
The Steve Jobs email that outlined Apple’s strategy a year before his death - uptown
http://qz.com/196005/the-steve-jobs-email-that-outlined-apples-strategy-a-year-before-his-death/
======
CPLX
I keep having this fantasy that Jobs would never have stood for the erosion of
the pro level products into thin clients, like the new MBP, the lack of
updates to the Mac Pro line, retrograde motion on the Mini, etc.

But seeing this, and the 4-5 perfunctory lines devoted at the end to the
entire Mac line, makes me realize that's probably just a fantasy after all.
This is where Apple has been going for awhile apparently.

~~~
jbob2000
Did you miss all the "be better than Google"? He seemed intensely scared of
them, to the point where he wanted Apple to focus 100% on beating them. Google
doesn't do laptop/desktop computers (until this year with the pixel). We are
seeing this version of Apple come to fruition; all-in on mobile and consumer
software services.

~~~
charlesism
I'm sure "scared of them" played some part, but "angry at them" played a
larger one. This wasn't too long after Google blind-sided Apple by entering
the phone market, which SJ somehow thought was a betrayal. To be fair, they
did so while Schmidt was actually still sitting on the board at Apple, which
might be what really ticked Steve off.

~~~
toyg
And they did so with an OS based on a technology, er, "borrowed" from SUN and
now owned by his great friend Larry Ellison.

Lots of straws on that camel...

~~~
Pigo
It's not like Google helped Oracle continue to fail at having their own mobile
platform. Jonathan Schwartz, SUN CEO at the time, witnessed in support of
Google, as he encouraged them to use it. The whole point was to open more
technologies to foster creative ideas, while Apple continues to cherry pick
from for their "locked users".

------
meesterdude
> tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our
> ecosystem

I know they've done this, and i know they've done this on purpose; but to read
it bare like that is a bit too much for me, especially as I think more and
more about the benefits of leaving their ecosystem, and weighing against the
downsides.

~~~
eridius
Everybody tries to do this, but few companies have such a comprehensive
ecosystem as Apple. Do note that what you've quoted is not in any way
_malicious_. It's just saying "make all of our products work really great
together, so that way someone who uses one of them is much more likely to buy
into the rest of the ecosystem". This is a bit different than saying "make it
difficult for customers to leave our ecosystem", which would be the malicious
approach.

~~~
Pigo
So you talked to him, and can now report that it was in no way malicious?
Because it sure seems they make it difficult for customers to leave their
ecosystem. The effort involved in leaving is usually the justification I hear
for why people continue to buy Apple, even when there is other products they'd
like to try. No one can deny how effective it has been for them, and a lot of
people seem to have no problem with it.

~~~
matt4077
Where's the lock-in exactly? Because I can't think of any besides "this
application isn't available for linux/windows/android".

Photos -> Export unmodified originals

Calendar -> Export as iCal

E-Mail -> IMAP anyway (and most people use gmail anyway)

iTunes -> Stuff you bought is .aac without DRM. Music subscription can be
cancelled every month

Personally I'm mostly using google services, some of them in parallel to
Apple's (i. e. Photos, Cloud Storage) and some exclusively (Gmail, Calendar).
I could switch any day. But I use computers professionally and lack the time
to debug kernels to get audio or sleep or networking to work. And I lack the
tastelessness to spend the majority of my working hours with a tool made from
cheap plastic.

~~~
Pigo
I apologize, I didn't mean to dis your choice in devices. I promised myself I
wouldn't go at it with the Kook-Aid drinkers anymore. It's just seeing Jobs
set 'locking users in' as part of the agenda makes me upset for Apple users,
it obviously never affected me.

~~~
matt4077
You can be as condescending as you want, I'm still curious to hear an example.

------
denzil_correa
Personally, I think this was an insightful comment

> – Google and Microsoft are further along on the technology, but haven’t
> quite figured it out yet

Basically, he accepts that Apple lags behind in technology but Apple can "make
things work". Technology alone is not enough - you need a healthy marriage of
technology and humanities.

