Posts tagged Steve Jobs
Apple shows us that it’s okay to not be perfect
Jul 19th
Guess what? Apple is “not perfect”. That’s what CEO Steve Jobs had to say on Friday after calling an emergency press conference to ease the minds of the thousands of tech journo’s across the globe that the iPhone 4 was in fact, not broken or being recalled.
Yes, it has antenna issues. However, those issues affect just 0.55% of Apple’s 3 million iPhone 4 users.
It appears that this antenna malarkey was just blown up by the media. One person called to complain and the media jumped on the problem like a fat kid on a cupcake. Poor Apple, success just doesn’t sell well these days. Consumers…well, the media, seems to favour the bad news and ignite panic. Take for example Google’s financial results reported on Friday.
We received the results too and reported them on UTalkMarketing. They were positive results. The company’s revenues and profits are up (you can read the nitty gritties here) but they are not up enough to please some with most of the media outlets reporting Google’s “disappointing” results.
But back to Apple. Jobs has promised every iPhone user a free case to help with the antenna issues – which, by the way, exist in all smartphones including RIM’s Blackberry.
He seemed a little upset in his presentation. Upset about how quickly you can go from being the most popular kid in the playground to the most hated, money making corporation.
Jobs just wants to make his users happy. And he’s fixing things to make them happy.
I watched the presentation on the internet (because my actual invite was lost in the mail) and I couldn’t help thinking though, if the answer is so simple – to send a free case out to users – why wasn’t there an email marketing campaign?
I frequently get email marketing messages from Apple telling me about new products and product updates, so why not this time?
Jobs was, as usual playing it smart. He wasn’t speaking to users, he was speaking to the media. He was advertising the Apple brand with a new “we love you, Apple user” message that doesn’t quite sound the same in an email. Jobs was advertising the fact that Apple, regardless of how unbelievably successful (selling 3 million iPhone 4s in 3 weeks) it is or becomes, will always go to great lengths to satisfy its customers.
And what a great ad it was…it had me at “not perfect”.
Is Apple’s famous ‘buzz’ marketing strategy to blame for its antenna issues?
Jul 16th
Apple is famous for keeping a shroud of secrecy around its new products, a marketing strategy that has also served the tech giant well for the past decade. But what if this time it was that very buzz strategy that led to the epic fail that has been the iPhone 4 launch?
Since its launch on June 24, Apple’s iPhone 4 hasn’t exactly received the warm welcome that has come to be synonymous with anything that Apple launches.
This week, product review magazine Consumer Reports said it could not recommend Apple’s latest iPhone. Antenna issues lived on and Apple’s share price plummeted 0.51% yesterday on the news that CEO Steve Jobs would be holding an emergency press conference today in the US.
No one, of course, knows what the conference will address leaving us to only speculate about a product recall.
It could very well be one of the largest product recalls in history – the iPhone 4 is already in the hands of more than 1.7 million people worldwide with hundreds of thousands more on pre-order.
Let the blame game begin.
Jobs’s insistence on strict design control of the iPhone could have led the tech giant to overrule internal concerns about the iPhone 4′s antenna reception.
His stance is said to have forced the company to deny carriers adequate time to test the new phone before selling it.
Apple engineers were reportedly aware of the risks associated with the new antenna design as early as a year ago. However, Jobs liked the design so much that Apple went ahead with its development anyway, according to a person familiar with the matter talking with the Wall Street Journal.
This ‘person’ claims that the device didn’t get the kind of “real-world testing” that would have exposed such problems because Apple was determined to maintain its secrecy – something the company has become famous for in terms of a marketing strategy.
Apple is so fearful of deflating the buzz it creates around its products that the phones it sends to its carrier partners for testing are “stealth” phones that disguise the device’s shape and some of its functions.
This means that Jobs can walk around on stage in his blue jeans and black turtle neck skivvy delivering a revolution. It has worked time and time again and has seen hundreds of people around the world camp out the front of Apple stores in anticipation of a launch just to be the first to see and use these highly anticipated gems of technology.
