Apple's plan for world domination is a waiting game

SAN FRANCISCO — The waiting (or wading) game?

Apple's outsized plans in the smartwatch market — and speculation it is ready to plunge into car and headgear technology — has the distinct feel of a blueprint for world domination.

And, in classic Apple fashion, it is showing patience and discipline in learning from the missteps of others as it relentlessly climbs toward the $1 trillion in market value. (Last week, Apple (TICKER: AAPL) passed the $700 billion mark, or the equivalent of Switzerland's gross domestic product.)

Apple has shown a remarkable knack in letting others create buzz in a market — say phones or tablets — only to swoop in and catch a sizable chunk of revenue in that market.

That stratagem will be put to the test soon, when the company is expected to start shipping Apple Watch amid a crowded field.

The company also plans to start production of an electric car by 2020, Bloomberg News reported late Thursday, citing anonymous sources.

"Our intuition is that the first mover is the winner in a product category," says Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "But whoever is second to market is usually the winner, learning from the mistakes of others."

Examples abound outside of tech, where latter-day products like the Toyota Prius hybrid car outperformed the originators in their fields.

No surprise, then, if the folks from Cupertino, Calif., are sniffing around the automotive and Google Glass-like fields before wading in. The strategy comes straight out of the Steve Jobs playbook of coming to market with a clearly differentiated product that does two or three things better than its competitors.

"Apple came with a different approach, whether it was simplicity, spectacular industrial design or integration into the Apple ecosystem," says David Yoffie, a professor in international business administration at Harvard Business School.

Apple has been able to identify areas of potential consumer demand for technology — such as phones, tablets, MP3 players, mobile wallets — where competing products have limitations, Yoffie said.

Add wearables like watches and potentially headgear and car technology to the list. These are markets with stratospheric potential that have largely remained grounded until the "killer" app comes along.

Despite all the hype, Tesla has been dogged by production challenges, which have undercut sales. Google's driverless car, meanwhile, is several years away, with an uncertain future. Regulatory issues loom.

With nearly every major name in the auto industry showing off digital bells and whistles at the Consumer Electronics Show last month, Apple sees opportunity as a rival or business partner. Don't expect a full-fledged car, but perhaps a dashboard or some other sort of embedded model.

The competitive landscape in wearables is equally enticing.

Google is refocusing its Glass program after its hype far outstripped demand for the $1,500 head-mounted computer. It's been moved from the Google(X) incubator to a stand-alone division headed by Tony Fadell, best known for his integral role in the creation of Apple's iPod and iPhone as well as the creator of the Nest line of intuitive thermostats and smoke detectors.

A rhetorical question: Would Google Glass have seen the light of day had it been conceived during the Jobs Era at Apple? Highly unlikely.

Things got more interesting this week, when a sketch surfaced of a Glass-like device patented to Apple. The head-mounted contraption would be interconnected to an iPhone, according to reports.

Such an Apple project is likely to find a receptive audience, according to a survey released Thursday by researcher Acquity Group. It says 16% of consumers plan to buy a head-based display device by 2019.

Of course, Apple learned from its own mistakes when jumping into markets that weren't fully formed. Remember Newton, the personal digital assistant spoofed by Saturday Night Live before BlackBerry came along and, for a few glorious years, ruled the space? Or how about Apple TV?

Apple has always valued the great ideas of others. The original Macintosh was a Frankenstein monster of borrowed ideas from research facilities Xerox PARC and SRI and others. It was Jobs who famously said, "Good artists copy; great artists steal."

I once asked Jobs if he was familiar with Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), a Francis Ford Coppola movie starting Jeff Bridges as Preston Tucker, a maverick car designer who revolutionized safety features and a sleek look — only to be crushed by the Big Three automakers, who later co-opted his ideas.

"No," a smiling Jobs said, leaning forward. "But it sounds like a great movie."