~~~
digi_owl
Nothing new with Apple, the last time they were a early adopter was with the
original Mac. Since then they have been latecomer to existing markets, but
made a big splash about their entry via their inside track with MSM (a track
that exist as a legacy of that Mac).

~~~
mercer
I'd say that's selling Apple short. I have no particular love for them,
especially at this moment, but they make a big splash because they (still?)
manage to do things _right_ in all the ways that I (and apparently others)
care about.

------
schizoidboy
I guess this is true of almost all the big companies; nevertheless, it's
interesting to see it written explicitly:

"tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our
ecosystem"

~~~
liquidise
> _tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our
> ecosystem_

Their failure to execute on this is what is wrong with the current Apple.
While it may sound nefarious, it was never a secret agenda, but it was
successful because of trust. There was an inherent trust that buying into the
Apple walled garden of products was superior to the outside world. Like it or
not, Apple delivered on that promise to an almost frustrating capacity.

Fast-forward to the present, that trust has been broken. The flailing we see
from the Apple community (of which i am one) is because so many of us feel
that trust has been broken. I can't plug my headphones into an iPhone 7
without a dongle. If i bought a new MacBook Pro, i can't plug an iPhone 7 into
it, either. The total lack of answers on the desktop side has exceeded
concerning. Those of us in the walled garden are seeing the flowers wilt and
the maintainers turn a blind eye. But because many of us have built our
professional careers on Apple hardware and OS, there is fear of change. What
if Ubuntu isn't as good? How will i ship my iOS app, etc.

Trust is an important but delicate idea. Once broken, it can takes years to
earn back.

~~~
scarlac
> tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our
> ecosystem

> > Their failure to execute on this is what is wrong with the current Apple

I respectfully disagree. I would argue that the "new" Apple tie their products
together and "lock customers into [their] ecosystem" much better than the old.
Handoff, Universal Clipboard, iCloud drive/documents/desktop, Maps, Music and
more have all been improved a lot in the last 3 years. I'd even admit that
I've knowingly (that their goal is to tie me in) chosen Apple services instead
of others due to their tighter integration.

> I can't plug my headphones into an iPhone 7 without a dongle.

While I agree with you that this is annoying, and I've even made this argument
to other, I have to admit that I very rarely connect my iPhone to my mac and
only remember doing so to back up, which has been replaced by iCloud backups.

This is probably also what Steve was referring to as Inventor's dilemma. They
could "do the right thing" and someone else would push wireless or they could
do it themselves.

------
creshal
> – Strategy: catch up to Android where we are behind (notifications,
> tethering, speech, …) and leapfrog them (Siri, …)

> – Strategy: catch up to Google cloud services and leapfrog them (Photo
> Stream, cloud storage)

> – way ahead of Apple in cloud services for contacts, calendars, mail

Interesting to see how critical Apple internally was (is?) about their
competitiveness.

~~~
rqebmm
It's also interesting to see that they knew notifications were crap circa 2011
and _still_ haven't done anything to get ahead of Android.

~~~
tehaugmenter
Might have something to do with the Patent Google has[0].

[0]
[https://www.google.com/patents/US20090249247](https://www.google.com/patents/US20090249247)

~~~
otterley
That is an application, not an issued patent. Whether a patent is granted
remains to be seen.

------
achairapart
> – 2011 Strategy: ship iPad 2 with amazing hardware and software before our
> competitors even catch up with our current model

Typical Apple process here: Ship a base model (MVP?) to test the market, then
ship the full featured one on next iteration.

Also, this is why you should always wait at least for revision 2 before buy
every new Apple product. The new Macbook touchbar thing could fall under this,
too.

~~~
dictum
The iPad 3 was an extreme version of that, having been superseded by the iPad
4 in only 7 months. Never used an iPad 3, but I have a feeling the silicon
wasn't quite ready for a display resolution of 2048x1536.

