Posts Tagged: ken segall

hp / observatory / tablets — 5 Comments
1
Sep 11

Doomed TouchPad dooms iPad!

I guess they’ve lowered the admission requirements at pundit school.

Either that, or they’re overdoing it in that one course where they teach young seers to “always take the surprising point of view.”

First, a quick review: HP buys Palm for $1.2 billion to get WebOS. They labor for a year to create TouchPad. TouchPad gets panned by the critics. After seven miserable weeks, it gets dumped by HP. Then comes the fire sale. People line up to buy the $499 TouchPad for $99.

Cue the pundits: if so many people will buy an orphaned TouchPad for $99 — iPad is doomed!

There’s an article at CNET entitled iPad met its match in the TouchPad. This article observes that only TouchPad has come close to “eclipsing the fixation that consumers have had on the iPad.”

Over at Forbes, they cut right to the chase: Why the Undead $99 TouchPad Might Portend The iPad’s Doom. Here, it’s noted that  TouchPad’s buying frenzy proves that a tablet can actually succeed against iPad by undercutting it in price.

Neither article notes the obvious: people love “steals.” Of course they’ll line up to buy a $499 device for $99. That’s 80% off. They’ll also camp out to buy a $60,000 car for $12,000 or a $400 washing machine for $80. This isn’t exactly a Mensa-level brainteaser.

The problem for Apple’s competitors is that there is no PC parallel here. Apple is selling iPads at a price that’s nearly impossible to undercut. When price isn’t the argument, it’s product vs. product — and it’s awfully hard to compete with the combination of Apple design, iOS and the App Store.

So watch out, Apple. TouchPad has proven that tablets will fly off the shelves if they’re priced at a fraction of cost. You don’t really think you can remain the leader simply by building better devices, do you?

This brand of punditry contains one serious flaw. That is, Apple doesn’t just sit still. iPad continues to improve year after year. And, in case no one noticed, Apple has incredibly good profit margins (thanks, Tim). Even if a competitor one day figures out a way to undercut iPad in price, Apple is perfectly capable of responding.

So, as HP starts making more TouchPads to dispose of all the spare parts in their warehouse, I wouldn’t take that as a sign of iPad’s pending demise.

I’d take it as a sign that if you don’t know what you’re doing in this business, your tablet will die a premature, grisly death.

apple / creative / observatory / steve jobs — 23 Comments
28
Aug 11

In appreciation of Steve: Think different, remixed

Last week, I noted that if one were to combine the words to Apple’s Crazy Ones ad with historical images of Steve Jobs, it would make perfect sense.

Well, I thought I’d take a crack at it myself.

Here’s my little tribute to Steve. Hope you enjoy.

apple news / observatory / steve jobs — 13 Comments
25
Aug 11

Here’s to the crazy one

I was searching for the words to describe what I was feeling yesterday when word spread that Steve Jobs was retiring as CEO.

I was very sad, of course — for Steve, his family, the Apple community and the world in general. But I was also heartened by the extraordinary praise being pushed out by the mainstream media.

Then I realized that the most appropriate words for this occasion were written many years ago, with Steve’s enthusiastic approval.

The Crazy Ones commercial that launched the Think different campaign has always been one of Steve’s favorite ad moments. When the spot was first created, he spoke of how deeply it moved him. He has shared it at a number of Apple events. He was emotionally invested in it because he believed it captured the true spirit of Apple, explaining why Apple does what it does.

Interestingly, few have noted that it also captured the essence of Steve himself. Though the ad featured a series of those who changed the world through their “different” thinking, you could just as easily place this script over images of Steve at various points in Apple history:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
    The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
    The round pegs in the square holes.
    The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
    And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
    About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
    They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
    we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world…
are the ones who do.

Some believe that Steve wrote these words himself. That isn’t true, but he did contribute a few words — and they are arguably the words that best describe his contribution to this world:

They push the human race forward.

That’s exactly what Steve does. Sometimes we go kicking and screaming (“where’s the damn floppy disk!”), sometimes we’re just outright seduced (iPad), but “forward” is where we go.

Though Steve may one day leave Apple for good — remember, he’s still Chairman — his values never will. Innovation is now institutionalized at Apple. Tim Cook’s memo to employees today reaffirms this:

I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.

So on “the day after,” we can be heartened by two things: Steve is still Steve and Apple is still Apple.

There’s still a lot of pushing to be done.

hp / observatory / tablets — No Comments
23
Aug 11

HP Personal Sys Grp 4 Sale: Call Léo

It’s those damn phone hackers again. This time they’re listening in on Léo Apotheker’s conversations at HP. I can’t condone the hackers’ methods, but I thought this transcript would be of interest to my readers.

——————————————————–

8.22.2011 | 9:48 am | HP | Apotheker Office Line 2

JACK
Hello, is this Léo?

