The Final Battle of Steve Jobs
iPhone and the Smartphone Wars
BRIAN S. HALL
Copyright © 2012
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition: January 2012
To Steve
You made our world better, our spirits fiercer, our endeavors more noble, our creativity more powerful, and business more personal. Because you knew, it’s always personal.
Author’s Note:
As an analyst covering mobile technologies and the global smartphone wars, much of my work is focused on Apple in general and, until recently, was focused on Steve Jobs. For it was Jobs who fired the shot heard round the world when, on 9 January 2007, he formally announced the iPhone.
Five years later, the iPhone is the world’s most popular smartphone, has transformed Apple into the world’s richest tech company and is leading the charge in fundamentally remaking the world wide web.
The following original and unedited essays and posts are compiled from my site. They focus primarily on the years 2010 – 2011, as Steve Jobs, near the end of his life, was nonetheless still building great products, still leading Apple, and was taking the fight to all comers. Nearly everything Jobs predicted came true, even if he did not live long enough to see it happen.
Brian S Hall
January 2012
www.brianshall.com
Dear Steve Jobs. Sent from my iPad.
12 October, 2010 - 08:48
Dear Steve Jobs,
I hope you are doing well. Thank you for taking the time to read my email. Let me begin by saying that I am not asking anything from you. I wish to offer you my gratitude, and apologize.
Thank you, sir. In about half the time it takes for even a great car company, like BMW, to design, build and manufacture an updated version of an existing automobile, you have taken the concept of a device that would combine media player, telephone, computer, mobile web tablet, gaming console and GPS, and led its design, manufacture, distribution and global roll-out. Now the world has not only tens of millions of incredible iPhones, that continue to get better and better every year, you have enabled a new business model that has already sent over $1 billion to numerous homegrown app developers, forced entrenched multi-billion-dollar industries to try and match your device, and required massive, user-unfriendly behemoths like phone carriers and cable television companies to focus on the individual needs of customers.
While creating other new products, like the iPad. And restoring your health. And making shareholders of the company you founded increasingly more wealthy. As you remake the retail industry. And point the way to a bold, new future; one that places more power, more choice, more opportunities, greater connectedness in the hands of individuals.
All while motherfucking dumbasses complain to you that they want a white iPhone. Now. Or that you're not helping them with their term paper. Demanding you put pornography in your store. And bitch about having to change the name of their app to something that doesn't have the word iPod in it. As they stamp their feet over having to wait for approval to sell an app in the largest digital media store in the world -- one you made real from just a notion. But still they complain. Because someone at some Apple Store was rude to them. Or their warranty expired. And it costs too much.
For that, Mr. Jobs, I apologize. Because their petty self-absorption, I fear, may dishearten you, may limit your willingness to continue to, magically, spawn a global revolution that destroys numerous giants while creating boundless options for the one, for all of us. Despite the silly, selfish demands of a few; despite the fact that there are those who would take your property and demand something from you in exchange for its return, I can assure you: we are worthy. Ignore those who see fit to only speak to you to request, snarkily, that your iTunes logo is ugly. I can assure you. We are capable. We will use the tools you have created -- and those you have inspired -- to make the world a better place. For all that you have done, I thank you.
Regards,
Brian S Hall
Apple University. The Steve Jobs endowment. And all that $AAPL cash on hand.
5 July, 2011 - 22:56
How many Macs can you buy for $100 billion? How many iPads? How many Apple [fill in the blank here] that are to be rolled out in September, 2037? I said it before, I said it earlier today, stop trying to figure out what Apple is going to use all its cash on hand for.
Because Steve Jobs already has a plan.
That money is his *endowment*. Just as Leland Stanford created the great Stanford University with his endowment legacy, so too will Steve Jobs ensure the eternal continuation of Apple, and its greatness.
What can you get for $100 billion? Here's a better question. What can you get with a meager 5% return on $100 billion? $5 billion, of course. If Apple earns just $5 billion then it pays for the entire company's R&D, every year, forever.
Forever.
With enough left over to pay the CEO and the "top 100" stars handsomely. Forever.
Plus marketing (roughly). Forever.
I can't predict the smartphone wars circa 2020. I certainly can't predict technology in, say, 2035. But I do know that Jobs actually believes he can keep Apple Inc., his creation, alive forever.
Which is pretty fucking cool.
Briefly, why I think Tim Cook will be a better CEO for Apple than Steve Ballmer is for Microsoft.
25 August, 2011 - 13:52
Ballmer was probably the right, certainly the best person to take over Microsoft once Bill Gates departed. The same, I believe, can be said for Tim Cook of Apple. True, Jobs was abruptly forced to resign, unlike Gates, but Jobs had clearly been guiding a rather orderly transition, with Cook holding the reins, for the past several years, at least.
Both Cook and Ballmer are operations guys.
