The Lesson of Apple: Exciting isn’t a Good Thing
Being a tech nerd I recently came across this terrified plea on Hacker News:
“There hasn’t been much excitement or rumors about what Apple will do next. Is the next version of iPhone really all that exciting anymore? What do you think Apple will do to stay current; or would you think that with the lose of Steve Jobs, Apple will expire? There’s the iWatch speculation/rumor, but is this all that interesting? What is so exciting about an iPhone on your wrist? Or do you think Apple is developing some cool device using graphene? A watch that could unfold into an iPhone then further unfold into an tablet would be amazing. But, I don’t feel like Apple will be pulling this rabbit out of their hat. What do you think?”
The lesson of Apple is that exciting isn’t a good thing. The Newton was very exciting, and it was a dud. On the flip side the iPod was just a slick MP3 player and changed the company. After that every product they made was telegraphed in advance: The iPhone was was an iPod phone, and the iPad was mocked as being a larger iPhone. Also the iPad wasn’t innovative because Microsoft did it first. So those three dull products released years apart are what put the company back on the map.
Something else that people also forget: As much as I loved Steve Jobs the company I feel in love with was run by John Sculley. This was the company that introduced a color Macintosh which was a big deal and actually useful. This was the company that invented HyperCard which got me and the industry into “multimedia”. This was the company that made the CD-ROM and sound cards a standard feature of every computer they sold. Apple in the late 80s and early 90s changed my life.
By the way if you’re looking at the next Newton there’s a huge chance that Google is working on it with Google Glass. It’s a product that is “exciting” but feels rough around the edges like Microsoft’s tablet.