LÉO
Yes, who is this please?

JACK
Hi Léo, my name is Jack.
I’m calling about the Personal Systems Group for sale?

LÉO
Yes, hello Jack. How can I help you?

JACK
Well, can you tell me a little more about it?

LÉO
Anything in particular?

JACK
Does it come with all the accessories? Like confusing
models and configurations, mediocre designers, invisible
profit margins, crapware and infuriating tech support?

LÉO
Yes, it comes with all the essentials.

JACK
And you’ve sold your soul to Intel and Microsoft?

LÉO
Correct, and those contracts will be included as well.
They’re fully transferable.

JACK
Perfect. Well look, I’m very interested.
Are you flexible on price?

LÉO
I’m sorry, no. It’s just supply and demand.
Right now, we’re the only PC group for sale —
at least until Michael Dell accepts reality.

JACK
Alright, but listen, I’m also interested in tablets
and smartphones. Anything like that available?

LÉO
I do have tablets and smartphones, but they’re not for sale.

JACK
Just my luck. I was bidding for Palm a year ago and
some ass swooped in and bid $1.2 billion for it.

LÉO
Uh … that was my company.

JACK
Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you an ass.

LÉO
No prob, it wasn’t me. It was the guy who had my job before.

JACK
Okay, I get it. So you’re going to keep selling WebOS tablets
and smartphones then?

LÉO
Actually, not. We’re going to caravan out to the Palo Alto
landfill and dump all the code and unsold devices.

JACK
Wouldn’t it be easier just to sell it all to me?

LÉO
No, I need to prove that my predecessor wasted a billion dollars.
If I sell it to you, we wouldn’t lose nearly as much.

JACK
(Dramatic pause)
Ass.

advertising / creative / observatory — 8 Comments
18
Aug 11

The joy of hordes

I’m a sucker for big ads. I’m talking cast-of-thousands ads. The ones that require a director to be half artist and half general.

I’m enamored of these ads because (1) you can find new details every time you watch, and (2) I’m jealous that I’ve yet to work on one of these things myself. Surely fun is more intense on a grand scale.

My fault. I could just as easily have started a script with “Open on screaming horde of 3,000 running across a field” instead of “Open on couple seated in cafe.” What was I thinking.

Here are four really good cast-of-thousands ads to stir your love of the genre, starting with the new ad from IKEA that inspired this topic.

Not too long ago, Comcast gave us their “Field” commercial. The HD war is over, they said, illustrating the concept by having an army of HD channels overrun the old-school, boring businessmen of the satellite world.

I featured this crazy horde ad for the Motorola Cliq phone when it first appeared, but bring it back because it fits today’s topic. It’s filled with cast-of-thousands goodness.

The grand-daddy of them all is the following ad from Carlton. They not only had fun making The Big Ad, they ridicule the idea of making a big ad in the first place. I give this ad my highest rating partly because I love it and partly because Brits are funnier than we are. (Update 8:55pm, 8/17: Oops. My mistake. Carlton Draught is Australian, and so is the agency that created the ad. So the Americans get pushed down one more notch on the humor scale.)

My life goal remains unchanged: if I can’t write one of these spots one day, I would at least like to be cast in one. I’m sure I could wear funny clothes and stumble on cue.

advertising / dell / iPad / observatory / strategy / streak / tablets — 2 Comments
15
Aug 11

The tough and brief life of Streak 5

Dell’s Streak 5 phone/tablet may now officially be classified as phone/tablet/dud.

Visitors to the Streak 5 page at Dell.com are now greeted by the above, with Dell giving it the happy spin: “Goodbye, Streak 5. It’s been a great ride.”

Interesting what qualifies as a “great ride” in Dell’s world: a product ill-conceived from the start, then sabotaged by some of the clumsiest ads in the business.

Trying to figure out how to cash in on iPad-mania, Dell decided it could wedge itself into success. “Hey, if tablets are so popular at 10 inches and phones are so popular at 3-4 inches, we could virtually own the 5-inch category.” And own it they did — for the nearly undetectable group of customers who actually wanted such a thing.

Rather than being the perfect size Dell proclaimed it to be, Streak 5 was too big to be a phone and too small to be a tablet. That much was obvious to anyone with eyeballs.

Not content to hobble Streak 5 with an awkward size, Dell went the extra yard by hobbling it in other inventive ways. Streak 5 was launched with Android 1.6, while the rest of the Android world was already onto version 2.2. And its unlocked version was actually priced higher than an iPad. Perfect.

Oh well, least they could make some good ads for it, right? Uh-uh. Not that this blog is the perfect measure of such things, but Streak 5 actually earned two posts here for advertising embarrassments in its short, tortured life. (See those here and here, if you are so disposed.)