~~~
jonny_eh
I thought the iPad 3 (aka "The New iPad") was great. I used it for a few years
before upgrading to the iPad Air 2. I thought the short 7 month cycle was to
change the annual launch period of new iPads, and to get it on lightning.

------
drzaiusapelord
The post-PC era sure was looking like a big deal in 2009-2010 but now its
clear that mobile has over-saturated the market and old fashioned laptops and
desktops weren't actually being replaced, people just stopped buying
replacements as frequently. Are we post-PC? If so, I'm not seeing it.

In fact, Q2 2016 PC sales are slightly up and ipad sales down in a bizarre
turnaround. The year-over-year decline is still there, but mostly because a
5-6 year old desktop or laptop is perfectly usable still, while a 2-3 year old
phone or tablet is ready for the garbage heap.

------
bbctol
Can someone elaborate on the "Holy War with Google"? I think of Google as
encroaching on Apple's standard turf, not the other way around, and Apple
hasn't been expanding towards the places Google wants to go. What was Jobs's
plan, beyond just "do better than them?" The phrasing implies something grand
and specific.

EDIT: I forgot that Siri hadn't come out yet; I suppose they did jump ahead of
Google, but not with a product good enough to corner the market.

~~~
legohead
If they really wanted holy war, they should release a cheap phone that could
be easily bought worldwide. They could even take a loss (using their $40bill
as Jobs said he was willing to do), and try to earn back the loss in the app
store.

It's such an obvious strategy, but oh well..

~~~
toyg
It would risk Apple's position as the luxury brand.

------
basch
Nowhere is Apple's rudderlessness more apparent than their cloud "strategy."

>– Strategy: catch up to Google cloud services and leapfrog them (Photo
Stream, cloud storage)

iCloud is an embarrassment. I can't tell you how many people I have met who
dont understand why their phone stops backing up, and that they need to pay
$1/m for more space. To absolutely ruin someones ios mobile experience over
$12 is inexcusable. iCloud and iTunes backups are completely incompatible. If
you attempt to use both you end up with forked independent backups. To check
all of your available iCloud restore points, you either need to call Apple
Support and confirm the times or wipe a device and get back to the restore
screen. Let me repeat that: you need to ERASE YOUR PHONE TO CHECK __IF__ A
BACKUP EXISTS. Then there is iCloud Drive, iCloud Backup, yet I cant browse
through backups in the cloud, I can only do a full restore to a device.

Photos has "iCloud Photo Library" "My Photo Stream" "iCloud Photo Sharing"
etc. And iCloud has Photo backup in the iCloud section of settings. How many
different ways is Apple going to reinvent localstore, sync, cloudbackup,
sharing of photos? It's almost starting to feel like its too late for them to
catch up to Google Photos. It is a telltale sign of rottenness in Denmark that
Google Photos is coming to the rescue to save Apple users FROM a lack of
unified iPhoto/iCloud backup+share.

My Passbook/Wallet needs to be recreated every time I set up a device?

Apple needs three things

1) a visionary. a leader who makes arbitrary design decisions and cuts through
committee banality and risk aversion. Someone a tiny bit reckless, ready to
make bold decisions that dont have statistics to back them up. A person
actually forging a unique strategy path through the untamed cloud wilderness.
The current level of cohesiveness and interoperability IS NOT GOOD for a
company trying to compete in the 2016 cloud space. Microsoft Teams is
Microsoft merging Exchange/Sharepoint/Skype into one interface. Apple should
be scared by how independent they have left their software silos. There has
been no movement whatsoever.