Both seem to be tireless workers. Both are staunch defenders of their respective company, its products, people and processes. Both are widely regarded as knowing as much -- or more -- about a specific product, department, market, costs and other critical factors then the very head of that product, division, group, etc.
Both, obviously, followed visionary founders who competed for having the greatest impact on personal technology, at least of the past 100 years.
So why do I think Cook will prove superior to Ballmer?
Not because Apple is the current leader in smartphones, tablets and (high-end) PCs. Not because of the $80 billion or so in the bank. Not because of the product roadmap, reportedly set till 2015.
I think Cook will prove superior because Ballmer, having lived through the PC wars, having battled -- and defeated -- nearly every competitor, partner, supplier, government and other obstructionist, is *shaped* by these wars, almost singularly so. Ballmer continuously fight's -- and usually wins -- yesterday's wars.
The future remains, to Ballmer, an unknown. To be forced, however possible, to fit within the world Microsoft emerged from and helped shape.
That world is dead.
Cook, on the other hand, appears to have Ballmer's ninja-like operations skills, but owns the luxury of being able to see forward. Cook knows Apple and knows how to leverage the best of Apple in a changing world. Ballmer, I suspect, fighting yesterday's wars, really does believe that the PC will always rule the personal computing realm, that Windows can be ported to any device, any form factor, to anyone, anywhere, and that Microsoft, simply because it is Microsoft, cannot be defeated. Or that anyone but the big IT guys who sign big IT contracts determine the course of computing standards.
Like Ballmer, Cook does not need to be a visionary. I suspect he is not. He just needs to not live in the past. Having joined Apple post-Steve II, I suspect this will not be a problem.
Section I: The Case of the Disappearing Computer
Hundreds of millions of iPhones and iPads have been sold since their launch. They are among the most advanced gadgets, the most powerful personal computers, ever sold in large numbers. Yet their genius seems to be in how much Jobs was able to put inside of them while making them as simple and intuitive as possible.
Siri and the iPhone 5 revolution (aka the Siri OS)
12 April, 2011 - 16:38
Steve Jobs has a well-earned sterling and global reputation for incredible designs of technology hardware, services, even platforms. His genius, as he has acknowledged, is not in what he includes, but what he leaves out, what is not included. iPhone spurred a smartphone revolution. It's success, rests on a platform. What if, as a final act, the design genius of Steve Jobs is to make the platform itself disappear?
Just over four years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the world to the iPhone. At the announcement, Jobs proudly stated that the "revolutionary" iPhone and its iOS (OS X) platform is "at least five years ahead of any other phone."
Your time is almost up, Mr. Jobs.
I think Jobs is very aware of this, in fact. And planning on another revolution. Which I believe, in the short-term, will ultimately fall just short. Long-term, Jobs' next iPhone revolution paves the way for the future of smartphones and personal computing. Again.
Analysts, writers, users themselves, all find it difficult to explain the iPhone. Or any 'smartphone'. With the iPhone leading the way, we've slowly come to define this device, this new paradigm in personal computing and connectivity, that offers anytime, anywhere access, as an app phone. That is, a mobile telephone wherein all features and functions are apps (applications) and all apps are supported by, developed by and distributed via a app ecosystem. Reading, gaming, surfing, watching, calling, texting. Each is an app; a distinct application that interacts with the underlying operating system and may or may not interact with other apps. Since the launch of iPhone in 2007, this new personal computing platform, the app phone, has spawned hundreds of thousands of apps, billions of dollars in revenues, and re-configured multiple industries.
As Jean-Louis Gassee wrote in MondayNote:
The App genre (the apps themselves, their distribution system, the development tools) is now fully embraced by the smartphone industry and by its customers. I realize we’ll keep saying “smartphones”, but “app phone’’ gets us closer to the genre’s core reality, to what drives enthusiastic user adoption — and close to triple-digit year-to-year revenue growth. The apps are to the iPhone what digital music files are to the iPod.
iPhone, the original app phone, de-constructed the mobile phone industry, transformed Apple, led the rapid global spread of smartphones, began the long, bloody process of disintermediating carriers from users, altered how Americans read, watch and connect. The new economic growth spurred by the iPhone is not countable, but potentially in the trillions of dollars.
This is how it works with a new computing platform. And the key, here, is platform. Computing, personal computing especially, has always relied on a platform. Open or closed is not relevant. Standardization, scope, ability to attract users, developers, money; the leading players who develop the platform, the early entrants that embrace and extend it, and, ultimately, the entire ecosystem of money, developers, users, partners, accessories, software, hardware et al that grow and sustain the platform.
Apple has been a leader, a developer, a believer in computing platforms since its founding over 30 years ago. With varying degrees of success, such as Apple, the computer, Mac OS, and now iOS for iPod, iPhone and iPad. Computing platforms that have been most successful over the past two generations include the PC, Wintel, specifically, Mac, to a far lesser extent, the browser and now Apple's iOS and its lower-cost, less closed, more iterative competitor, Android.
