Why Apple's new ads look like Microsoft made them.

P&G runs like a machine because it is a machine. It's a relentlessly optimized, error-reduced, tolerance-tightened machine. Jobs at P&G fit into very clearly defined (almost proscribed) roles, and if you hold one of these jobs, your mission is to execute that role without deviation. The company hires very smart people -- but it's more concerned with people who can fit frictionlessly into the machine than with people who want to break the mold. Same thing with Walmart, or McDonald's, or General Mills, or Coca Cola, etc. The general philosophy is to design an internal playbook that is foolproof, then hire people who are sharp enough not to mess it up.

[At this point I will pause to note that the description "systems business" is not intended to be a pejorative. Tightly controlled systems are not necessarily correlated with failure to innovate, to design, or to grow. P&G is capable of innovation, for instance, but it has playbooks for how to innovate. It follows recipes for innovation, rather than relying on the hiring of wildly creative people who will swing for the fences and hit or miss.]

Contrast these firms with what I'd call "people" businesses -- typically, tech startups or creative fields. Many of these companies are high-variance systems. A visionary founder, or visionary product leads, can propel a "people" company forward like a bat out of hell. But a lackluster CEO, or dimwitted product leads, can dash the company's fortunes on the rocks. These businesses give their people a lot of freedom to operate, to pursue whims, and to think outside the box. I would put Google in this category, or at least the Google of recent memory. Same thing with Disney, or Warner Brothers, or Virgin. These companies are in the homerun business. They swing for the fences, and at any given at-bat, they either they smash it out of the park or strike out. More often than not, they tend to strike out -- but the grand slams often make up for the multiple strike-outs.

Apple is interesting, in that it's neither fully one, nor the other. With Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple was certainly dependent on one person -- so it had the characteristics of a "people" company. At the same time, Apple was actively engaged in systematizing its roles and procedures, especially in the latter years of Jobs's life. Jobs even made occasional reference to the P&G model. It was as if he knew that the longevity of the company depended on the ability to implement foolproof, flawless internal systems that any smart people could operate without failure. The problem is that he still left a critical hole at the top, and he never took the systematizing exercise to its natural conclusion.

Google founders Brin and Page were what, 25 when they founded Google? If they've got a 75 year life expectancy, Google will be a 50 year old company when they die. I'd have thought a 50 year old Google would look more like a stable blue chip company than a fast-moving frenetic startup.

Something like McDonalds, Wal-Mart et al was established as a cookie cutter, repeatable thing. People go there because they want consistency; they know what to expect. Their patrons aren't looking to have their minds blown or to become excited about their interactions; the most successful companies in the world are much maligned externally because they're seen as dry and exploitative, but most people still patronize them. It's not cool to like them, but they do very well precisely because of that predictability, that blandness.

Apple, however, lives and dies by its reputation as a visionary, an entity that is constantly breaking new ground. This is because owning a Mac is as much about the cult of Mac as it is about the actual benefits of the product. Apple isn't a cookie-cutter franchise; it needs to bring controversy and produce products that are radically different from the rest of the industry to maintain credibility. If that credibility as a visionary is lost, much of Apple's userbase comes into jeopardy, because believe it or not, it's still less effort for most people to use Windows. That will never change until OS X approaches 50% of the market.

For companies like this, the keystones of their cultural identity are the most important business assets to protect. Unfortunately, Apple chose to heavily exploit "the genius of Steve Jobs" angle while he was around (perhaps because it's much more difficult to propagate a narrative about the vision of a design committee than the vision of one amazing man), and now they're paying a price for it.

Apple may recover, and they have some usable momentum, but it's definitely going to take some oomph out of their sails because Apple's dominance is not based on the superiority of its products, but the culture and attitude around them. I think Cook is well-qualified for the CEO position, but imo the way to put this Jobs stuff to rest is to present Cook as a regularly ordained successor, tutored by Jobs, and to have him assume some very Jobsian habits that would make this externally visible (for instance, give Cook the same veneration and mystery that Jobs received while presenting at Apple conferences, make him the human focal point and the apparent origin of all innovations). To the people closest to Steve Jobs, this may seem a grotesque mockery, but if your whole company is based on the dog and pony show, you have to keep up appearances.

All of these have been released so recently (less than a year since Jobs passed away) that it's likely he played a large part in their design. Further, you're talking about (1) a 15" laptop that beats almost everything else on the market, (2) a minor version bump of OS X, and (3 & 4) two products that haven't been released yet.

I'm as interested in Apple, post-Jobs as everyone else, but the arguments I've seen so far look too forced. The true test will occur over the next 2-3 years--not just the last 9 months.

EDIT: I like snowwrestler's point: this is all "hindsight bias."

EDIT 2: I've fallen into this trap myself at some points, especially with some of these commercials. But these are just single data points. We shouldn't fall into the trap of overemphasizing single data points.

MBPR, if you were looking forward to it I fail to see why you wouldn't be thrilled by it, it's the biggest (positive) change in Apple's laptops since the 2nd gen Air.

