6 ms·

We had everything he said back then - it was just rather bulky. It's not a visionary statement - it's logic. I wish everyone would stop harping on about Jobs -

We had everything he said back then - it was just rather bulky. It's not a visionary statement - it's logic. I wish everyone would stop harping on about Jobs - he was a marketing expert not a visionary.

pinaceae 14y ago
oh boy aren't you smart. the old "just marketing" troll. all you need to make an mp3 player successful is marketing. all you need to make a smartphone successful is marketing. all you need to make notebooks successful is marketing. my god, it is so simple! fire all the designers, engineers, coders, all the fucking nerds and replace them with marketing people! brilliant. this is exactly how you become one of the most valuable companies on this planet. quick, call HP, Dell and Nokia to tell them about this grandiose insight!
- czr80 14y ago
  Bit harsh, but I sympathise with your frustration. The "only marketing" trope is so shallow that it is annoying how it survives.
  - eckyptang 14y ago
    In the interest of backing up my statement and sticking to my guns: Take the marketing and hype away from Apple, and what is it? A Foxconn rebranding outfit, a 1990s style UNIX outfit which ships proprietary hardware and a media pushing company with a less than 7% market share of the IT industry with many rising competitors. That is it. That is no different than Sony 10 years ago. And look where they are now. Hype cannot be maintained forever. When you can no longer outdo yourself, it's gone. This is happening rapidly. People used to wait on Apple news announcements. I mean hell even I did as they usually stepped up the game. But what have they delivered of note recently: absolutely sod all. Lumias are starting to tread on their innovation territory, Surface is less than a month away, Google has taken over the appliance model and the mobile market is dominated by South Korean giant Samsung. They're losing the marketing battle as that's all they had and they're suing everyone on the way down. My main problem is that people worship Jobs as some kind of idol. I think he was an extremely bad role model and a warning rather than a sign. Sure he knocked up Apple's market cap, which is his only real acheivement, but it in the process he shafted just about everyone on the way, destroyed the perception of an open computing model, lied persistently about bad products and ripped off other people's work persistently. The guy was technically speaking in every way an utter psychopathic arrogant asshole with no remnant of humanity. But a good marketer. I'm fed up with reading all the tripe about him.
    - arn 14y ago
      Your position is absurd and contradictory. The hype and popularity exists because Apple has produced very compelling products. The iPod and the iPhone were both leaps and bounds ahead of the competition at their launch. It's also clear that Jobs was the driving force behind their vision. You say that "even [you]" waited on Apple announcements because "they usually stepped up the game" which translates into the fact that Apple made better/interesting/more innovative products. Note you didn't say "even I waited on Apple news announcements because their marketing was so amazing." You say that Lumias are treading on their "innovation" territory. Not their marketing territory, their innovation territory. If it was all marketing, they would still be winning by your argument. Has their marketing dramatically changed in the past few years? The only rational way to reconcile this is by you saying "oh, by marketing, I mean the whole product package, user interface, software, and hardware design". In which case, you just are simply defining marketing wrong.
      - eckyptang 14y ago
        The iPod and iPhone were not leaps and bounds ahead. That is a common misconception which is powered by the marketing hype. There were other products out there which were far superior. Archos produced better music players and Nokia produced far better phones under the Symbian banner. The differentiator was the marketing hype. They stepped up the game by delivering on day zero which made people hang on them. That is still marketing. Lumia marketing is horrible, but they are producing hype via innovation. Apple don't do that any more. They have nothing to deliver any more. Their marketing has changed from "new product" to "new incremental improvement" i.e. the hype is dying. Marketing here is purely spin.
        rustynails77 14y ago
        Don't dismiss Jobsy's (or his team's) contributions out of hand. They knew that an app store was key to the success of Apple's new device, so they made minimal profit off the App store. What Jobsy did was more than marketing - but a lot of it was marketing. He drove things in a particular direction, which makes him somewhat of a visionary - not just a marketer. On the other hand, I agree with the great grand-parent poster. What Apple had was not significantly better, just packaged better. I view that as a visionary rather than marketing.
- Of_Prometheus 14y ago
  You're being sarcastic, but you're also correct. While the strength of a product may dictate its long-term success, a well-implemented marketing campaign is often the difference between a mediocre product with excellent sales and an excellent product with mediocre sales.
- voyou 14y ago
  People say "Apple just does just marketing" like marketing is easy or unimportant. But, you know what, Apple's success really is about marketing, and that's a good thing. Apple haven't made that many purely technical innovations, but what they have done is look at new technology, figure out what people might want to do with it, tweak the technology to focus on doing that thing, and then explain to people how Apple's product can help them do something they want to do. This is "marketing," it's what makes technological innovations accessible to people, and it's something Apple should be praised for.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
mmariani 14y ago
Yeah sure! Let's just call John Sculley to replace Tim Cook. He'll fix Apple good. PS: the "tape" is awesome, thanks.
w0utert 14y ago
> We had everything he said back then - it was just rather bulky. It's not a visionary statement - it's logic. > I wish everyone would stop harping on about Jobs - he was a marketing expert not a visionary. Yes, in hindsight it's all so logical. Anybody could have done it, Apple was simply the first to redefine the MP3 market, the digital music distribution market, the phone market, the mobile app market, the laptop market, the tablet market, all by chance. And marketing of course. Marketing and chance, there ain't nothing more to it. Just like founding NeXT, only to buy it 10 years later to create a whole new operating system and foundation of frameworks to program it, agile enough to run on hardware ranging from smartphones to workstations, it was all Jobs' marketing genius. The same marketing genius that founded Pixar, and had Intel scrambling to pay the traditional PC manufacturers to produce the PC equivalents of MacBook Airs. Really, Steve Jobs and Apple are all.marketing, no doubt about it... :-/

pinaceae 14y ago

oh boy aren't you smart. the old "just marketing" troll. all you need to make an mp3 player successful is marketing. all you need to make a smartphone successful is marketing. all you need to make notebooks successful is marketing. my god, it is so simple! fire all the designers, engineers, coders, all the fucking nerds and replace them with marketing people! brilliant. this is exactly how you become one of the most valuable companies on this planet. quick, call HP, Dell and Nokia to tell them about this grandiose insight!

