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Jobs importantly said the customer experience. Remember Jobs also famously said: “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my appr

Jobs importantly said the customer experience. Remember Jobs also famously said: “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

jackmott 4y ago
grecy 4y ago
I think Jobs quoted Gretzky more than once too: "Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been" - Wayne Gretzky
- roeles 4y ago
  Alan Kay has explained this quote a bit, which I thought was insightful. It's not about tracking the Puck. It's about seeing the big picture and positioning yourself such that it will be passed to you.
  - grecy 4y ago
    I think it's also about designing and selling a touch-screen phone when nobody knew they wanted one instead of making a slightly better phone with buttons.
    - theodric 4y ago
      Not nobody. I had a touchscreen phone for years before the iPhone appeared. All Windows Mobile platform, but there were Palm devices at the same time. The iPhone improved usability and stability, and its capacitive touch surface was a vast improvement over even the best resistive screens, but it was by no means at the vanguard. Its marketing was, though.
      - projektfu 4y ago
        Better for responsiveness and appearance, but the accuracy of a good screen like on an iPAQ is still not matched without very special hardware.
      - theshrike79 4y ago
        Nokia had world firsts in a ton of categories, but they - as an organisation - sucked at vertical integration. Thus many of the features just were there, without any way to actually use them. I remember my old Nokia phone having a feature that would detect people around me + my location and would change profiles accordingly. Something that Apple added around iOS 16. The Nokia feature? It never worked, nobody knew how to make it work. It needed some mystical configuration that people in my company didn't know how to do. And I worked for a major Nokia subcontractor...
adolph 4y ago
The structure of the above comment almost sounds as if it were in opposition to the parent quote. It is important to note that the two quotes are in harmony with one another. Delivering something of value to those who didn’t even know it was needed is part of what has made Apple very successful. The technologist’s perspective may be “no wireless, less space than Nomad” but the improved focus on consumer experience and perception isn’t ”merely marketing,” it’s market making.
hk1337 4y ago
> If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!' Oddly, enough that’s what he ended up doing. We even describe the power of the engine in horsepower. Granted it’s not a 1:1 translation to an actual horse.
- vba616 4y ago
  There were a lot of Ford models before the model T, as you might guess if you heard that they started with "A" and went through the alphabet (skipping some). More than one of them really looked like a "horseless carriage". For example: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/48168 https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digita... That apparently came to an end after the model T. And Ford's first car company failed. Maybe you could draw a parallel between Steve Jobs and his "second act".
philliphaydon 4y ago
My previous job we had an amazing product owner. He never caved to customers demands. He always listened to them and deciphered what they actually wanted. He took 1 customers demands and figured out what everybody wanted. And every time we released a feature we got great feedback and praise. I remember one customer said “wow this so much better than what we asked for!” When he left it was all down hill. Because the product owners just wanted to pad their resume. Pump out features. And pretend like they cared about the product but ultimately the product got worse. To the point they started adding old features back in that they had removed thinking they knew better.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
vba616 4y ago
This seems like dangerous advice if taken as "ignore customers". Someone else said you should never believe customers who tell you what they want, but you should always pay close attention to what customers do. The latter is a type of market research, isn't it?

jackmott 4y ago

grecy 4y ago

I think Jobs quoted Gretzky more than once too: "Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been" - Wayne Gretzky

roeles 4y ago
Alan Kay has explained this quote a bit, which I thought was insightful. It's not about tracking the Puck. It's about seeing the big picture and positioning yourself such that it will be passed to you.
- grecy 4y ago
  I think it's also about designing and selling a touch-screen phone when nobody knew they wanted one instead of making a slightly better phone with buttons.
  - theodric 4y ago
    Not nobody. I had a touchscreen phone for years before the iPhone appeared. All Windows Mobile platform, but there were Palm devices at the same time. The iPhone improved usability and stability, and its capacitive touch surface was a vast improvement over even the best resistive screens, but it was by no means at the vanguard. Its marketing was, though.
    - projektfu 4y ago
      Better for responsiveness and appearance, but the accuracy of a good screen like on an iPAQ is still not matched without very special hardware.
    - theshrike79 4y ago
      Nokia had world firsts in a ton of categories, but they - as an organisation - sucked at vertical integration. Thus many of the features just were there, without any way to actually use them. I remember my old Nokia phone having a feature that would detect people around me + my location and would change profiles accordingly. Something that Apple added around iOS 16. The Nokia feature? It never worked, nobody knew how to make it work. It needed some mystical configuration that people in my company didn't know how to do. And I worked for a major Nokia subcontractor...

adolph 4y ago

The structure of the above comment almost sounds as if it were in opposition to the parent quote. It is important to note that the two quotes are in harmony with one another. Delivering something of value to those who didn’t even know it was needed is part of what has made Apple very successful. The technologist’s perspective may be “no wireless, less space than Nomad” but the improved focus on consumer experience and perception isn’t ”merely marketing,” it’s market making.

hk1337 4y ago

> If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!' Oddly, enough that’s what he ended up doing. We even describe the power of the engine in horsepower. Granted it’s not a 1:1 translation to an actual horse.

vba616 4y ago
There were a lot of Ford models before the model T, as you might guess if you heard that they started with "A" and went through the alphabet (skipping some). More than one of them really looked like a "horseless carriage". For example: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/48168 https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digita... That apparently came to an end after the model T. And Ford's first car company failed. Maybe you could draw a parallel between Steve Jobs and his "second act".

philliphaydon 4y ago

My previous job we had an amazing product owner. He never caved to customers demands. He always listened to them and deciphered what they actually wanted. He took 1 customers demands and figured out what everybody wanted. And every time we released a feature we got great feedback and praise. I remember one customer said “wow this so much better than what we asked for!” When he left it was all down hill. Because the product owners just wanted to pad their resume. Pump out features. And pretend like they cared about the product but ultimately the product got worse. To the point they started adding old features back in that they had removed thinking they knew better.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

vba616 4y ago

This seems like dangerous advice if taken as "ignore customers". Someone else said you should never believe customers who tell you what they want, but you should always pay close attention to what customers do. The latter is a type of market research, isn't it?