WWDC

http://www.apple.com/apple-events/june-2014/

People are cheap and stupid.

Apple is expensive and smart.

And the press and the analysts are not too smart either. The former looks for the hook, the latter only looks for the money.

And what Apple featured yesterday was software.

Huh?

A baby boomer covets a car.

A teen only needs transportation.

A baby boomer needs to own.

A teen only needs access.

And there you have today's society, a huge schism wherein the baby boomer and Gen-X controlled media says one thing, and the younger generation ignores them and does another.

In other words, are we smart enough to subjugate hardware to software?

If you read analysis of yesterday's Worldwide Developers presentation, what you will learn is that Apple did not introduce a new device. As if the iPhone 5s wasn't good enough, as if people were complaining their Macs and iPads were too slow. Have we reached the end of hardware breakthroughs?

What made Apple the company it is today is hardware.

First the iMac.

Then the iPod.

Then the iPhone and iPad.

Items so cool you had to buy them, but only learned after the fact their possibilities.

Yesterday, Apple stoked the fire of said possibilities, but you don't need new hardware to take advantage, unless you're not part of the Apple ecosystem to begin with.

Let's start with hand-sets, since they're what drives revenue today, they're what people all over the world are using to compute.

It's an Android world, because Apple is too expensive.

So, if you've got an Android device everything said at WWDC was meaningless to you, other than the fact that many of you are utilizing a four year old operating system whereas 87% of iOS users are on the latest iteration.

And therefore, you don't have functionality.

But you don't care!

How do you make people care?

This is Tim Cook's challenge, this is where he's failed so far. He keeps telling us how great Apple is, but he doesn't know how to convince the people who are not paying attention, the cheap ones, the dumb ones.

People became Apple lovers because of the seamless integration and functionality of the iPod. They had no idea of the functionality of the iPhone, they just wanted one. Who doesn't have Apple gear who needs it now?

Hmm...

Let's stay in America. Where the dumb believe the free hand-set is actually free, not realizing they're paying for it every month on their bill. They won't pay $200 for a new iPhone, never gonna do it. Makes no sense, but that's how they live.

Kind of like the cheap PC people with the horrible screens and the slow processors. They don't want to spend $500 more for a Mac...

IT'S TIM COOK'S JOB TO CONVINCE THEM TO DO SO!

And nothing in this exquisite presentation will accomplish that.

Cook has learned to stay in the background, it was Craig Federighi all the time, and Craig is quite good.

Steve Jobs is fading into the distance, new owners have taken over the company.

But they lack Steve's overall vision. Steve created a breakthrough product known as the NeXT computer which stiffed, he realized he needed to be with Apple to succeed. Everybody at Apple today has only known success, they don't know what failure looks like, they haven't been wizened, they're like the scions of the rich who blow their inheritance.

In other words, there's no guiding light.

Could Jimmy Iovine be this?

Possibly. Because Jimmy knows it's about excitement, about getting people to buy in. You've got to have something to sell, a record, some headphones, because software is a hard sell, especially when everybody else's device is cheaper, no matter how inferior.

You'll read b.s. how yesterday's presentation was a shot at Google. That's not true, but the point is it certainly wasn't an enticement to the public, which keeps these companies alive. It'd be like a record company talking about better recording techniques and better distribution, WHERE'S THE MUSIC?

At some point in the future, everyone will realize it's about software, not hardware. And at that point breakthrough software will be enough for a company to triumph, hell, what else are Facebook and Twitter but software?

But as good as Apple's health and home software is, it's not enough to titillate customers, not enough for them to pony up the extra $200 for an iPhone, the extra $500 for a Mac.

They need someone who can bridge that gap.

They need someone who knows that gap exists...


--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25




-- powered by phpList, www.phplist.com --