czr80 14y ago
Bit harsh, but I sympathise with your frustration. The "only marketing" trope is so shallow that it is annoying how it survives.
- eckyptang 14y ago
  In the interest of backing up my statement and sticking to my guns: Take the marketing and hype away from Apple, and what is it? A Foxconn rebranding outfit, a 1990s style UNIX outfit which ships proprietary hardware and a media pushing company with a less than 7% market share of the IT industry with many rising competitors. That is it. That is no different than Sony 10 years ago. And look where they are now. Hype cannot be maintained forever. When you can no longer outdo yourself, it's gone. This is happening rapidly. People used to wait on Apple news announcements. I mean hell even I did as they usually stepped up the game. But what have they delivered of note recently: absolutely sod all. Lumias are starting to tread on their innovation territory, Surface is less than a month away, Google has taken over the appliance model and the mobile market is dominated by South Korean giant Samsung. They're losing the marketing battle as that's all they had and they're suing everyone on the way down. My main problem is that people worship Jobs as some kind of idol. I think he was an extremely bad role model and a warning rather than a sign. Sure he knocked up Apple's market cap, which is his only real acheivement, but it in the process he shafted just about everyone on the way, destroyed the perception of an open computing model, lied persistently about bad products and ripped off other people's work persistently. The guy was technically speaking in every way an utter psychopathic arrogant asshole with no remnant of humanity. But a good marketer. I'm fed up with reading all the tripe about him.
  - arn 14y ago
    Your position is absurd and contradictory. The hype and popularity exists because Apple has produced very compelling products. The iPod and the iPhone were both leaps and bounds ahead of the competition at their launch. It's also clear that Jobs was the driving force behind their vision. You say that "even [you]" waited on Apple announcements because "they usually stepped up the game" which translates into the fact that Apple made better/interesting/more innovative products. Note you didn't say "even I waited on Apple news announcements because their marketing was so amazing." You say that Lumias are treading on their "innovation" territory. Not their marketing territory, their innovation territory. If it was all marketing, they would still be winning by your argument. Has their marketing dramatically changed in the past few years? The only rational way to reconcile this is by you saying "oh, by marketing, I mean the whole product package, user interface, software, and hardware design". In which case, you just are simply defining marketing wrong.
    - eckyptang 14y ago
      The iPod and iPhone were not leaps and bounds ahead. That is a common misconception which is powered by the marketing hype. There were other products out there which were far superior. Archos produced better music players and Nokia produced far better phones under the Symbian banner. The differentiator was the marketing hype. They stepped up the game by delivering on day zero which made people hang on them. That is still marketing. Lumia marketing is horrible, but they are producing hype via innovation. Apple don't do that any more. They have nothing to deliver any more. Their marketing has changed from "new product" to "new incremental improvement" i.e. the hype is dying. Marketing here is purely spin.
      - rustynails77 14y ago
        Don't dismiss Jobsy's (or his team's) contributions out of hand. They knew that an app store was key to the success of Apple's new device, so they made minimal profit off the App store. What Jobsy did was more than marketing - but a lot of it was marketing. He drove things in a particular direction, which makes him somewhat of a visionary - not just a marketer. On the other hand, I agree with the great grand-parent poster. What Apple had was not significantly better, just packaged better. I view that as a visionary rather than marketing.
Of_Prometheus 14y ago
You're being sarcastic, but you're also correct. While the strength of a product may dictate its long-term success, a well-implemented marketing campaign is often the difference between a mediocre product with excellent sales and an excellent product with mediocre sales.
voyou 14y ago
People say "Apple just does just marketing" like marketing is easy or unimportant. But, you know what, Apple's success really is about marketing, and that's a good thing. Apple haven't made that many purely technical innovations, but what they have done is look at new technology, figure out what people might want to do with it, tweak the technology to focus on doing that thing, and then explain to people how Apple's product can help them do something they want to do. This is "marketing," it's what makes technological innovations accessible to people, and it's something Apple should be praised for.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

mmariani 14y ago

Yeah sure! Let's just call John Sculley to replace Tim Cook. He'll fix Apple good. PS: the "tape" is awesome, thanks.

w0utert 14y ago

> We had everything he said back then - it was just rather bulky. It's not a visionary statement - it's logic. > I wish everyone would stop harping on about Jobs - he was a marketing expert not a visionary. Yes, in hindsight it's all so logical. Anybody could have done it, Apple was simply the first to redefine the MP3 market, the digital music distribution market, the phone market, the mobile app market, the laptop market, the tablet market, all by chance. And marketing of course. Marketing and chance, there ain't nothing more to it. Just like founding NeXT, only to buy it 10 years later to create a whole new operating system and foundation of frameworks to program it, agile enough to run on hardware ranging from smartphones to workstations, it was all Jobs' marketing genius. The same marketing genius that founded Pixar, and had Intel scrambling to pay the traditional PC manufacturers to produce the PC equivalents of MacBook Airs. Really, Steve Jobs and Apple are all.marketing, no doubt about it... :-/