A full recall seems a long shot for Apple but mostly, for Jobs who has long been credited with taking Apple from computer maker to technology giant.
Announcing a recall would mean the company has been dealt a significant blow by the fickle and unforgiving marketplace. Some in the US reckon that at the conference, Jobs will offer in-store solutions to fixing the antenna while others are saying the company could offer users cases or bumpers.
But whatever Jobs delivers, have no doubt that this conference is about damage control, not of the antenna, but the entire Apple brand.
Perhaps it sounds sinister to say so, but the antenna issue has highlighted a series of failures by the company, the main one being that its consumers were not at the forefront of the company’s minds during the launch phase. If they were, rigorous testing would have been undertaken. The big question now is will Apple be forced to change tactics in the future?
Secrecy is part of the Apple brand, buzz is the key to its marketing strategy and without those two things, Apple could be just another tech company. Remember, the Apple iPhone only has 18% of the smartphone market and it is solely its brand and reputation for making products that simple ‘work’ that has carried it that far.
Apple must apologize, but at the same time it cannot admit failure, otherwise all the merits upon which its brand was built in the first place will be insignificant.
For a full background on Apple visit UTalkMarketing’s Apple Hub, click here
Apple faces iPhone reality – market share is not all that
Jun 25th
Amazingly, Apple’s iPhone represents just 4% of the European mobile market despite its CEO Steve Jobs touting that iPhone 4 will sell 1 million handsets this week upon launch.
New data from comScore has put the tech giant in its place today as it reveals Apple has just 18% of the smartphone market across five European nations – the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
However, the iPhone has facilitated “fundamental change” in mobile user behaviour and ignited fierce competition among device and operating system (OS) providers, says the researcher.
iPhone owners are the most voracious consumers of mobile media with 94% using mobile media, 87% using apps and 85% browsing the mobile internet.
With just a 4% share of the European market, iPhone users represent only 12% of all mobile media users.
Shocked? I certainly was, but only because of the volume in which Apple often blows its own trumpet.
Analysts have this week said the iPhone may top 2 million sales by the end of this week with the new iPhone 4 selling 1 million. This really does change everything, as Steve Jobs said just a few weeks ago. But it hasn’t changed market share much yet 2 although it certainly has had the competition shaking in their boots and rush new technologies, handsets and operating systems to market in order to compete.
The European smartphone market is growing 38% year-on-year, but the most recent year has seen some significant developments.
In the past 12 months, although the dominant OS, Symbian, gained device owners, market momentum has now moved to the North American operating systems of RIM, Apple and Google, each of which has grown by substantial percentage over the past year.
Jeremy Copp, Vice President Mobile Europe at comScore, said, “To date the iPhone has had a disproportionate impact on the European mobile market considering its relatively modest installed base of around 10 million.
“It has catalysed the consumption of mobile media and opened the eyes of brands to mobile as an engaging marketing medium. However, it has also prompted other device manufacturers and OS vendors to elevate their game so the poster-child of the smartphone generation now faces serious competition.”
The market researcher has named Google’s Android as “the one to watch” as it gained 1.7 million users in a particularly short period of time.
Why Apple’s iPhone 4 will steal the mobile marketing spotlight
Jun 7th
‘This changes everything, again’, says the email marketing campaign I received from Apple this morning about the iPhone 4. Should we be excited though? Initially I couldn’t help but feel a bit ‘so what’ about the newest iPhone. I soon changed my mind though.
Perhaps it’s because it was ‘leaked’ by technology site Gizmodo last month. Maybe it’s because I’m still figuring out my new iPad or maybe it’s simply because I feel like I’ve seen it all before. But the fact is we haven’t seen it all before, previous iPhone’s were just the beginning of many great things to come out of Apple.
A marketers dream?
The iPhone 4 provides a wealth of opportunity for mobile marketing and advertising, but the primary benefit introduced in the 4th generation device is the addition of a gyroscope which will allow developers to create motion-controlled apps that have 6-axis motion sensing. Mobile advertisers can utilise the advanced motion-sensing as well.