2) to start spending its cash reserves on acquiring fully fleshed out software
companies. Microsoft needed a mobile Mail app? They acquire the team and
software and rename it Outlook. Apple needs to seriously evaluate every piece
of Office/Productivity software that Google and Microsoft (and Adobe and
Facebook) make, and acquire a competitor. And not roll the team into their
existing product, but SCRAP their existing product and migrate the data over
cleanly. They should look at the best apps in the apps store, that dont have
Microsoft and Google competitors, and buy those too, thus making their Office
and Productivity suite unique. Buying Adobe might be a good start. Adobe's
Marketing Cloud would position Apple in a new market against Salesforce and
Microsoft. Buying Hubspot could do similar. Apple could buy THOUSANDS of the
companies represented in its app store, and have first party titles like
Nintendo. First party development studios are a great way to attract people to
your platform, while letting your other services become cross platform. They
should be throwing cash at the wall of potential, nurturing unprofitable but
useful/addictive products, and hoping they stumble bassackwards into the next
Minecraft or Dropbox before it costs billions. Yet the Valve model of make
just a platform, no games, seems to be winning out.

3) recognizing that cross platform software is a gateway drug. A lot of people
got into Apple stuff because iPods worked with Windows computers. Apple is
where it is because iTunes released for windows and was easier and safer than
Napster/Kazaa. They need to recognize that they wont convert everyone from
Android and offer Android and Windows versions of their cloud software. If
they sow and nurture seeds, iOS wont feel foreign in the event a person
decides to finally leave Google or Microsoft. Obviously its important that it
work Better on iOS/macOS, but people need to get a taste before they convert
to a new ecosystem. Gmail works good on every platform, but it works BETTER
with Google Assistant. Apple has 18% mobile marketshare, if they want iMessage
to become WhatsApp or Messenger, they need to release it elsewhere, otherwise
it will always be second best.

and a bonus fourth thinking a bit outside the box.

4) recognize Yahoo's place in the cloud world is collapsing and offer refugees
an alternative. Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy Football. Maybe buy and save
Flickr, and turn Flickr into an iCloud Photos Social network for professional
photographers. If only they had a good word they could use to name their
nonexistant social cloud product instead of the current word salad they are
serving up (hint it's iPhoto.) Apple is very poorly positioned against
Instagram, Google Photos, and Adobe Cloud. They should put the effort into
Photos that they have into Music and Streaming. Pinterest could be another
option. Buy OpenFolio and Robinhood, merge them, and create something better
than Yahoo Finance ever was. A finance driven social network could be Apple's
way of finally becoming social, without being a "meetoo" like Google+ or a
flop like Ping. The state of Fantasy Sports is atrocious, ESPN, NFL, and Yahoo
all spend time and effort making their apps worse. CBS is a pay platform
minimizing its visibility so most people dont know how good it can be. Can you
imagine the cash Apple could print if it was loosely affiliated with sports
betting? Apple obviously wants to get into content distribution, and after
saying they dont want to acquire ATT, maybe they could look at Medium or The
Atavist.

4b) There is a HUGE gap in the world in the Banking/Payment industry. Venmo
and Facebook are making payment social. SplitWise could be a great foot in
that door. Mint Bills (Check) and the defunct manilla were great cloud bill
backups and calendars. Mint and Personal Capital are meta-bank managers that
let you see across all your accounts. OpenFolio lets me see all my investments
with different companies. Intuit (TurboTax and Mint) have a market cap of 4
billion, buy them.

tldr: Flickr+OpenFolio+Medium+Adobe, and suddenly Apple could be giving
Facebook and Google some fair competition, albeit with a lot less AI. Probably
let Adobe run the "cloud strategy" part of the company tho.

~~~
2f979e912114
It is true that iCloud has a large number of issues.

> Let me repeat that: you need to ERASE YOUR PHONE TO CHECK __IF__ A BACKUP
> EXISTS.

Maybe I don't understand what you're getting at here, but you can see if there
is a backup of your device. Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage –
Lists all the devices w/a backup, the last time they were backed up, the size
of the backup, an estimate of the size of the next backup, etc.

> My Passbook/Wallet needs to be recreated every time I set up a device?

See "How Apple Pay uses the Secure Element" \-
[https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf](https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf)

~~~
basch
Manage Storage doesnt show every backup time, just the last. Say for example a
person 1) backups their phone to icloud 2) restores their phone from itunes
(bad) 3) their phone backs itself up to icloud (overwriting the known good
icloud backup with the out of date itunes backup). iCloud shows the LAST
backup (a bad out of date one), but if i want to restore the known good backup
from step 1, i need to erase the phone (or find a different factory reset
device) before I can see all the available icloud backups. If you call Apple
Support they can also see the full list of backups and tell you the time each
occurred, but there is no user facing place to confirm the information except
on a factory reset first boot.

