Behind a Steve Jobs Keynote 424
Shree writes "The Guardian has an article about what it takes to prepare that smooth Steve Jobs-style keynote. When Steve launches iPhoto and says 'here we have 5000 or so photos', he actually means here we have 5000 or so carefully picked photos ... " From the article: "Objectively, Apple Computer is a mid-sized company with a tiny share of its primary market. Apple Macintoshes are only rarely seen in corporate environments, and most software companies don't even offer Apple-compatible versions of their products. To put it another way, Apple is just bit larger than Cadbury-Schweppes and about the same size as Nike or Marks and Spencer in terms of annual sales. Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve Jobs."
Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple makes great products, sometimes jumping into market segments that have other businesses with a head start, makes them slick and easy to use, then markets the hell out of them. The iPod wasn't the first portable mp3 player, but it put the product on the map. If next week's keynote unveils a media-centered Mac Mini with DVR features, it won't be the first such creature (Microsoft's been trying to break into that segment for a while, and Bill Gates just demoed similar features in Vista), but I guarantee that Jobs will unveil products that are much closer to market, and that the proportional effect on Apple's sales will be tremendous...
-JMP
It's the industry, folks (Score:5, Insightful)
People who use Macs picture themselves as a blend of geek and artist. A shiny, beautiful piece of equipment that is easy to use and gets the job done is like a little slice of heaven to them. So when Steve Jobs does his dog and pony show, everyone laps it up.
The difference between Macs and clothing or books is that the personal computer industry, being the interface between pop-culture and the mysterious world of high tech, gets more press and money thrown at it than most other industries. So when there's a new marketing effort it gets picked up by more of the world than similar efforts in other industries.
This isn't to say Steve Jobs doesn't deserve credit for being good at what he does, but I don't think he's particularly unique in his approach or methods.
influence (Score:3, Insightful)
interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Just my 2 cents.
How you deliver is important (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs knows how to show a product to enhance the consumer's understanding. Example, I went to Sandisk's site yesterday to check out their upcoming mp3 players. The site does a horrible job letting the consumer know things like size (Apple shows the tiny Nano in someone's hand), I have to read a all the text (not that I mind reading, but the impact is not the same). Jobs, and his helpers, know how to deliver a pithy, and flashy message.
Infectious (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Showmanship and Attention to Detail (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, this means you have to know what the hell you're talking about. It seems like the only serious problem was the teleprompter and lack of a stage director. There is absolutely no excuse for the lack of a physical backup for the prompter OR for a competent stage director for a coordinated presentation.
Re:Comparison with Nike and M&S is specious (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... yeah.. So people prepare and rehearse (Score:5, Insightful)
That all said, even non-fanboys have to admit that there is something about an apple keynote that is a bit different than what the rest of the industry has. You don't see people actually "excited" about a Microsoft event (or really, any computer related event).
The vast majority are actually quite boring and to be completely honest, I think the only "excited" people at these events are those getting free food, swag or the latest copy of vs.net and a xp pro CD.
I'm not saying that the events aren't informative, and I'm not advocating that people turn release events and conventions into E3, but it would be nice if some events tried to be a bit more like apple.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:4, Insightful)
He's the CEO that came back and saved Apple, giving us the iMac, iPod, and MacOS X.
He also presents his company's creations with a flair that Bill G. simply doesn't have, and other companies simply can't muster cause their products really don't have any style.
Paris Hilton is famous too, but honestly for reasons I cannot fathom. Is stupidity that popular?
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, while he may be "famous for fame" right now, that fame really did come from something concrete- unlike Paris.
Re:Showmanship and Attention to Detail (Score:3, Insightful)
Behind a Jobs keynote? (Score:4, Insightful)
- smoke
- mirrors
- reality distortion machine
- black mock turtle necks
- Steve practicing saying "It's insanely great!" and "...and it's available immediately!"
Hey, hey, hey, I love Apple as much as the next guy, but you have to admit Steve is quite the showman (salesperson).Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:4, Insightful)
Jobs also co-founded Pixar Animation Studios [pixar.com], the premier animation film company that has created such blockbusters as Toy Story and The Incredibles.
Then when Jobs returned to Apple, taking over from a string of lackluster bean counter executives, he inspired the company to produce some world class products such as the iPod and the iMac. The iPod is the must have product of 2005, and the Mac laptops are at the top of their class.
