Comment by 23B1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 23B1 | Hacker News Reader

Apple has always been kind of not great at marketing, simply because their attitude has always been "the product markets itself."

That isn't to say they don't, it's just a cultural attitude inside the company. It's a crying shame because their content teams have obviously great taste and are willing to experiment, and they must be pulling their hair out over this, but yeah – AAPL should not only do more and better marketing, but consider licensing their content out in a limited fashion to draw people in, especially if they're going to maintain 'the product markets itself' – I can still buy iPods in BEst Buy, for an example.

People WANT apple to succeed on this content front. The Apple Vision program especially would benefit from high quality content, well-marketed, especially to drive adoption and thus reduce cost; amazing immersive/interactive content is the killer app for AR/VR if you ask me.

Let silly Zuck make dumb avatars and fake lowbrow games, if I'm going to project content directly onto my eyeballs, let it be Oscar-worthy.

I don't really think that's true, Apple has always marketed quite aggressively. In fact they invented (or at least popularized) the CEO keynote ad to say nothing of their history of more traditional ads going all the way back to their 1984 ad [1]. As for the AVP, they pretty clearly want it to be a productivity thing as opposed to a video game machine that every other consumer VR product is, which is consistent with their historic ambivalence to video games. In fact, I'd say that it's Zuck et al who are making "Oscar-worthy" VR experiences (or at least enabling them), while Apple's are basic and derivative [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALOn35L3OMs

aggressively ≠ great

enabling ≠ tastemaking

Apple is the most valuable company in the world, their marketing is clearly great. As for tastemaking, let's go through that video list of experiences shall we?

1: AR puzzle game, looks fun but ultimately is only slightly better than an idle game on your phone.

2: VR board game, might be good but it clearly fails to take advantage of being VR.

3: Knock off Beat Saber.

4: AR pool table. I don't think I need to explain why this is lame.

5: Hard to tell what this is but it looks to be a flat game played in VR

6: Family Guy.

7: Various card games/basic board games in AR.

Which of these is a high brow, tastemaking VR/AR experience? Because the only things fitting that description I can think of are not playable on the AVP to the best of my knowledge.

"Apple is the most valuable company in the world, their marketing is clearly great." PHEPH

Apple's development mandate[1] is explicit: 'elevated content across [x, y, z] genres.' aligned with their stated brand assets & perceptions with consumers.

They are good at maintaining their brand! But entertainment isn't Walled Garden Design™. Even Jobs knew to trust Lasseter to make stories and deferred to his wisdom on that front. Apple should start doing the same with the many fine creators eager to work with them and see their stories compete with NFLX or WBD.

[1] https://www.tracking-board.com/category/film-mandates/

> Apple has always been kind of not great at marketing, simply because their attitude has always been "the product markets itself."

The power of Apple's marketing in action.

I think it was their exceptional design in the 2000s. They were never the first, but they were exceptional at appearing to be an innovator on the originality of their product design. I have not been impressed with apple design innovation for some time though, they've gotten stale.

Much of the innovation, for better or worse, happens in miniaturization, power & thermal management, and supply chain. Apple's inventory turns are insane.

I think the other part of the problem is Apple historically has such tight control over marketing and messaging. It does not encourage its people to work on something on the fly, experimenting with new channels or formats, or delegating to local agencies.

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