As for the secure element, it's a credit card number, I hand it to a waitress
every time I eat out. Its basically public information, given how many
hundreds of companies have it. I dont need secure hardware to protect the 16
digit number I flash at multiple humans eyeballs every day. If it gets abused,
I change the number.

------
heisenbit
It strikes me that this is a very feature oriented list. These are the main
product themes and these are the features to be driven forward.

What I really would like to see the equivalent process for coming up with the
themes and the discussion around customers and where they were going. Maybe
such a thing exists in Apple and that would be great for them. Maybe too much
relied on Steve intuiting and translating it to executable battle plans.

The proof will be in the pudding (code name for iPhone 10).

------
happytrails
The cult of Steve Jobs is getting a resurgence on Hacker News?

~~~
Steko
Play the HN Steve Jobs drinking game:

Take a drink if comment claims Tim Cook is no Jobs/visionary.

Take a drink if comment mentions going nuclear on Google.

Take a drink if comment mentions his cancer would have been fine if he didn't
follow Eastern/New Age quackery.

Take a drink if comment mentions he wasn't a great philanthropist, make it a
double if they go straight to accusing him of being a "sociopath".

------
bshimmin
From reading that through, I guess you can't really blame Tim Cook for how low
a priority Macs seem to be to Apple nowadays...

~~~
Longhanks
Very disappointing to see the only bullet points concerning the Mac are Mac
App Store, Lion and hardware.

Fast forward to 2016, the Mac App Store is rotting, hardware gets updated
maybe in 1-3 years, and the os is lagging.

Makes you wonder what's on their list for the next years, if anything...

~~~
yourapostasy
The emphasis in the lead on the Post PC era is telling. This confirms to me
macOS platform innovation (software and hardware) is on the back burner. Jobs-
Apple was not sentimental about abruptly dropping product lines, and entirely
exiting markets very swiftly after a long senescence, one which high-end macOS
hardware is in the midst of right now. Most recent example is the high-end
display market with the Thunderbolt Display. The Apple DOS platform and MacOS
(the cooperative multitasking one, not the NeXTStep-based one) more salient
examples to the "whither macOS" discussion.

Cook-Apple, without a strong design lead possessing a keen technical sense,
might drag out the macOS senescence, making for a miserable macOS professional
customer base. While a very tiny fraction of the market, they're very vocal,
and can be distracting if Apple is indeed attempting to disentangle itself
from the PC era as Jobs called it. Another area of concern is the strategy
note explicitly set out looking for lock-in at the design stage outset, rather
than opportunistically and organically monetizing lock-in where and when it
happens as a side-effect of delivering a delightful customer experience. Down
that path of making lock-in an explicit design goal lies mediocre design
output.

I wonder Apple is mulling over whether or not to exit the high-end PC market,
because the executive team senses future profitability lays in the consumer
segment, commoditizing the most common pieces of the PC market into the
portable devices they make tomorrow. There still exists a high-end camera
market for example, but Apple makes far more money than those camera companies
with just a consumer-good-enough camera feature on their smartphones. The
question they might be exploring right now is if they can expand the iPad Pro
far enough to convert+capture the bulk of the macOS market into consumer
segments, then ditch the rest (including the high-end macOS/PC market).

I'm not looking forward to a future transition to a Linux-with-Windows-
emulation stack for my daily driver laptop, because there are a _LOT_ of bits
of polish in laptops that Linux (and Windows for that matter) still has not
nailed yet that are greatly aggravating in my daily experience. Ultra-reliable
sleep and wake (especially interaction with networking) tops my list, but
other UI and user experience bits, gone over exhaustively in other HN
discussion threads about the latest MacBook Pros. There are a _lot_ of sharp
corners in the laptop experience that macOS rounded off over the past decades,
and while I would miss them, if fundamental support for a laptop form factor
personal computing platform is disappearing from Apple then move I must.

This is ironic, because if fucking over Google was a key Apple strategic goal
(for the record, I think that's not how a business should be aimed/run, and I
see promising signs Cook is willing to truly bury the hatchet), then I thought
that an Apple Home Server running macOS with services that many people tend to
get from Google, decentralizing Google's key services like GMail (including
calendar, contacts, _etc._ ), Voice, _etc._ , and portal'ing a voice-based
interface to capture and refine/curate search requests (and direct them to a
service like DDG instead of Google), with ultra-seamless iDevice and macOS
integration and enhancement to attract customers, would have been Apple's
logical direction to slice away at Google's ad revenue.

