14 DAY TRIAL // People’s perception of Apple hasn’t changed much since the company had to swap CEOs. But there’s one particular aspect of its business that keeps scoring low points with each passing year.
It’s not that they don’t innovate on a regular basis. When Steve Jobs was running the show, it took Apple an average of four years to churn out something all new. Three years after Jobs’ death, Tim Cook announces the Apple Watch. So there’s hardly a basis for that argument here.
Too many products?
One customer has decided to speak up on the changes he’s noticed at Apple under Tim Cook. Santiago L. Valdarrama is an engineer manager at Levatas and he specializes in building scalable and fast enterprise software applications. He likes the Android ecosystem, but he also likes Apple.
He wrote a blog entry titled “I want my Apple back” on exactly the same day that Apple CEO Tim Cook emailed employees to reflect on the third anniversary of Steve Jobs’ death.
“Dear Apple, I have a MacBook Pro, an iPad, an iPhone 6 Plus, and an Apple TV. I've been a very happy customer for 5 years for only one reason: you guys make great products,” he says.
“You are the company that's all about the experience. The company of the thousand noes for every yes. The company that has revolutionized the way we think and use technology like anyone before. But now I'm worried,” he relays.
Valdarrama proceeds to explain that iOS 8 doesn’t feel polished enough, that he doesn’t feel confident to try on the Yosemite beta, and that things are progressing much faster than necessary. At Apple, at least.
“This pace is just too fast for you (or so it seems.) You have to slow down, take a deep breath and stop looking over the fence so much,” Valdarrama says, adding – in Brackets – “(Because I think something have changed your DNA. Before you didn't care so much about competitors. Today, I don't think that's true anymore.)”
He then notes that he’d “rather have 3 things done well than 20 half-baked features.”
Steve had his share
As much as we’d like to agree with Valdarrama, and he does make a valid point, we can’t. Not entirely, anyway. Apple had its share of bad press and disappointments under Steve Jobs too.
Remember when cut/paste arrived late in iOS and everyone outside Apple’s walled garden laughed at it? Well, that was typical quality control at Apple that some understood, while others didn’t. Things aren’t much different today.
Jobs looked over the fence too. The only thing that has changed is that Apple is now apparently keeping more tabs on the competition than it used to. For the business, it seems to work brilliantly.
Whose side are you on?