If Streak 5 were a real child, Dell would be facing charges of neglect.

But don’t worry. You can still get a 7-inch Streak. And though they’ve certainly taken the scenic route to get there, rumor has it that Dell is finally working on the 10-inch size that’s been such a terrible burden for iPad.

So farewell Streak 5. At least you got to enjoy one great ride. Dell strapped you into the back seat and drove directly off the cliff.

apple / apple news / apple store / observatory / strategy — 7 Comments
11
Aug 11

Apple’s invisible advantage

Back in June, Apple covered up its landmark Fifth Avenue Cube in NY to begin a $6.6 million renovation project. The word was that they would be re-outfitting the glass cube itself — reducing it from 90 panes to a mere 15. Bigger pieces, fewer seams.

Now they’ve released an artist’s conception, above.

Looks pretty cool. But I’ve already noticed some snide comments to the effect of “$6 million? For that?” … “Apple has way too much money to play around with” … and “Hell, they just built the place less than five years ago.”

Those who think this way really don’t get Apple. They don’t get why a company that makes cool little devices just became more valuable than one that supplies the world with the energy essential to life.

For everything you see in Apple, there are a hundred things you don’t see — all of which add up to the feel of quality and caring you don’t get from other companies. It’s a subconscious effect that Apple pursues quite consciously.

I had the pleasure of working on the “Making Of” video for the Cube, which appeared on apple.com when the store was first opened. That video called out the extraordinary effort that went into procuring the quality components necessary to create this store: the stone flooring from Sicily, the stainless steel surfaces from Tokyo, and the glass staircase and cube structure from Germany.

Apple doesn’t expect a single visitor to the Fifth Avenue Cube to think much about the floor they’re walking on. What they’re trying to do is create an overall feeling — that this is a place where people care about design and quality.

It’s the same principle Apple uses when they design product packaging. For items like iPhones and iMacs, they create an “unboxing experience” you will appreciate only once, lavishing attention on parts few people will ever notice. But overall, the experience contributes to the feeling of quality you get before you even touch the product.

Granted, some people think this is overkill. Or, even worse, it’s one more reason to hate Apple. This is how the Great Satan hoodwinks people into buying their overpriced technology.

Fortunately, Apple doesn’t give a hoot about people who don’t recognize or care about quality. That’s not their audience.

As long as they continue to care about the invisible things, the crowds in those Apple Stores will be anything but invisible.

apple / observatory / OS X / steve jobs — 6 Comments
9
Aug 11

How firing Steve Jobs saved Apple

I think it’s safe to say that Apple’s success story has now grown to mythic proportions.

And it deserves every bit of its myth-hood: two guys in a garage start a computer company that grows to become the most valuable company on earth. (Well, it will be soon. Move over, ExxonMobil.)

Every good legend has its heroes and villains. Playing the role of villains in this tale would be John Sculley and the Apple board for being so dumb as to actually fire Steve in 1985, setting off the company’s great decline. Steve’s return 12 years later — and subsequent astronomical success of the company — proves what a boneheaded move that was, right?

Steve’s buddy Larry Ellison sure thinks so. Commenting on HP’s firing of its CEO last year, Larry said, “The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs  many years ago. That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.”

Even John Sculley, master conspirator, now says it was a mistake to drive Steve away.

Well, not so fast, fellas. Steve’s firing is actually the reason Apple rules the world today — though admittedly, the players could not have foreseen this at the time.

Steve was pushed out because, brilliant as he was, he wasn’t all that brilliant on the business side. He was costing the company a ton of money. There was a legitimate fear that if he didn’t leave, he’d literally run the company into the ground. It was heart-wrenching, but out he went.

In exile, Steve founded NeXT Computer, Inc. NeXT was an exciting new venture for him, but it was also humbling. He didn’t have zillions of dollars to burn, so he had to court investors like Ross Perot and Canon. Financially, NeXT was a constant struggle.

This was Steve’s remedial course in Business 101. Obviously he’d learned a ton by building Apple, but NeXT taught him new levels of responsibility. Now, in a world filled with computer companies, he was going to build a new one from scratch. He’d have to stretch budgets to keep innovating through the dark times. He’d have to keep employees happy and inspired. He’d have to create new partnerships. Steve’s business skills improved immensely as a result.

With NeXT, Steve would experience something he’d never really known before: failure. At least failure in the sense that his beautiful new computer didn’t exactly set the world on fire. The press paid attention, but they wrote about a struggling NeXT, not a smashing new success. At some point, Steve would be forced to give up on the hardware and concentrate on what really made NeXT special: its software.

And so, when Apple found itself floundering, desperately in need of a new direction for the Mac OS, they bought NeXT. This gave them the technology to build Mac OS X, and it also brought Steve Jobs home — a more mature, business-savvy, fire-tested Steve Jobs than had ever walked the halls of Apple before.

If Apple hadn’t sent Steve into exile in 1985, there would have been no NeXT. Mac OS X would have been very, very different. And Steve himself would have been very, very different.

You only have to listen to Steve to appreciate how this experience changed him. In his speech at Stanford’s commencement in 2008, he said:

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Things worked out pretty well for Steve personally too. It was while at NeXT that he met his wife and started a family.

And so, a hearty thank-you to John Sculley and the Apple board for chasing away the one man who could save the company. In the process, you set the wheels in motion to re-create the company — and re-create the man.

advertising / creative / microsoft / observatory — 5 Comments
4
Aug 11

Microsoft’s “PCs for Dummies” campaign

Oh, you devilish marketers at Microsoft. I see the game you play.

You zig when other companies zag. They try to win by making customers feel smarter — but you’re going to win by treating them like idiots. Clever!

Back in May, I put up an article poking fun at what was then the newest Microsoft ad. It featured a rather dim customer whose home is turned into a PC store, exposing her to today’s amazing choices in PCs. Her big discovery: “So there’s no more tower? Wow!”

It was such a shallow spot, I never really imagined it would blossom into a whole campaign. But since then, a number of these things have popped up, each featuring someone you’d never want to be, learning something you don’t need to learn: new PCs are better than old ones.

I’m stirred to action only because this new one seems to be getting a lot of air play of late.

In this ad, we meet Cheryl, apparently the victim of a break-in. A gang has built a PC store in her home without her permission. (Unlike the original  spot, there’s no spouse in on the surprise here — it’s just a home invasion.) Cheryl too is a bit on the dim side: “Where’s the tower for this?” she asks. Heh heh. That one never gets old.

Where I come from, agency people get into fights about these things. Some believe it’s important to do a smart ad vs. one that appeals to the lowest common denominator. They believe in building brands vs. going after the low-hanging fruit.

Unfortunately, when you aim for fruit that’s hanging this low, you look pretty silly to customers who are a heck of a lot smarter. Which is probably 98% of them.

To see more people you can’t relate to, view more ads in this campaign here and here.

apple news / observatory / OS X / steve jobs / technology — 21 Comments
2
Aug 11

The hidden message in Lion

Look a little closer at Lion and you’ll see a secret message from the highest levels of Apple:

During previous medical leaves, Steve was still running the show. This time, he’s stepped back to allow others a larger role. Get used to it.

Honestly, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion when (A) Steve has always been intimately involved in approving the design and function of OS X, and (B) a few of the more visible decisions in Lion look nothing like the Steve we know.

After using Lion for a couple of weeks, three apps in particular make me miss Steve’s touch:

1. iCal. Not to beat this dead horse (see earlier post), but the design sense of the new iCal is just totally out of character for an OS that otherwise defines elegance and simplicity. Steve is a purist. He doesn’t compromise. He sends designers back to the drawing board over and over until they get it just right. This is purely a design decision — and it looks like someone else’s decision.

2. Address Book. This app suffers a double whammy. It shares iCal’s design tackiness, then ups the ante by taking a leap backwards in functionality. We used to see everything Address Book had to offer — individuals, groups and contact info — within a single view. Now we have to jump back and forth between views to see it all. Totally unnecessary over-design. Totally not Steve.

3. Launchpad. This is a beautiful idea, only half-baked. Maybe even quarter-baked. Launchpad automatically configures itself with icons for every app and utility in your computer — including apps you’ll never use and apps you didn’t know you had. I don’t consider myself an app junkie, and my icons numbered over 200. A total mess. But it gets even worse: if you delete an icon, you delete the app itself. (Fine for apps you’ve purchased from the App Store, which can be re-downloaded — unacceptable for apps you’ve purchased elsewhere.) If you want to tidy up, good luck. You can delete icons of apps purchased from the App Store (which deletes the app as well), but Lion won’t let you delete the icons of apps you bought elsewhere. Fortunately, there’s a perfect little free utility called LaunchpadCleaner that allows you to get rid of icons without trashing your apps. I used it and deleted 179 icons that were making Launchpad unusable. How could Apple possibly offer Launchpad without this kind of functionality built in? Likely because someone else was playing the role of Steve for this performance.

Between his current medical leave and the fact that one day (hopefully far, far in the future) it is inevitable that he steps down as CEO, Steve would be irresponsible not to be transitioning certain responsibilities to others.

So this isn’t a criticism as much as it is an observation. Steve-level perfection can only be expected when Steve himself is making the decisions. Talent runs deep at Apple, but different people will see things a bit differently — and their decisions will sometimes raise our eyebrows. Lion is our sneak preview.

Put a little more Steve in your Lion: To strip iCal of its leather, go here. To do the same for Address Book, go here. To easily configure Launchpad, go here.

 

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