Seemingly Stupid Apple Moves That Were Actually Brilliant

October 26th, 2006

Apple

At the time Apple announced all of the following, the Mac faithful gasped, asked if hell had frozen over, or wondered what reality Steve Jobs was distorting. But in retrospect, all of these seemingly stupid Apple moves were actually brilliant.

iMac

iMacI remember when the iMac came out, many thought Apple was washed up, and it was too little, too late. Computer experts mocked its translucent candy color, lack of power, expandability, and absent floppy drive. Beige was so much more practical and powerful. And what was with the lowercase “i”? Was Steve Jobs on iCrack?

But in retrospect it was an awesome move. People loved the retro all-in-one idea, snapping up nearly a million units. Suddenly the PC world wanted to get rid of floppies, work in colored plastic, and add USB. Lastly, with the iMac’s success, Apple was back in black and could start innovating again.

The Lisa

LisaThe Lisa was a cool computer but way too expensive at $9,995. John Sculley thought the high price was necessary in order to recoup Apple’s investment in the project’s development. Sales fell off quickly and eventually Lisa computers were buried as landfill.

But it set the stage for the Macintosh in 1984, and the Lisa sticker-shock made the original Macintosh look like a relative bargain. At the time it had to be proven that a GUI and a mouse was the future of computing (both ideas inspired by Xerox PARC and the Alto workstation), and the Lisa helped pave the path for the Mac.

Sacking Steve Jobs

Jobs and SculleyFiring a founder is always going to look stupid. But if Steve Jobs hadn’t been canned from Apple by the soda-water guy, there would be no NeXT and therefore no OS X.

The humbling experience of being fired made Steve Jobs question his values and what he really wanted to do with his passion for technology. It likely inspired him to try that much harder the NeXT time.

If Steve Jobs had remained with Apple through the nineties, it’s quite possible Jobs would have joined Apple on a slow slide into confusion and oblivion and now be a subsidiary of HP.

Buying NeXT

NeXTIn the mid nineties, Gil Amelio was desperate to save Apple and needed a next-generation operating system. Apple nearly purchased Be and its BeOS, which already ran on PowerPC chips. But instead Apple chose NeXT, with the Unix-based NeXTSTEP and the bonus prize of Steve Jobs.

At the time, many thought Be was a better fit. People worried that Steve would be impossible to work with. Many doubted Apple had the resources to get NeXTSTEP working on PowerPC based Macs. And probably the most idiotic part was that Amelio had just hired himself out of a job.

Needless to say, after a few nearly disastrous “public betas” and the wishy-washy title of “iCEO” the NeXT purchase turned out to be a brilliant move. OS X is now considered a step ahead of Microsoft’s Vista. Steve Jobs has proved to be a master promoter and his insane demands for quality raises the bar on everything Apple touches.

Killing the clones

CloneIt was once assumed one reason for Apple’s troubles was their unwillingness to open up their hardware to other manufacturers as with the PC. So during the mid nineties, Apple allowed other companies like Motorola, UMax, and PowerComputing to make Macintosh clones.

When Steve Jobs returned, he killed the whole deal, saying the clone companies were canniballizing Apple’s sales. A lot of people were pissed because for a while, they were able to buy powerful, fast hardware at a cheaper price than Apple could develop. But this vision of cheap boxes didn’t fit with Steve’s plans for Apple.

In retrospect, killing the clones was the only way for Apple to survive in the short term. And luckilly, they went on to make awesome, beautiful, quality hardware. Today, people pay a premium for Apple’s great design.

Working with Microsoft

GatesWhen Bill Gates’ huge visage towered over Steve Jobs at a keynote, many thought Apple had made a pact with the devil. Microsoft was the enemy. Taking money from Bill Gates… nothing good could come of it.

But this great move bought Apple time to get back on its feet. Gates thought he would win either way, because the more Macs sold meant more software sales, plus Internet Explorer would come on every Mac and help Gates beat Netscape, which at the time, he probably thought was a more dangerous adversary. Who would have thought Apple would come back so strong?

iPod and the iTunes Store

iPodWhen Apple’s iPod came out, I first thought it was interesting but no big deal. Apple hadn’t proved it could manage a consumer electronics product - their strength was still in computers.

When Apple began selling music online via the iTunes Music Store, many doubted it would ever fly. People already had too much pirated music. Nobody would pay for compressed sound files. Everybody hated DRM. But Apple had worked really hard on making it the purchasing process easy.

The same doubters floated the same theories with television shows, and are now repeating the same arguments against downloading movies. But in the long run, all these moves will likely be right on the money. There has to be some money to be made selling content for 60 million iPods.

The Cube

CubeThe Cube was considered a masterpiece of design but it didn’t sell well. It was priced in a strange place, more expensive than an iMac but cheaper than a PowerMac, lending people to wonder why not pay less and get an iMac with a monitor built in, or pony up a bit more and get a PowerMac with expansion options. Sales sucked and the Cube was toast.

But consider how the knowledge of building a compact computer influenced all of Apple’s subsequent projects. The flat panel iMac, the PowerBook, and eventually the Mac Mini. Lastly, if you stack two Mac Minis it’s basically the shape of a Cube.

Note: What’s with Steve Jobs and cubes? The NeXT logo, the NeXT black cube computer, and a huge glass cube sitting outside Apple’s Manhattan store. Only the Borg has more cube love.

iPod Shuffle

iPod ShuffleWho wanted an iPod with no screen and only enough storage space for a few CDs? The answer: tons of people who didn’t want to pay more than $100 for an an iPod.

The shuffle feature was also initially looked down upon as more of a limitation with marketing spin. Maybe so, but my first iPod was a Shuffle and I feel the compact size made up for any feature limitations. Second, without a screen, I didn’t worry about scratching it. Eventualy, when I wanted more features, I upgraded to an “actual” iPod. So in the most cynical sense, Apple got an extra $100 out of me because I bought a Shuffle. Brilliant!

Moving to Intel

IntelIn 2005, the move to Intel created more questions than answers. What if people bought Mac hardware and ran Windows on it? What if people bought Dell computers and ran OS X on them?

But new possibilities for Apple soon became evident: Boot Camp, not waiting for Motorola to come up with a G6, more appeal for potential switchers, or being able to ditch hardware in the ultimate exit strategy.

In fact, the stupider move was probably way back in the early 90s when Apple moved to the PowerPC chip. An Apple move to Intel back then would have saved Apple years of development time, and a lot of stress waiting for Motorola to deliver.

In conclusion, I hope this post demonstrates that through, luck, serendipity, or business genius, sometimes stupid is smart. After all, according to Steve Jobs, you can only connect the dots in hindsight.

Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock.

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