As for iOS 6, how is it any more underwhelming than iOS 5? Remember when you were thrilled about the "deep twitter integration"? Or that Apple had finally added a notification system which didn't blow goats? Yeah me neither.

As to the ads... all the Siri ads I've seen so far make me facepalm.

Wow, you have some high expectations.

What exactly were you looking for?

Now that Jobs's gone turning iPad sideways with the taskbar open causes app icons to overlap. Sometimes, not always, but that's just the kind of "sloppy" that just didn't exist in Apple products a year ago. They are slipping. I will give them a couple of years tops before they are back at the average product polish levels.

Wait a few years when Jobs' product roadmap runs out and we'll see what they're doing and if it's still up to snuff.

Then again, I'm not exactly Apple's core customer base, as I have no love for OS X and would probably have just installed Windows (for gaming) and Linux on it, but it's the first time in years where their computer hardware has distinguished itself, rather than selling on the basis of the OS.

The Retina MBP is an excellent machine with one of the best screens to ever be put on a consumer-grade device. It might not blow everyone's mind, but it is at least as interesting of a product as the scores of laptops that were put out under Steve.

Mountain Lion isn't groundbreaking by design. It's an iteration on Lion, and so it's unreasonable to expect a massive amount of new features. The iPhone 5 and iOS6 haven't been released yet and in the case of the former the rumors are so vague and unsubstantiated that it's categorically ludicrous for you to pass judgement yet.

Lastly, I have to ask why the amount of "thrill" that a product brings matters anyway. Most consumers don't want to be thrilled. They want to buy a computer, and that's it. Apple is successful not because they thrill people, but because they make good products. The Retina MBP and Mountain Lion are still good products.

I think the biggest annoyance in the post-Jobs era is that every imperfect action that Apple does is automatically passed off as a result of Steve being gone. Steve wasn't perfect, either. We need only look to the iTunes phone, Ping or the button-less iPod Shuffle. Apple has never been perfect, and the post-Jobs era is no different.

The security features in ML were critically necessary to keep OSX viable for business and professional use. 10.7 is vastly less secure than a well managed corporate Win 7 machine, and maybe even worse out of the box. (Linux probably covers the whole range of less or more secure based on exact distribution and features, but isn't terribly relevant for desktops). Which made the Google no-windows policy from a few years ago pretty funny. ML is now at parity with Win 7 out of the box, but still probably weaker in an enterprise setting due to lack of management tools.

Besides, there are a few years to go until we run out of Steve Jobs products.

(I think this whole discussion is utterly pointless at this point. Look at Apple’s stock in ten years and you will know the impact of Jobs. I have my doubts that it will be possible to say much meaningful now.)

If you disagree with them, feel free to speak up, with your own subjective personal opinion.

Those ads done under the careful eye of Steve may have brought criticism (as Apple in general did), but they were generally very effective. And they had a feel to them that was pure Steve Jobs....like them or not.

You don't get the point.

Apple is a company full of awesome engineers executing one awesome man's vision. Without Jobs Apple is still a awesome company, with awesome people. But they will lack that vision. That taste, they will lack the spirit that made Apple, Apple as we know it.

True test for Apple will come when their current product line will be totally exhausted and they will have to work on something new to survive. Whether the same UI innovation, hardware design will continue is a big unanswered question.

The engineers may still continue to do awesome work. But not in an awesome direction. Without Jobs they will lose the 'Think different' factor. Its like a restaurant losing its chief chef. You will still have other good chef's but the guy who had a tongue for a unique taste is gone. You might still get good food, but that 'taste' will be gone.

The real insult is to suggest that Apple engineers are just much better than anyone else. Apple hire good people, but relatively few of them are truly exceptional. Apple has been led by once-a-generation geniuses - first Jobs and Woz, then Jobs and Ive. A man who can see the future, paired with a man who can build it.

Apple will continue to make good products, but there'll never be another iMac or iPod or iPhone or iPad. Apple will probably dominate their markets, but they're not going to invent new ones. Doing that is far beyond the scope of skilful engineering, it's the stuff of genius.

Any conclusion from the book is so suspect you'll probably be better informed not knowing anything at all than having read that book.

Steve liked skeuomorphism even when it made Jony Ive 'wince' http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/05/apple-designer-jonathan...

I suspect Steve just didn't care about to-do lists and now someone who does care has managed to get a (minor) improvement through.

Steve Jobs was alive when iOS5 was previewed so he would have seen AND approved it.

If, in 5-10 years the iPhone becomes irrelevant or outdated because of a new contender and Apple has to play catch-up, then I think we can say that Apple is in trouble without Steve.

Until then, Apple just needs to keep doing what they've mostly done even when Steve was running things, which is continually improving their products to remain competitive.

So this ridiculous notion that it didn't happen under Steve is nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

I thought the ad was terrible. Apple's support is absolutely one of their best selling points, and they could definitely win some business by pushing it, but this ad does an awful job of conveying that, and instead conveys "Apple store employees are arrogant and annoying".

Maybe "resolutionary" was trying to do that too, but it just fell flat for me.