I'd say Steve Jobs is more than just a showman, though clearly he loves the limelight. Microsoft is the white bread, corporate standby that does the heavy lifting on corporate and consumer desktops but is otherwise an uninspired market follower, not a market leader.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
In the modern lexicon, maybe, but it's still annoying. The Discovery Channel was running promos for their King Henry VIII special, and some historian was calling him a rock star. Bleah...
It's OK if once in a while something in this universe *isn't* hip, folks.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, if a Linux company had half the focus of a Steve Jobs and had a clear vision they would sweep the market (k/ubuntu is getting getting better each day). So many FOSS-based companies seem very passive to me when it comes to defining their product.
Re:Great Story (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong
But there's room for improvement too. My earlier comment basicaly was to indicate that
Digg has good points and bad points, just like
Slashdots REALLY strong point is the discussion attached to the stories.
Diggs strong point is there story submission and (effectively) story moderation system. Slashdot need to work on getting stories posted faster and eliminating dupes (notably dups are a digg problem too). Perhaps
Digg of course, needs to competely revamp its comment system since as you have said, it blows.
All in all
All I really want is for both sites to engage in friendly competition to make each other better, so I'll have two great sites to frequent instead of just one.
Re:Great Story (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine if digg's comments worked the way
What's the
alas, even if the stories are lame, the discussions are usually interesting enough to keep me coming back. It would be nice to see a site that lived up to potential, though...
Re:Great Story (Score:5, Insightful)
You can only get 'scooped' on a story if you're a reporter, i.e. you're writing your own stories. Otherwise, you see, we'd have to say that the Guardian scooped everyone. They had the story first. But that's because they actually had a writer write the thing, and Slashdot/Fark/Digg/whoever are just news aggregators (and discussion groups) that provide links to the story.
News aggregators, however, can only be accused of being "too slow". Is Slashdot "too slow"? Well, the story is dates yesterday, and the story isn't so old as to be irrelevant or out-of-date, so I'd say no. Insofar as it's a news aggregator, since I got the story in a timely fashion, I don't see room for complaints. That someone else got to the story slightly faster is far less important to me than a) whether I got the story, and b) quality of the user-experience of the news aggregator.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:2, Insightful)
At the end of the day, the CEO of a company is the top salesperson of that company. They're not necessarily pushing a product, but their pushing their version or vision of the future that the company is taking. Jobs does an excellent job at that - with or without the reality distortion field. I would actually say that a "reality distortion field" is necessary for any salesperson. You want the customer to believe in you, and one of the easiest ways of doing that is using ethos. Appeal to emotion - it gets you a lot further than using logos or pathos, for the gran mayority of people.
Couple the appeal to emotion, an apparent genuine enthusiasim for the company, a good speech writer (using NLP, if necessary to change tempo, tone of voice and speed to keep the audience keen), and good ad-lib, and you've got them sold on whatever it is at first sight. Of course, to keep this going, you also need products that reflect that vision. Whatever your opinion may be of the performance/ease of use/or some other technical criteria of the macs may be, they are some of the coolest or well designed products out there in the industry for consumers/pro-consumers today. The products reflect whatever Jobs is saying, the image is sold along with the product and it becomes a cultural icon. Many other companies have pulled this off in the past in other industries - i would venture to say that IBM has sold a similar concept of "coolness" in the corporate world (different criteria, such as stability, servicibility, or whatever you want to call it) with their adverts - something that other companies have yet to do in that same segment.
Think about it this way: in what other industries does the product reflect the feeling or image that the company is trying to push? I would say the Mini Cooper is probably a close example. I think Sony has pulled off the idea pretty well in the past, specially with the Walkman in the late 80s/early 90s.
Re:Really (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Not "Tiny" Marketshare: Here's why (Score:5, Insightful)
At the time Apple was #1 by a good margin in laptops and in the top-5 for desktops. Yet their market share was always referred to as "miniscule."
I still don't understand why no one's bothered to mention this from the media side.
Re:Really (Score:3, Insightful)
Along with your Steve Jobs profile, you paint a picture of an elitist, which is presicely where I believe he wants Apple Computer at. I think he perceives an Apple Computer to be an experience worthy of the cost, any cost; better than anything else by leaps and bounds, and worth the time and effort to make it so. He wants an Apple computer to equate to a Bentley automobile or some other ultra-luxurious item.
What you didn't hit upon is that there actually are people in the market that will pay (up the nose) for so-called "ultra-luxury" items. The same folks that pay $10,000 for a platinum-plated bathroom sink may just very well see Apple computers as that type item for their computing need--if only by appearance and price alone. While I have in no way gone out to actually see if higher income brackets prefer Apple computers to others, I do know off-the-cuff that an awful lot of famous people tend to have them (Actors, Musicians, etc)--and probably for the status/fashion appeal as well as the functionality.
Whether that approach it is right or wrong for the Apple Computer, Inc. and its stock holders is up for grabs, but the "image" he has built for his company has no doubt been reinforced by his self-promotion and mangement style. And I think that 5% market is exactly what he intended.
Re:I know why he's famous.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider this example: The original iMac had no floppy drive and used USB ports instead of ADB.
An oft cited example, but I think a more crucial one was the use of 802.11b in the original iBook. That has also spread wildly.
One could argue that Jobs is good at spotting successful trends early, and directs his hardware development accordingly, rather than dictating the direction of the market, but who cares? Often technology you see in Macs today you see in PCs in 2 years.
That said, there's been a number of mis-steps, too, usually the tech that was developed in house at Apple eg FireWire. Disappointing that they don't even include it on their new iPods--does make one wonder if it's going away. Fewer and fewer peripherals bother to support it at all, now, in favor of USB 2.0. BlueTooth is another example--while widely supported on Macs, it just still kinda sucks when trying to find and use a non-Apple BT product. That trend has yet to take off.
Re:you're right (Score:3, Insightful)
iPod and iTunes just work. iPhoto plays nice with both of them. They all integrate perfectly with OS X, which runs like a charm on my Mac Mini. The whole thing is displayed in perfect colour on a monitor which needed no configuration, and is controlled by a well designed and manufactured keyboard and mouse. This "it just works" is what you pay for. As for iPods playing more formats, some people aren't bothered by being able to play 101 formats of music on the train. AAC and MP3 work well enough for my music I want to listen to on a regular basis, OGG doesn't feature much in an environment trying to avoid format wars.
Next in line for this ease of use is Windows. Windows Media and it's swathes of music players works after a fashion, but is nowhere near as intuitive or reliable as Apple's solution. Drivers are mostly solid, but problems aren't dealt with elegantly at all. OS integration with things such as media is getting better but isn't there yet (Although the beta shows that it's well on the way for Vista).
Then there's Linux and Co. coming last in the ease of use charts. Improving, but ultimately a cobbled together set of individual components. I know this is the entire idea, and I love working with Linux for many tasks, but the fact it is just a set of loosely connected pieces with no unification (Where should config files live, for example?) relates to its free status. You aren't having to pay anybody to keep it together.
Re:It's the industry, folks (Score:2, Insightful)
I always thought that Jobs didn't give people what they want, but rather give them a product that they realize that they want when he gives it to him.
Power of the Reality Distortion Field at work. You might not want it now, but once Jobs presents it, and you see it, it becomes so much harder to not want it.
Re: only a 2.3% market share (Score:3, Insightful)
1. My figures are based on ACTUAL SALES FIGURES from 2005. They are not 2 years old, nor are they limited to the United States (which people commonly get confused about--Apple's U.S. market share is higher than it's overall worldwide share).
2. Your figures are based on INTERNET TRAFFIC. That tells you what percentage of people browsing the internet are using a particular operating system, not what percentage of computers sold that quarter were made by a particular company.
Now, your figures would be more closely attuned to Apple's installed base, which is just fine, but that includes all computers currently in use, not new computer sold in a particular time period, which is what market share refers to.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs is brilliant, don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure that the credit for Mac OS X and for acquiring NeXT should be entirely his. If it hadn't been for Hancock, someone from outside the company who basically had to tell them when it was time to pull the plug, Apple might have continued along the twisted road that was Copland until finially running out of steam. And the acquisition of NeXT, along with Jobs, might never have happened.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland [wikipedia.org] and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Hancock [wikipedia.org]
Re:I know why he's famous.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wozniak has come and gone, primarily because he made enough at Apple to live for the rest of his life in comfort. That was his motivation, and so he did it and now he's a schoolteacher. I can sympathise. Making high-tech products is a tough job. A lot of people who make their pile get sick of their tough jobs with little social interaction and go on to someone else. I'd consider JWZ [jwz.org] to be another excellent example. He made his pile at Netscape, and he created the DNA Lounge [dnalounge.com], which I'm sure gives him as much of a social life as anyone would want.
Steve is a different type of guy. His single goal is to make Great Products. I don't think he's personally even that interested in selling them at a profit. The profit is means to an end, so he can make still more Great Products.