For iOS and Android, as in the early days of Wintel, for example, the battle is on for users, developers, services, content, partners. The focus is on money and profits, yes, but the all-hands build out is to help ensure long-term prosperity, to lock in users, to offer safe harbor against alternatives. In the long arc of Steve Jobs' career, it has always been thus. Which is why I think a final act, in a career filled with destroying the present to re-make the future, Jobs will seek to destroy the very notion of a platform.
And iPhone 5 will be the start of that revolution.
At the start of this year, everyone assumed that iPhone 5 would be released, as was iPhone 4 before it, in early summer. Then, based on Apple's calendar, WWDC and other evidence, the view was that iPhone 5 would be released in September, 2011. Now, analysts are suggesting that iPhone 5 will be announced in September but not available till about January 2011. That is, five years after the launch of the "revolutionary" and "five years ahead of its time" original iPhone.
What will be announced? Launched? I believe Jobs, again revealing his penchant for de-constructing that which already exists, including Apple's own products, to create something far greater, will be revealed when iPhone 5 is released. Such as? Well, when you deconstruct a personal computing platform, peel away at its roots, stare down from above at its ecosystem, what do you have?
A means of providing functionality and access, really. The iPhone plus App Store, iOS SDK, iTunes, payments infrastructure, all those developers, in total, are offering functionality and access to millions. Calling, texting, surfing; a game, a news reader, a food spotter. Access to books and music, our financial records, check-in history, Facebook status.
If you deconstruct the iOS ecosystem, or Android, for example, you have functionality and access, packaged, fully realized. Except, not so fully realized, in fact. Because for all the magical, revolutionary benefit that iPhone and Android and Nokia N8s and Blackberry Bolds may, in fact, bestow upon us, they remain, despite the 'smartphone' moniker, rather dumb.
Consider notifications, one of the weaker aspects of iOS. As I wrote previously:
The real problem with notifications is how needlessly limited they are. They are like the old push technology from the late 20th century. Push technology was shit. We all stopped using PUSH cause it was so hideous looking and intrusive and stupid and never learned, no matter how much time we spent teaching the damn thing.
And, shockingly, smartphone notifications are still shit.
I take my smartphone with me everywhere. Yes, everywhere. I have it with me all of the time. I use it for just about anything and everything. Yes, calling, texting, emailing. Plus, checking-in, playing games, counting calories, tracking expenses, logging time, reading books, buying/selling stocks, setting exercise goals.
I do not particularly give a shit that if I tell my bank to notify me when there is less than $500 in my checking account, say, that iPhone does a worse job at this than Android. Which it does. Both of them fail because both devices know, or should, how much is in my account and both know or should that I have just barcode scanned an item in my smartphone that I'm considering purchasing which is more than I can really afford. Yet say *nothing*.
Are they really so stupid?
Both devices know I am writing this post, and where I am when I write it and yet both also know, since it's there on my calendar, that I have an important meeting early tomorrow morning and both know I have not been getting enough sleep this week and both *fail* to say: Brian, stop. Go to bed. You will think more clearly in the morning and you will probably deliver a better pitch to the client.
How much information must I put inside my smartphone, inside its hardware, inside its apps and programs and services, before it learns how to fucking datamine itself!
Why is this so hard? Why are smartphones so stupid?
We take our smartphones with us everywhere. We use them all the time. Inside, they contain more information, more specific data about us than possibly any person, even our closest loved ones, know about us. When connected to the cloud, the amount of information -- and knowledge -- grows exponentially. Yet, the smartphone remains stupid. Limited. A revolution is needed.
I believe that revolution is the recommendation engine. To wit: Smartly, wisely proactive, rapidly reactive, based on real-time awareness of where we are, who we are with, what we are doing, and combined with the massive amounts of data contained within the smartphone and linked to us and the device, via the cloud, the recommendation engine, one that actually works and thinks, will alter, fundamentally, how we conduct our business, connect with our surroundings, interact with friends, integrate with information, databases, social media, search queries, and the near-infinite number and kind of computing resources and applications available. (deep breath)
That would be a revolution. That would tear up the very notions of an ecosystem. In fact, distill it down to its basic elements: functionality and access. The hardware, the local data, the cloud data, and the real-time *wisdom* from the recommendation engine, combined, would be its own (new) ecosystem. No notifications, as they are now meaningless. Search is likewise irrelevant, with a device that knows what you seek before asking. Similarly, the app itself, which provides functionality + access vanishes. These are barriers, limitations, the equivalent of digital buttons. And Jobs hates buttons.
