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Why Apple is the "Apple" of Tech

Guest post by: Jay Kubassek

Article Overview: Why does Apple continue to dominate the market despite growing competition daily? Because they are "Apple" and no one else is.

Why Apple is the "Apple" of Tech

I’ve been an Apple fan for the last four years, ever since I bought my first Macbook Pro Jan 2005. (This computer is still used ever day by one of our friendly support staffers.) And of course I’m not alone. Apple is one of the most valuable (only second to Exxon) and lovedcompanies in the world. Other companies strive to be the "Apple" of their industry. People want to be seen using their products. Tests have shown people get more creative when using MacBooks. What’s their secret?

This is something tech columnist Farhad Manjoo investigates in his latest article for the great business mag Fast Company [http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/147/apple-nation.html] He asks the simple question “How does one become the ‘Apple of [insert industry here]?’” I’d never really considered why I like Apple's products so much. But it turns out I like them because I like the way they do business.

Here are some reasons I give these guys my business, and more importantly, my respect.

They don’t pay attention to what hyperactive, shortsighted tech bloggers are saying. Not simply because they don’t care — which they

don’t — but because they don’t even want to know. Steve Jobs, and his cohort of tech and design geniuses, know exactly what they want and how they want to make it.

Why bother listening to anybody else?

Lesson: Visionaries rarely give a lot of attention to what others are doing. Only those without vision care about the competition. And as far as listening to the suggestions of the populace, Jobs favors one of my own favorite quotes, from Henry Ford: “If I'd have asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, A faster horse!"

Often, the public doesn’t know what it wants. It’s our responsibility as entrepreneurs to discover what the public doesn’t yet know it wants.

Apple only puts out one or two products a year, because everyone in the company is on the same page. They focus all their efforts on a few things of high quality. Google is more decentralized, and they put out more stuff, but of course most of those products fail, badly. Apple puts all their efforts behind a few high-quality things, and then insures that those things succeed.

Lastly, and of specific relevance to CarbonCopyPRO, Apple’s customer service is beyond reproach. When you buy an Apple product, you're starting a personal relationship with the company. If you have a problem with your computer, your requests don’t get off-shored to a faceless customer service rep in Dubai. You reach out to highly informed and sympathetic Apple experts over the phone or web. Or you stroll into an Apple store and talk to a Genius’s face.

Jobs calls the Genius Bar the “heart and soul” of every Apple Store. He understands that customer service is of paramount importance to the success of any company. Despite the fact that we’re becoming more and more wired every day, we’re still human beings, and we need the company of other human beings to assist us now and again; to motivate us and empower us to persist and prevail.

For the above reasons, Apple gets my business and my respect, along with a probably unhealthy anticipation of the iPhone 5!

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  Jobs' departure, though hopefully temporary, had to happen sooner or later
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Article Tags: marketing, perspective, tech commentary



Related Forum Posts
Re: Apple sold 10 million iphones in 2008 - I love reading the story Apple and Steve Job. 10 millions iphones within a year, this is amazing. I am interested in owning Apple shares
Re: What If Steve Jobs Hadn't Returned To Apple In 1997? - Thanks for sharing with us Yinko. Steve Jobs is definitely a visionary. Not only his products are innovative in a technological sense, but he's managed to turn a tech-company's products into a lifestyle.... a lifestyle!! [quote:zfqoq43n]Fast Forward to today. Apple has the sexiest products in the business: iMacs, Macbooks, iPhones, iPods and more.[/quote:zfqoq43n] I think not only tech would be different (music players and phones), but ways we can think of marketing and branding. What Steve Jobs did was of course no easy task for the smaller businesses, but he did start somewhere. What I did not know was that Apple is worth about as much as Google. How do you think Apple accomplish what they did? In terms of strategy wise? If you could advice Steve on one thing, what would it be?
Re: Off to New York / Philly - Thanks guys - just landed in New Jersey and are going to the Big Apple tomorrow morning. First stop: a tour of Yankee Stadium!
Re: Are you getting an iPad 2? - Hi GT, The lineups at the Apple store were crazy which is why I went to FutureShop! Regarding iTunes - you only need it if you want to sync files between your iPad and computer. I am using thie DropBox app for that so even though I installed iTunes I have not used it yet!
Re: Citizen Journalism: There's no such thing - This clearly shows that if Steve Jobs sneezes the price of the stock will drop. Since Apple is a great company why do they have to link the rise and fall of the stock to one man? So eventually when Steve passes on what is going to happen to Apples stock?


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