~~~
mercer
I'm mostly wondering how we'll do iOS development without beefy MacBooks or
Macs. If other laptop developers up their game and provide a MacBook-
equivalent I'd happily jump ship. But I need to be able to create native iOS
apps.

~~~
yourapostasy
If Apple actually exits the PC era years from now, then I expect an iPad Pro-
like platform will host an iOS-based XCode (or whatever they call it when it
is re-targeted to iOS). It can be a bumpy 3-5 year transition, about the time
it took for OS X to stabilize the transition from the MacOS user experience.
We won't know until it happens. Jobs-Apple never articulated what they see for
their users going forward on a strategic scale, the vision is only laid out at
the product introduction, and only tactically-constrained forward optics are
shared. So far Cook-Apple seems to follow the same behavior in this regard.

I think the tail is wagging the dog if Apple goes down that road. A lot of
shareholders and customers are impatiently pushing Apple for The Next
Innovation, but ironically I suspect a steady-as-she-goes Cook-style CEO is
exactly what they need for the next 4-6 years because I see us in a hardware
technological interregnum that takes time to mature. Apple's innovations have
usually come from a confluence of the right hardware maturation cycles to
capitalize upon software waiting in the wings for the hardware to catch up.
The innovation and revenue has been hardware-based but it can just as easily
be software- and services-based, but Apple hasn't chosen to monetize yet. At
the moment, the hardware-oriented tail is wagging the entire organization, as
they seek out the next innovation category in another piece of hardware, when
seeking hardware might be the wrong question to ask in the first place.

Battery and charging technology is an especially big obstacle right now for
them. Apple Watch is the Mac 128K of Apple's smartwatch category due to that
obstacle. They're making uncomfortable engineering tradeoffs in the latest
MacBook Pro (if you believe Schiller's explanation, which I do) due to that
obstacle.

------
oliv__
I wonder what _-[CONFIDENTIAL]_ stands for.

~~~
hajile
It's on a need to know basis and you don't need to know.

Apple considers it a relevant secret today, so it's redacted.

------
1_2__3
Surprised nobody mentioned the "average age" comment.

------
edditoria
Talking about the "Digital Hub concept", I heard that from a Microsoft guy in
2005(?) introducing the concept of Microsoft Home Server. We were considering
anything to cooperate (actually, it is only in marketing way). However, I was
afraid that web 2.0 was the true future. Home user didn't need a home server
product.

I love Mac, no doubt. But I do think Microsoft create a lot of great concepts
and do test it on market. Apple is not the first eveb on consumer market
(remember the WinCE products and XP Tablet Edition?)