Developers can now access the location of a device, the direction it is facing and the orientation of the device using 6-axis motion sensing, meaning next-gen mobile apps and advertisers can utilise all these features combined to develop some pretty impressive things.
With the approaching introduction of iAds, Apple has created a niche opportunity to sway mobile advertisers to its corner of the mobile ecosystem, says Mobile Marketing Watch.
For brands wanting the combination of iAds, the iPhone 4 device and iOS 4 means the possibilities are endless – but they will come with a hefty price tag.
Apple’s tight control will undoubtedly make itself known, and will likely limit full-out functionality to brands going directly through iAds.
Steve Jobs said at the WWDC 2010 event yesterday that Apple created iAds to help developers make more money. The problem before iAds had been that mobile ads on the iPhone were a bit of a mess: different systems supported only basic interaction.
With iAds, developers get 60% of the revenue generated by the ad in their app, so who’s on board?
Jobs said, “So let me tell you some of the brands that will be advertising with us. Nissan, Citi, Unilever, AT&T, Chanel, GE, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Geico, Campbells, Sears, JC Penny, Target, Best Buy, Direct TV, TBS, and Disney… those are some of the brands.”
Apple CEO has projected that Apple would have 48% of the mobile advertising market locked up by the end of this year.
At the keynote, jobs demonstrated an iAd for the upcoming Nissan Leaf electric car. It’s a compelling ad, Ad execs are clucking their tongues over the richness of the iAds platform (while seemingly missing the fact that they could have always built engaging experiences on the web this way without resorting to Flash). Read the rest of this entry »
The iPad has given us freedom from porn, says Steve Jobs
May 18th
Gawker writer Ryan Tate has managed the impossible – an interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs – but the iPad critic got more than he bargained for though after lambasting the CEO via email after a few too many on Friday night.
Tate sent the email to Jobs after he saw a new ad for Apple’s iPad which claimed the device was a “revolution”.
Slightly offended, Tate asked Jobs what Bob Dylan would think of such wanton use of the “R” word.
“If Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company?” Tate wrote.
“Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with ‘revolution’?
“Revolutions are about freedom.”
Three hours later – at 2am – Jobs replied with his thoughts on what freedom meant, along with a sting in the tail for Tate.
“Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data,” Jobs wrote in an exchange published online by Gawker.
“Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn.”
Jobs added, “By the way, what have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?”
Let that be a lesson to Flash perhaps…
Adobe launches ad and microsite to hit back at Apple
May 14th
Adobe Systems has hit back at Apple following much criticism from Steve Jobs who has very publically detailed exactly why he doesn’t like the software and the reasons it is not included in the iPad (or the iPod or iPhone for that matter).
The maker of Flash has launched an advertising campaign in retaliation to the Apple CEO’s criticism of Adobe’s Flash technology – a crucial tool for displaying video and interactive content.
The print and online ads from Adobe seek to emphasise the company’s “openness” and explain the “truth about Flash”. They cite figures that suggest three-quarters of web video is viewed using Flash.
The full page ads rare running in newspapers such as The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The company has also launched a microsite to get its message across.
The strapline is ‘We love choice’ and the (long) ad reads:
“At Adobe, we believe that the open flow of creativity, ideas, and information should be limited only by the imagination. Innovation thrives when people are free to choose the technologies that enable them to openly express themselves and access information where and when they want. Everyone loses when technological barriers impede the exchange of ideas.
Openness is at Adobe’s core. Our first technology was an open standard that liberated publishing from proprietary printing systems, and soon afterward our PDF technology eliminated barriers to sharing documents across platforms.
Adobe Flash technology enables the delivery of content to hundreds of millions of people, regardless of platform or browser. In 2009, in partnership with Google, Research In Motion, and dozens of other companies, we formed the Open Screen Project, a coalition committed to making web experiences seamlessly available on any mobile device. Read the rest of this entry »
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