Absolutism vs. pragmatism
As was to be expected, Apple’s latest event last September 9 has prompted much comment in the tech media.
First off, such events are no longer shrouded in secrecy; those of us who follow the company can pretty much keep up with what’s going on thanks to leaks from any number of well-informed sources. These launch events have become a kind of liturgy, albeit profoundly repetitive, but it has to be said that while other companies have to jump through hoops to get journalists to attend, all Apple has to do is send out a few invitations and the media is fighting for a seat.
Secondly, Apple events fall into two categories: those to announce something really new, and those to launch updates that might be bigger, smaller, different colors, etc. This week’s event clearly fell into the latter category, and nobody was expecting any great surprises. That said, the iPhone is the world’s biggest company’s biggest-selling product, and drives its profits.
Third of all is the question I explore with my students: to what extent is Apple really an innovative company? Where is the line between something radically new and simply improving on something that already exists? Apple has just launched the Apple Pencil, a stylus that is remarkably similar to many others that have appeared since the invention of the touch screen; and the Smart Keyboard, an iPad Pro smart keyboard that doubles as a cover, and that bears a remarkable resemblance to a product Microsoft created for its Surface series.
The best article I have read about this is from Fast Company: “Apple is a great copycat: did they improve anything?”, which points out that the Apple Pencil is not better than the 53, launched in November 2013 (and which lasts for three months on a single charge, rather than 12 hours, and comes with a rubber on the end of it), while the Smart Keyboard is no better than Microsoft’s from June 2012 (which comes with a convenient touchpad to avoid having to move the hand between the keyboard and the screen). At the same time, the article reminds us that the iPod was not the best MP3 player, either in terms of memory or features, and that there were any number of telephones better than the iPhone and that had 3G before it did. There are also better smartwatches out there…
So what? As we know, the market is no fool, and over time, has chosen, again and again, Apple’s products.
This pragmatism is what allows the company to shrug its shoulders when questions are raised about its ability to innovate: it can take pretty much any idea, reinterpret it to its own liking, and integrate it into its product range, and hey presto, the market sees it as superior to everybody else’s.
This is no small advantage. Microsoft’s keyboard’s outcome, which one illustrator predicted three years ago, or Samsung’s advertisement for its Galaxy Note 4 parodying the launch of the iPhone 6 Plus simply illustrate those companies’ impotence in the face of a rival able to successfully position its reinterpretations of their products to an expectant market.
Finally, a touch of James Bond: Never Say Never: the launch of the Apple Pencil has prompted many pundits to remind the company of Steve Jobs’ maxim that the finger was the best stylus, and that the great man would be spinning in his grave, although he was probably already doing so following the launch of the iPhone 6 Plus, the size of which was significantly bigger than the dimensions he defined. But as Jobs himself would have recognized, flexibility is everything in the tech world, a place where there is no room for absolutes, and nothing should ever be written in stone.
When Steve Jobs said that a smartphone should be able to fit in the hand, these devices were used in a very different way to now. In the same way, when he said that there was no need for styluses, tablets were not put to many of the uses they are today. In other words, Jobs’ words need to be taken in context, and in the real world, contexts change quickly.
Apple is constantly watching to see how its devices are used, and how that use changes. In response, it launches the product it thinks meets that use, and pays little attention to the past. That is only logical, especially when it didn’t even see this or that change coming.
If I were Apple, I wouldn’t be particularly worried that I copied somebody else’s idea, or that I was betraying the founder’s memory. The markets are nothing if not pragmatic, and in the end, they decide. Consumers vote with their wallets.
(En español, aquí)