In my opinion, Microsoft is pioneer of electronic products. Although they
often made their final products "unusable", I would hear about what they "are
going to do". It is worth to project the future.

p.s. sorry about bad English

------
cryptozeus
" Apple is in danger of hanging on to old paradigm too long (innovator’s
dilemma)"

What apple is going through right now !!!

~~~
codazoda
Innovating or holding on? They don't seem to be holding on in the case of
"Dongle Gate". They switched to the new stuff early and are letting everyone
else catch up. In a couple years USB-C will be on almost everything and we
won't need dongles anymore. Seems really similar to how the early macs had
only usb.

------
revelation
I wonder what his opinion would be on Tablet sales spectacularly crashing.
Surely it's not just bad execution.

~~~
j2bax
I wonder how much phablets have caused this. When I got my iPhone 6 Plus, I
very quickly saw no need for my iPad Mini anymore. Fast forward a few years
and I decided to pick up an iPad Air 2 (along with a keyboard) because I find
it to be a superior around the office and on the airplane note taking device
than my 15" MacBook Pro.

------
jack9
> PC as hub for all your digital assets

Whatever this means. TB of data with the PC at the center is dumb.

~~~
usaphp
Depends on a user I guess, I can't fill my 500gb drive even by half

~~~
lurkinggrue
And I have 8.2 TB of data on my desktop.

------
brianzelip
"further lock customers in" is so bloodcurdlingly disgusting.

~~~
nodesocket
Ummmmm this is business 101. Does "product-stickiness" make you feel less
disgusted?

------
macca321
No mention of facebook.

~~~
akhatri_aus
Facebook wasnt making money then yet & people were still skeptical.

------
NicoJuicy
– tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our
ecosystem

This is why i never used Apple. At least i can use Android with pretty much
everything. And don't get me started about stuff like iTunes for Windows...

Also: Apple TV 2- David Moody, Jeff Robbin – Strategy: stay in the living room
game and make a great “must have” accessory for iOS devices

I think Chromecast pretty much nailed it.

On the rest, i'm pretty much impressed how simple he outlined it all.

------
putzdown
What, pray, is ET <et@group.apple.com>?

~~~
jcsvyu789jh
ExecutiveTeam?

------
drieddust
Seems like he ran out of ideas and was ready for a settle life milking the
cash cow.

~~~
barrkel
How on earth did you get that out of the email?

It is aggressively oriented towards turning Apple into a cloud-first company.
That's the key consequence of reorienting your product line into connected
clients.

The next logical strategic move based on this email is to move pro apps to the
cloud, connected to Apple client hardware in ways only Apple can unify. Key is
"Post-PC". Where does that leave content creation, a key Apple demographic and
one that is ill-served by client devices? It has to move to the cloud.

I'm not an Apple fan - I don't like how they lock down their systems - but I
can see how this strategy makes more sense and skates where the puck is going
to be, not where it is now. The only questions are timing and execution. Apple
has been lacking on the latter (for cloud), and always on the leading edge of
the former.

~~~
drieddust
Did you read my comment? These were good business ideas but none of them can
be called revolutionary. Definitely does not match with Steve Jobs' larger
than life image.

~~~
barrkel
Do you think the iPod was revolutionary? Or the iPhone? Or the iPad? Or the
Macbook Air? Since when has Apple ever been revolutionary post Macintosh 128K
(and even that's arguable)?

They've been on the leading edge of trends, or at least were when Jobs was
around. He moved computing devices away from geekery and towards fashion. He
identified how intimate and personal phones were, and turned them into status
symbols, with fetishized design. He saw where trends were intersecting, ran
ahead and planted really solid benchmark objects at just the right time.

The clear trend that Jobs was onto next was cloud-everything, which is still
happening, just slowly. And Apple is executing poorly there, even as they wind
down the creative capabilities of their hardware.

------
cloudjacker
its nice to see that they weren't completely delusional about being behind
android

very refreshing to see - at the top - their distortion field is just marketing

unfortunately for that list, they never caught up to android in terms of
notifications, something Steve Jobs explicitly called out in 2010, wow.

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speedlv
"Strategy: stay in the living room game and make a great “must have” accessory
for iOS devices" haha

