14 DAY TRIAL // Yeah... I know most of you have already read the interview with Steve Jobs a few weeks ago, but I wanted to add some personal toughts on the matter.
Steve Jobs and the iPod
Steven Levy, a writer for Newsweek, was granted an exclusive with Steve Jobs. The occasion was - obviously - iPod's 5th birthday. The period that will mark this anniversary is 15 - 23 Oct. 2006, and Jobs felt he wanted to reflect a little on his "baby", together with the media.
Also, Steven Levy is the author of the book entitled "The Perfect Thing". This book is focused on the iPod and reflects on the past, talks about the present and gives an opinion about the upcoming future of this device. 'Why?' you ask? well? it is simple: because this little gadget that we've grown so fond of in the last years has not only changed Apple radically, but has also changed us.
As Jobs stood and reflected on this "child" that grew so fast, he shared a few opinions about the iPod. He admitted that he knew from the very beginning that this would be a very successful product. The way you can tell that one is onto something interesting and successful in the future is by looking at the one - actively or passively - involved in the project. Basically, at the ones that know about the project, before it goes on the market; if these people want one for themselves then you are on the verge of something big, he explains. This was apparently the case for the iPod. Everybody on the team wanted one? badly. They could hardly wait to go out and open their own wallets to buy one, according to Steve.
This sounds like a good observation, if I can call it like that. Reflecting on some of my past projects, the common sense tells me the same thing, just that I'm not Steve Jobs and did not realize this at first. I remember that, back then - when I was just starting out - I was making custom cases for PCs in the garage of a friend. We worked like idiots day and night on two cases with lots of fans, nice designs and a lot of paint on them. The cost of the whole "experience" was so big that even if we wanted to sell them at a price 5 times higher that what was on the market we would still be money short; and the important thing was that - by making them exactly the way we wanted a PC case to be - we finally could not "separate" from them and decided to keep them for ourselves. The funny thing was that, after two weeks, two gamers saw the pictures we were bragging with on a forum that offered us eleven times the cost of a normal PC case and we still could not give them away. Well, after that, it was a down hill ride as we sold another 17 such cases.
So the thing that Jobs is talking about is kind of true. If those that make it want one so bad, the public will love it even more.
Coming back to the interview, the obvious question is why did Apple got it right with the iPod? There were other companies that tried to make a hard disk drive music player before Apple and they pretty much crashed and burned. Jobs thinks that its product success was mainly the indirect fact that they possessed the hardware expertise, the industrial design expertise and the software expertise, including iTunes. Moreover, the fact that others managed the music libraries with iTunes and not on the device itself, was a direct factor for the iPod's success. "Other companies tried to do everything on the device itself and made it so complicated that it was useless", said Jobs.
The designs of the iPod.
Well, this is one of the strong points of the iPod, if you ask me. Jobs' "lesson" on that is that they tried to make it as simple and "holistic" as possible.
When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through, he says.
Well, he never lacked the oratory qualities one needs to make him and his products "lovable", but this doesn't seem to be like all the marketing gibberish I'm used to. He says that, and from what I can tell, he really means it. If it were only some nice words, then the quality of Apple's products would not be so good, but it is (of most of them at least). The simplification that he is talking about is obvious in everything that has a little badge that says "Apple", and this is a fact.
The "cool" factor.
My opinion on the "coolness" of something always was, and still is, that if someone uncool buys, or wears or even likes that "something", then it is compromised for everyone else. Well, as for the iPod, this is a big problem if you ask me. The iPod is "proudly worn" by some of the uncoolest people in the galaxy. When asked "how can it be cool when Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth have one?", Jobs responded: "That's like saying you don't want to kiss your lover's lips because everyone has lips. It doesn't make any sense. We don't strive to appear cool. We just try to make the best products we can. And if they are cool, well, that's great."
I do not necessarily agree with him, but the matter is that - in spite of the fact that so many that I consider uncool have an iPod - I still want one and I can't really explain why. Maybe it is like he says, but my opinion on the matter is that Apple should keep reinventing the iPod constantly, so that the uncool ones can't really keep up with the "fresh cool" ones.
iTunes and Steve Jobs
Apparently, Jobs says, it took him 18 months to pursue and convince the record labels to sign up. I wouldn't say that this time was wasted and I am certainly surprised at how did Apple manage to pull something like this, considering that record labels have been resisting digital music for quite some time.
Describing the process, Jobs said:
We got to know these folks and we made a series of predictions that a lot of things they were trying would fail. Then they went and tried them, and they all failed, for the reasons that we had predicted." Not giving up, Jobs's team kept coming back to visit them every month or two until the record labels started believing that Apple has got some inside into the whole business. The credibility grew with them to the point where they wore wiling to take a chance with Apple. Also, a factor that contributed to the success of the whole project was that this was originally only on Mac. One argument that Jobs used, he says, was: If we're completely wrong and you completely screw up the entire music market for Mac owners, the sandbox is small enough that you really won't damage the overall music industry very much.
This is where Macintosh's small market share (at the time) helped them. After six months, Apple was able to successfully persuade them into taking down the barriers and let us move it out to the whole market.
Regarding the costs of the music, Steve admits that he never asked them to lower their prices, but instead, asked them not to raise them. That is because his core initial strategy on the store was that, if you want to stop piracy, the way to stop it is to compete with it, by offering a better product at a fair price, he says. In essence, we would make a deal with people. If they would pay a fair price, we would give them a better product and they would stop being pirates. And it worked. If we go back now and we raise prices-this is what we told the record companies last year-we will be violating that implicit deal. Many users will say, "I knew it all along that the music companies were going to screw me, and now they're screwing me." And they would never buy anything from iTunes again.
The issue of fairness was brought up. Fairness is not really the best word for it, but the thing that goes through many people's minds is that music bought from iTunes Stores can only work on iTunes and the iPod. When I think of it, it sounds a little unfair, but the fact is that everyone knows that if they buy it - and if the customer does not have anything to complain about - that means he considers it fair; or so is the way I see this.
Jobs and Microsoft's Zune
We wore talking about the interview with Steve Jobs by Steven Lewin from Newsweek given on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the iPod. Jobs shared some opinions and a little "inside information" about the iPod and the iTunes Store. That is not all of it. He actually mentioned something about Zune too.
Microsoft is trying desperately to get a piece of the action in the digital players industry. In November, Microsoft will launch its response to the extremely popular iPod. They say it is supposed to be really good and its strong feature - they say - is that you can connect to other Zune players and download music from them. The fact is that I don't really trust Microsoft. They never really knew what we liked, they just made it so that we would need it and I'm not that fond of that. Going through some Zune-related videos on the web I saw its advertising video.
I'm talking about the one with the two animated birds that catch fire and transform themselves. Kind of cool I said to myself? but what are they selling? It looked kind of vague to me and did not actually convince me to even ask anyone else about it. "Maybe that is just me" I said and continued searching. Then I came across one presentation video of Zune, in which the General Manager of Marketing from Microsoft was "showing off" Zune. Well? there was not much to show off. He said something about the box - and I could not quite understand what it was about - and the three colors Zune comes in: black, white and brown.
Black and white I understand, but that brown looked very fishy to me. I looked like a cat with stomach problems had something to do in the "coloring" of that Zune. Again? maybe it's just me. I should not make such a harsh decision without seeing more - I said to myself - and continued watching.
The strong features of Zune are that it can change its background, play music and videos, and it will connect to other Zunes. That's it? It cannot be. Where are the new and "out of this world" features that will aid Zune in dethroning the iPod?
Another clip then made my day: the introduction of Zune on the "Ellen" show. That was extremely informing, as I saw a lot of blondes jumping up and down, because they were getting a free Zune. What normal man or woman would choose something that makes a blond happy when she receives it for free?
Sure, maybe it is a good one, maybe it does everything an iPod does (even if I doubt that) but it lacks "the X factor". Without the X-factor nothing can be a new world trend (as the iPod is)? and Zune does not have it. I'm sorry, but I don't see anything in Zune that would make me choose it over an iPod.
If you want to come in strong on the market you have to give much more than others do. You either multiply its features, its hardware capabilities, or you make it so good-looking that women will wear it instead of their purses. Zune does not have anything like that.
Well, regarding the subject that I was initially talking about: Steve Jobs had this much to say about Zune: I've seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you've gone through all that, the girl's got up and left! You're much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you're connected with about two feet of headphone cable.
Thanks to Steven Levy from Newsweek for sharing the interview with us