

Revisiting Wired's 1997 "101 Ways to Save Apple" - txb
http://derek.trideja.com/saveapple/

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mortenjorck
There's one other bit of prescience in Wired's cover story that I've never
seen anyone mention anywhere (including this retrospective). It's hiding in
plain sight on the cover:
[http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/FB3E53577D7F42CAB9D5053CE3580...](http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/FB3E53577D7F42CAB9D5053CE35804A7/33b.jpg)

Can you spot it?

~~~
gacba
The only one I can figure out is the "Steve Jobs as God" metaphor from the
bleeding heart makeover of the Apple logo.

~~~
mortenjorck
Maybe... was that new at the time?

Here's what I was looking at: Typography. Wired's cover has the headline set
in Myriad Pro. In 1997, Apple's corporate identity used a variant of Garamond
Condensed. In 2003, they would retire Garamond after nearly twenty years of
service – for Myriad Pro. It's now the font on every Apple ad, web headline,
box, and hardware nameplate.

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bitwize
I thought this one was the coolest:

> Have Pixar make 3001, A Space Odyssey, with HAL replaced by a Mac.

It's called WALL-E (2008). The antagonist, Auto, has a glowing red "eye" like
HAL and speaks with a Mac speech-synth voice.

Also, the title character's battery full signal is a Mac chime and, as noted
in the article, the iPod designer was responsible for EVE's unique look.

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cletus
I came here prepared to ridicule this list but (which is my default position
when it comes to anyone--particularly journalists--predicting the future),
honestly, a lot of what's on this list has actually happened.

> 1\. Admit it. You're out of the hardware game.

This one is interesting. It recommends outsourcing hardware production, which
is clearly what happens now, but Apple is ultimately a hardware company now.
All the design is in-house.

> 7\. Don't disappear from the retail chains.

And now we have the Apple Store.

> 8\. Buy a song.

Apple's advertising through the last decade has been iconic. Starting with the
iPod, Apple has attached their advertising to a particular song (eg Jet's "Are
you gonna be my girl?") launching a few music careers in the process, branding
themselves and identifying those songs with the company.

> 10\. Get a great image campaign.

Check.

> 12\. Build a fire under your ad agency.

This one is both right and wrong. "People want to know about power". No they
don't. Part of what makes Apple's campaigns of the last decade so successful
is the simplicity of the message. Consider this classic:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CPab8U5zTU>

Apart from the very recognizable graphics of people dancing with their iPods,
the ad says three things:

\- iPod

\- Mac or Windows

\- Apple (logo)

Look at one of the iPad ads:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP8wKtFA4Io>

Unlike what competitors are still doing (which is bullet-pointing tech specs
and saying what the competition can't do), Apple gives a very simple and
crafted message about what you can do and how easily you can do it.

> 16\. Take better care of your customers.

Check.

> 19\. Get rid of the cables.

Check.

> 27\. Relocate the company (to Bangalore)

This one is downright hilarious.

> 29\. Work closely with Hewlett-Packard,

This one is about battery life, which Apple leads the industry in (now).

> 31\. Build a PDA for less than $250

iPod Touch anyone?

> 34\. Port the OS to the Intel platform,

Check.

> 37\. Take advantage of NeXT's easy and powerful OpenStep

Check.

> 39\. Build a laptop that weighs 2 pounds

Check (Macbook Air, arguably iPad).

> 47\. Work on ways to make your lower-end models truly upgradable.

The increase in computing power has solved this problem. People don't like
upgrades, or rather they don't like _needing_ upgrades. People are still
happily using Macs from 5+ years ago today for most things that most people
do, which interestingly has screwed the Microsoft business model (which was
and still is reliant on churn).

> 50\. Give Steve Jobs as much authority as he wants in new product
> development.

HUGE check.

> 70\. Simplify your PC product line.

Check.

As lists go, this one isn't bad.

~~~
stcredzero
_> 47\. Work on ways to make your lower-end models truly upgradable.

The increase in computing power has solved this problem. People don't like
upgrades, or rather they don't like needing upgrades._

Apple has worked to make their products practically fungible. (So long as you
don't engrave.) A lot of times, a "repair" is just putting your data on a new
device. The hardware is throwaway in the long term. Only the data has anything
approaching durable value, and it's not even close.

That said, I love the SSD in my old original Unibody Macbook.

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jdp23
Well done! The original list is a combination of inspired and obvious ideas
along with a few clunkers. Interesting to look back on a very different
time....

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jeffclark
Is it really shocking that a journalist's 101 ways to save a technology
company were (mostly) way off?

Those who can, do. Those who can't act like they can and then write about it.

~~~
ugh
Way off? Which list did you read?

~~~
sudont
#8: _Buy a song_ Status: Done

It compares buying a song for _marketing_ purposes to _selling music_ , and
then moves on to an unnamed allusion of what Microsoft did with "Start me up"
to what Apple does with background music. The takeaway is that Apple should
brand itself with a specific pop song that has existing cultural cache, which
it never did. I consider that "way off."

~~~
bhousel
"The takeaway is that Apple should brand itself with a specific pop song that
has existing cultural cache, which it never did."

You can seriously think of no time in the past 15 years that Apple has done
this?

Edit: I'll give you a hint:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_used_by_Apple_Inc%2e>

~~~
tesseract
I think it can be argued that Apple never created as much of a cultural
sensation as Microsoft did with its use of "Start Me Up".

On the other hand I've heard people refer to Yael Naim's "New Soul" as 'the
Macbook Air song' on a few occasions.

