When Steve Jobs had something to announce, it was news. And he announced it with such verve and showmanship that the news became a spectacle. For years, tech executives have labored under a self-imposed burden of trying to imitate his showmanship. Most fare poorly in their attempts.
Meanwhile, Samsung had, tortoise-like, been building high-quality gadgets at good prices. As its mojo increased, so did its marketing budget and its willingness to tweakApple publicly. And inevitably, Apple’s stock price would begin to slide back from its record heights amid all the competition for its mantle.
Thursday, Samsung faced extremely high expectations for its new Galaxy S4 smartphone, which meant they felt a need to create an extreme spectacle. They birthed what appears to be an excellent new product at an overblown showcase at Radio City Music Hall, confirming many experts’ belief that Samsung is inevitably eclipsing Apple.
For Apple and its aficionados, it is a rude welcome to the “what have you done for us lately” cycle of media coverage. The media spin cycles demand that a winner be proclaimed at every turn, and that today’s trajectory be treated as irreversible destiny. This applies in campaign politics, sports and tech equally. And for Samsung, they move from the role of the hunter to the hunted.
What comes next for Apple? Are they simply missing the singular genius of Steve Jobs?
The company has too much talent and too much support to be dismissed in a flip fashion by analysts and journalists. Alabama‘s Crimson Tide and Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish may have reigned supreme incollege football this season, but both programs had been declared irrelevant just a few years ago. Greatness is earned over time, and Apple remains in a strong position to keep earning it, though swoons will be unavoidable.
Apple’s challenge is to honor its founding father by moving past his ghost. Its focus will need to be not on what Jobs would do if he were still here, but rather what on what it means to have its co-founder’s DNA at this particular moment in time. What does that mean during the current Samsung lovefest in the media?
To weather a new environment, Apple must continue to “Think Different.” CEO Tim Cook and his team should resist the pressure to refine old and familiar tactics that suited another time. This may be a perfect time for Apple to pivot away from the news-as-spectacle approach that it pioneered (and which Samsung sought to out-do on Thursday), and find new ways of reaching the popular imagination. These new ways should be based on the individual gifts of its current team, not on a need to slavishly follow the ruts left by Jobs. They can leave that to others.
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
To succeed going forward, Apple also must liberate itself from its own recent mythology. Apple’s leadership must free itself from “insanely good” expectations and proactively challenge the premise that each new product or iteration is supposed to be revolutionary. The company succeeded in a number of sprints recently. Going forward it must be prepared for marathons. (And fortunately for it, it has enviable cash reserves for such a contest.)
The company has had a core identity. Apple is peculiarly human for a tech company. Apple is creative. Apple represents a zenlike approach to products and innovation–clean, minimalistic and aesthetically delightful. A certain kind of consumer appreciated it during even the worst times. Rivals may gain ground at times, but Apple’s goal should be to resist imitating its imitators, while playing for the long term.
Forbes.
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