The pieces to achieve this vision, with Apple at the core, are (falling) in place. Apple has the hardware, the smartphone operating system. That giant, mythical cloud city hovering somewhere over North Carolina. And, Siri. Siri is that 'voice search' technology start-up Apple bought a year ago. Only, it's not simply voice search. Siri is a "personal assistant" technology. That has essentially gone dark since Apple acquired it. But, the potential for Siri was then, and is now, the ability to provide real-time, contextually relevant information, regardless of person, place or such mundane functions as notification settings. Siri knows, in theory, that you are with your date, where you are at, and suggests, possibly purchases on its own, two tickets for the next showing of whatever movie Siri knows you *both* will like, and for the appropriate time. There is no app for that.
Or Siri knows that you need to review your finances. Or get sleep. Or, perhaps, give your brain a rest and proactively offers up a quick round of Angry Birds. The possibilities are endless. And this only becomes possible if we liberate ourselves from the very notions of an app ecosystem and instead embrace the integration of device, recommendation engine, cloud-based data.
And this is what I expect Steve Jobs to announce with iPhone 5.
Only, I really don't. Truthfully, I expect this is what Apple is working on right now, furiously. And I expect Apple to be about two years, not five years, ahead of all competitors. Just as iPhone was with Android. Still, all the outlying pieces for this grand vision are not yet in place. Apple's cloud cannot interact with everyone in real-time. Not even just those users in the United States. There are issues with carriers and billing and broadband. There remains no real online wallet or universally accessible digital currency. Not to mention, the iPhone and iOS have transformed Apple into the most profitable, most valued tech company in the world. The time is not right to destroy any of that. Apple, for example, kept pumping out all manner of iPods up to and after launching iPhone. They understood that if Apple did not find a replacement for iPod, someone else would. But, they never left any money on the table.
Right now, there's too much money on the table. Along with too many pieces, even beyond their control, for Apple to make this all work. Steve Jobs will introduce iPhone 5, likely later this year. And it will be amazing. And we will get a glimpse of Siri and the Apple Cloud -- and the future.
But we will not get there. Not yet. Just as the launch of iPhone was magical, the revolution did not happen till a bit later, with the App Store and 3G and the next iteration of iPhone. iPhone 5 will be like that, I suspect. The beginning of the end of iPhone as we know it.
And the final act of destruction of Steve Jobs' career.
Every
once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes
everything.
-Steve
Jobs, 9 January 2007 (iPhone announcement)
What would Steve Jobs say? To how well Tim Cook did?
5 October, 2011 - 08:56
I've been surprised by the obvious lack of articles on Tim Cook's presentation yesterday before the media on the "new" iPhone 4S. This is the first big product launch by Apple with Cook as CEO. This is his first big media event -- as CEO. The man he replaces is a legend, and noted for captivating presentations and product launches.
Since so little has been written, I'll begin with my thoughts:
All was exactly as it should be.
Cook was in charge. Jobs was not there to upstage him. Cook gave his chiefs plenty of spotlight. Cook noted how honored he was to lead -- and be part of -- Apple.
“I love Apple. I consider it the privilege of a lifetime.”
Cook talked of iPod and Macs and his long tenure with the company and his appreciation of what the company does, what it *has* achieved. He focused on what are his strengths: the numbers, the successes. Of which these were also legend:
357 Apple Stores in 11 countries
100,000 (Disney World-like numbers, for the new Shanghai store during opening weekend
60 million Mac users
Lion is "adopted" at 10X the rate of Windows 7
iTunes has 20 million songs available and has sold more than 16 billion songs total
Apple has sold 300 million iPods, 45 million in the past year alone
Apple has 5% of the global handset market -- and he made me swoon, obviously, when he directly quoted me, without attribution: "We believe all handsets will become smartphones."
More than 250 million iOS devices
3 of every 4 tablets sold are iPad
Like Steve, he gave out all the numbers that titillate, that cause fanboys and analysts alike to swoon. Without the messy details that lead to, you know, questioning. Same goes for the examples of how Apple/Apple products are -- very Steve-like -- liberating. Such as that whole iPad in the cockpit story.
Plus, you ask me, Cook has better taste in music, if what they played at the auditorium was any judge.
Cook is not there to save Apple. Cook is not the founder. iPhone 4S is a (amazing wonderful sexy) evolutionary product. This presentation, this product launch, led by Tim Cook, gets a solid A. If I can extrapolate from this single data point, then I would say that Apple is in excellent hands, and will continue to grow and prosper and lead and dominate through this decade.
If the 90s belonged to Ballmer's Microsoft, then the 10s belong to Cook's Apple.
But wait. One more thing. No one has caught on -- though they will after they read my post -- at how iPhone 4S (with iOS 5), which are Cook's babies, is *opening* Apple up to the outside world. Think of that. What was mentioned at yesterday's iPhone 4S launch or went along with it: