
Why Steve Jobs Never Listened to His Customers - JRutherford
https://www.helpscout.net/blog/why-steve-jobs-never-listened-to-his-customers/
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bslatkin
Can we stop perpetuating this myth please?

From [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-
mon...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-reveals-for-monday-
trial/)

""Apple is famous for eschewing market research and focus groups during the
creation of new products. However, it turns out the company does research
consumer sentiment on existing products in order to optimize future designs.

Apple conducts detailed, quarterly iPhone buyer surveys, according to a joint
motion regarding the sealing of trial exhibits. "The surveys reveal, country-
by-country, the factors driving customers to buy Apple products versus
competitive products such as Android," court documents state. The results
break down which demographics are most satisfied with Apple’s products, and
how different demographics respond to different features. The results also
show how consumer preferences differ country to country.

Apple is asking the results of these surveys only be shown to the jury when
proceedings begin next week. Language in the joint motion states, "Knowing
what Apple thinks about its customer base preferences is extremely valuable to
Apple competitors because it would allow them to infer what product features
Apple is likely to offer next, when, and in what markets."

~~~
mratzloff
Please also stop perpetuating the fake Henry Ford quote about faster horses.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4877934>

~~~
aggie
It's interesting to hear about the historical facts (thanks for sharing) but I
have to disagree with your position.

The quotation is a concise and eloquent means of making a point about consumer
opinion that is true in some cases, even if not in the historical case being
exemplified. The historical accuracy is not important when it isn't integral
to the argument being made.

I could make a similarly weak argument about your word choice: "quote" is a
verb, "quotation" is a noun, but the use of "quote" as a noun is concise and
communicates the intended meaning without causing any problems.

~~~
mratzloff
I get what you're saying, but the quote is always used as straw man shorthand
for "consumers don't know what they want", which is not true now, nor was it
true for Henry Ford. Perpetuating it is perpetuating a bad argument built on a
falsehood.

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snowwrestler
Steve Jobs did listen to customers--more than most business executives. He
famously read his own email and would write back to customers directly. He
made major strategic decisions based on customer feedback, for instance by
reversing direction and releasing an SDK for native apps on the iPhone.

He just didn't let customers set the future direction of products. The reason
for that is well explained in The Innovator's Dilemma.

~~~
enraged_camel
>> The reason for that is well explained in The Innovator's Dilemma.

Side note/question: I know there's three books in that "series": Innovator's
Dilemma, Innovator's Solution, and Seeing What's Next. For someone who has not
read any of them, what's the correct order? Are all three required, or is
there overlap between the contents?

~~~
SatvikBeri
_Innovator's Dilemma_ is much more academic and research-filled, _Innovator's
Solution_ is more "here's what you do with it." I'd recommend _Innovator's
Solution_ first as it's a somewhat lighter introduction. (I haven't read
Seeing What's Next, so can't comment there.)

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ignaciogiri
He was the #1 customer. I think he was building products that were good enough
to use himself, because he knew that would impress others. He was a respectful
narcissist.

Maybe I'm not using the correct words or my sight isn't accurate, but at least
that's the legacy I got from his life.

Building something that makes you proud and you strongly believe it's the
best. And convincing people to think about your product the way you do
yourself.

~~~
radio4fan
I'll give you narcissist, but I don't think Jobs had any respect for anyone
else or their opinions.

This may have been a good or bad thing, according to taste.

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tawgx
I think the best way to work with customers (and I do believe you should) is
not having theoretical discussions with them about the market or whether a new
product can take off, but rather give them a number of tangible alternatives
(can be mock ups) to play with and see how they react to them.

~~~
benjaz
Often, customers don't see the consequences of "small" changes that they'd
like to see. At AOL we had so many people giving feedback on products that it
became a customer support issue. One solution proposed was to have a dummy
site that allowed users to move elements around. Whenever they moved something
on the page (or dragged/dropped from a dynamic list of popular suggestions)
they'd see the consequences in real-time. Big bold messages declaring all the
changes that were just made would make it obvious that they need to think
through their ideas.

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kstenerud
Some important things to note:

1\. Apple spent many decades innovating things that customers weren't that
interested in. It's only within the last few years that Apple really captured
the public's imagination.

2\. You don't ask customers to tell you what revolutionary product they want,
because 99.9999% of the time they can't even imagine it. Imagining it is YOUR
job (provided you're in the business of carving out new industries). You DO,
however, ask customers about products that already exist, once they've had
time to get used to them.

Steve Jobs knew the difference. He (usually) listened when it was appropriate
to listen.

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tlogan
Maybe instead of saying "you should listen to your customer", we should say
"you should observe and learn from your customers".

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r0s
It seems like there's two sides to creating demand for a product, natural
customer desire and customer desire plasticity.

Of course, focusing on both is the best approach. Personally, I've never
gleaned the appeal of apple products. They don't seem simple or intuitive such
as how they're sold, from my perspective. Maybe this is my advanced user
perspective talking, but it seems like just another UI with a different
terminology and tropes. A new interface to memorize. So from this perspective,
the trick is getting users to want to invest time and money in that new
system. In that, apple is quite successful.

~~~
babesh
Yeah sure, that trickery is what makes iOS so easy to use for very young
children. Time to put away the blinders and put yourself in the perspective of
other people.

~~~
r0s
iOS isn't a full open computing environment, any simple interface is just as
"intuitive", compare to android or WP8.

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samspenc
> When asked why he bristled at his peers’ suggestion, Johnson responded, "We
> didn't test at Apple.”

That is pretty funny, obviously he didn't realize JC Penney is a completely
different beast from Apple. People shop at JC Penney for price drops, not for
quality products.

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mandeepj
I think the title is wrong. Steve jobs listened to his customers and their
feedback but never asked them - what should we develop next or what type of
computer, music player or phone you like to have?

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MisterBastahrd
CEOs who don't listen to their customers end up unemployed quickly.

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supercanuck
Never?

