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Comment by atonse | Hacker News Reader

What's really interesting to me about this agenda is - for years I've always bought into the general apple narrative that they don't _really_ pay that close attention to what their competitors do, and that they just build what they feel is the best thing to build, period.

This agenda just makes them seem a bit more "human" (rather than just Jony Ive's magical workshop of super-designer elves) - at the end of the day, they are still another company that fears their competitors and closely watches them, and plans accordingly during these off-site strategy meetings.

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Yeah, you have to more or less ignore stuff made for public consumption... or rather, imagine the PR employees you've met (better yet, imagine yourself as a PR employee), and filter out anything but the most basic idea or two which evidence supports.

(For example, it's hilarious to see a startup I know well (due to knowing a couple employees who rant about the dysfunctions, and I can ask whatever questions I want), and they have some front-page article here on HN where they make themselves out to be far more rational decisionmakers than they really are. Like when discussing a failure, they pose as humble and self-critical, when in reality they're the usual goofballs who spank employees (including team leads) for honesty. Often interesting to watch social dynamics around them with investors/purchasers and at conferences.)

I can understand paying attention to what competitors do. I can also understand tying all your products together.

But how human is this? so we further lock customers into our ecosystem

My personal favorite is: what about email? It shows solutions to big problems slip through the cracks even in top product companies.

> so we further lock customers into our ecosystem

This is a standard strategy topic at almost every company.

Cf. Peter Drucker: the job of any company is not to generate sales, it's to generate repeat customers.

(Apple's stores exemplify this lesson with their emphasis on customer happiness with the overall experience over actual hard selling. Which is why those stores make so much money. My wife talks of going into one as "worshipping at the Church of Jobs" -- they're designed to generate an emotional impact, wit the goal that sales will follow. Now compare with a purely sales-focussed retail operation, like, oh, WalMart ...)

I think that they probably take that approach to a point. For example when introducing brand new products. But when growth is slowing or no longer existent you have to look at your competitors and see what they've done differently. The "narrative that they don't _really_ pay that close attention to what their competitors do" is more of a testament that they don't operate like Samsung (watch their competitor and copy everything about their product).

Right - that makes sense.

I think in my mind I took that too far - that they truly say, forget what these guys are doing, we know better, and customers will eventually come around, PERIOD.

I'm not sure how you can think that after the Apple Maps fiasco.

>The Maps application has been featured on the iOS (then iPhone OS) operating system since the release of the first-generation iPhone on June 29, 2007, and was powered by Google Maps from then until September 19, 2012.[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maps

I don't think Apple fears their competitors in quite the way you're insinuating. For better or worse, they're too arrogant for that. I think they "appreciate" their competitors.

This outline disproves exactly what you just said.

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