I'm typing this on a 17" PowerBook running MacOS X right now, and I can tell you, it is a Great Product. That's why I'm an Apple customer. Steve Jobs guides the technical people and makes sure they aspire to greatness instead of mediocrity.
I know in my own mind, as a technical person, how easy it is to say "Hey, this is good enough, let's go on to the next thing" instead of "Hold it, it's not great yet, let's do this and make it best in the world." I try to be my own goad, to make sure my product is the best. But it's hard and that's because Steve's role is hard, and necessary, in any company that wants to truly aspire to greatness, instead of creating stuff that's "just OK".
So few people make great products, because most people are willing to settle for lousy ones, like Windows or cheap PCs. But for those who love great products, and can afford them, it's Steve we have to thank, because he had the strength to demand only the best from technical people, including Wozniak.
D
Re:you're right (Score:3, Insightful)
All graphical systems have components stolen from others. Apple steals from microsoft and microsoft steals from apple. KDE steals from both and both steal back. Gnome copies everyone else and
If Windows Vista fails, its the beginning to the end of the MS monopoly. Consumers don't care what OS they run, just people like us do. Its like buying a toyota vs a ford. Who cares. Different under the hood, but it still gets to from point a to point b (or website a to website b). This multimedia approach is why that 5% is important because it effected Microsoft and it will effect Linux distros as more multimedia will be required for home and business adoption of the software.
The interesting thing is that windows vista will force people to buy new pcs to get it. No upgrades this time. Unless you're a gamer, you don't have a video card that can run it. Apple's switch to intel hit at a great time. People have to rebuy computers and it could mean a big market share switch for apple, Microsoft, and/or the linux community if everyone plays their cards right.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Insightful)
Moderators: I stand by what I said. (Score:3, Insightful)
I stand by what I said in my parent comment.
I sold computers that came with Microsoft's first product, Microsoft Basic, which Bill Gates had a hand in writing. The sloppiness of Windows XP is identical to the sloppiness in Microsoft Basic. Both are, in my opinion, products in which the level of sloppiness is finely tuned so that it doesn't interfere too much with sales. Bill Gates set the tone for Microsoft products: They are not really finished when they are released.
It amazes me how weak-minded people are concerning public relations. Bill Gates makes billions of dollars making products so sloppy that they waste the time of millions of people worldwide. Then he gives back a little of that money, and instantly the abuses are forgotten.
Super-rich people like philanthropy because it helps them feel superior. They can spend a lot of time with people who are very happy with what they are doing, and who never voice disagreement. Giving away their husband's money is the pasttime of the wives of super-rich men everywhere.
Yes, it is good that there is money available to solve major world problems. But we should not stop realizing that Microsoft has cost tens of billions of dollars just in viruses for vulnerabilities of kinds that don't exist anywhere else in the world of software.
This week's vulnerability is an example. Graphics in Windows MetaFile format (WMF) are allowed to execute code!!! Yes, graphics files. You should be safe with other formats? No. Windows operating systems check
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue is not really success, but quality of work. NeXT did excellent work. They weren't as "successful" as Apple, but then they were in an entirely different situation. Arguably, Apple's current success is to some extent the result of giving NeXT the much larger resources and market position of Apple.
Pixar has long done excellent work. Pixar didn't take off until they started making feature films with distribution by Disney, but it's clear from their early short work that the ethos of high standards has always been there.
The question is, who is the gatekeeper at Apple and Pixar. Who steers the company, who sets quality standards, who has final go/no-go authority on products, who has the authority to decide that a product is not good enough? Who do the engineers and designers and creative types ultimately have to impress? That's Steve Jobs.
He's not necessarily the engineer or designer coming up with the ideas, but the problem is never coming up with ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. The trick is squelching the bad ideas and designs and helping bring the good ones to market without letting them become sucky on the way.
Re:Yes, blame Bill Gates. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm also not willing to follow your logic that Steve Jobs is a giant among insects - which seems to be your claim.
Finally if the influence of personality of the CEO on the organization as a whole is well documented than I am generally interesed in reading more about it. I'm not interested in hearing people try to tell me that Bill Gates is a tyrant out for world domination - especially if those same people are telling me that deep down Steve Jobs just wants to deliver quality products. Those are not people - those are caricatures.
In my day to day experience the people I meet are neither angels nor demons - and I could not categorize myself or anyone I know accurately in a short one or two line synopsis. And yet people continue to act as though public personalities - about whom we know the least - are some how fundamentally easier to know and understand than our own neighbors and co-workers.
Lives and people and the world in general are more complex than that.
-stormin