are the features that normals use least. Being un-empathetic is a human condition, but neckbeards like us have raised obliviousness to an art form. Hmm. Stubborn, ey?
When a person stands their ground and we agree with them, they are principled. When a person stands their ground and we disagree with them, they are stubborn. Its all a matter of perspective and if theres one thing the tech crowd is lacking, its perspective.
All we know is that the power features we so dearly love are essential TO US. Therefore, we assume these features must be essential TO EVERYONE. As Apple has demonstrated over and over and over again it just aint so. Normals buy Apple products, not despite the geek features they lack, but BECAUSE they dont have to deal with all that geekery.
Steve Jobs was a fanatic and we loved him or hated him for it. Tim Cook strikes me as a more practical sort of man. Im told Craig Federighi is a bit more geeky than Scott Forstall was. It should, therefore, have come as no surprise to us that Apple was bending a little and becoming a little bit more Android-like.
It should have come as no surprise but it still did.
Whither Apple or Wither Apple?
So, is this a good thing or a bad thing for Apple? In the short run, it is great for public relations. The pundits and the techheads and the acolytes of open are eating this up. Google the words Apple and WWDC and open and youll find a dozen or so articles praising the new more open Apple.
My 2¢: for the past few years its felt like Apples only goal was to put us in our place. Now it feels like they might want to be friends. ~ Cabel Sasser (@cabel)
You know who needs a friend, Cabel? End users, thats who. Because when developers become more important than end users you get Microsoft.
Putting developers in their place which is, to say, placed behind end users is exactly what Apple should be doing.
So in the short-run, developers and geeks are loving the new friendlier, more open Apple. But how is that going to play in long run? Will the new Apple be a better Apple; a more successful Apple? Or has Apple begun to lose their way, betraying the very core of their being?
