Apple’s Newsy Week

This has been a fascinating week for Apple, and one that may signal a bit of a change in how Apple releases products and holds media events. What we saw transpire this week for Apple is noteworthy, and I think very smartly, should this be the new normal. In case you missed it, Apple made headlines almost every day this week. During the past week, Apple made meaningful updates to the iMac line, iPad line, and AirPods. In years past, Apple would have held a media event just to make these announcements. Instead, they were updated via press releases and some clever Twitter posts from Apple CEO Tim Cook.

When Apple announced its March 25th media event a few weeks ago, I made the point that this would be the first event where the focus would not be on hardware. I acknowledged there would likely be some hardware announcements but they would not where the event’s emphasis would be. Little did I know how right I was! With Apple making their hardware announcements, before the media event, the entirety of Monday’s show looks to be on Apple’s newest services initiatives. The only holdout that could show up now is AirPower and perhaps an Apple TV, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is still released at a later date.

If this does represent a new shift in strategy for Apple product announcements, then I think it is worth looking at the upside of this new strategy.

Apple Controls a Longer News Cycle
It has long been true of Apple that they drive headlines. Whenever Apple makes news, it generally controls the news cycle. No company dares try to make news anywhere near an Apple event or anticipated event or news cycle. This is also why Apple does some clever news bits around big conference shows, sometime CES, sometimes MWC, even around other competitors product launch events. Because they know their news will get some attention and take some attention away from others. I’ve been in this industry for more than 20 years now, 18 as an analyst, and as an outside observer, I’ve never seen any other company be able to control a news cycle like Apple.

With that context, now imagine if the norm for Apple is a product release storm like we saw this week. Contrast that with just one media event to launch these products and Apple gets a day, maybe two, of controlling the news cycle. By rolling out almost a weeks worth of announcements spread out over the whole week, Apple is in a position to control the news cycle for weeks now instead of days. I find this fascinating from a marketing and PR strategy. We have never seen Apple do anything like this before, and now looking back at the week it is easy to see how Apple controlled the broader media narrative and was a constant part of the media conversation all week.

Which, if more and more product updates from Apple are iterative in nature, they can get a lot of life from a weeks burst of announcements than they could from an event where nothing eye-popping is announced. Which leads to my next observation about a more iterative Apple going forward.

Apple and Iteration
It’s first worth mentioning that iteration can be innovative. I think too many people, including many execs and VCs I spend time with, confuse innovation with invention. Something doesn’t have to be a brand new creation to be innovative. Products get new features, functions and in general, become better and more usable. It’s the entire experience that sums up innovation not one whiz-bang feature.

In thinking about Apple’s hardware iterations, I’m reminded of a tweet from my friend Benedict Evans who is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He made this point last week well before Apple’s hardware announcements, and while the point is about software, I feel it also applies to hardware.

For lot of Apple software, they don’t touch it for years, then do a big update, then ignore it for years. It seems frustrating for a power user (and very alien to the web) but I wonder if this is actually better for the non-technical billions than continuous small improvements.

— Benedict Evans (@benedictevans) March 13, 2019

Just swap, the word hardware for software and the point remains, and I think is critically important. Consider this, ~85% of Apple’s customer base is not the hard-core elite techie who lives and breaths tech. They are school teachers, construction workers, stay at home mom’s or dad’s, grandmas and grandpas, students, farmers, chefs, police, firemen or women, doctors, pilots, you see my point. These are people whose lives do not revolve around the latest and greatest tech gadgets but who simply want technology that works and gets out of the way. For this, the mainstream consumer, iteration is what the Dr. ordered. Sure they like new functionality but only when it makes their lives less complicated not more complicated. Generally, iteration is exactly the continued journey toward eliminating complexity.

So while a more iterative Apple, which is exactly what we should expect for the next few years at least, is not the sexiest or interesting to the 10%. It is much more interesting and more useful to the 85-90% of Apple’s customer base who will appreciate and value consistent iterative improvements over the invention of the next big thing.

This is Apple in postmaturity, and this is what post mature hardware cycles look like. Services fit into this model nicely, and we will tackle how next week after we see what Apple has up its sleeve on Monday.