Sir Jony Ive: Our goal is to make great products

Jony Ive
Image Credit: Apple
If you haven’t notice already, I’m a huge fan of Apple Inc. I love their products and also have a lot of admiration for the head of product design Sir Jonathan Ive. Speaking at a British Embassy event Sir Jony had this to say about the first iPhone, “There were multiple times where we nearly shelved the phone because we thought there were fundamental problems that we can’t solve.” He highlighted that one problem with an early prototype was the accidental dialling of numbers whenever it was held close to his ear.

Sir Jony Ive went on to say, Apple does not get credit for their willingness to reject ideas and devices. He also acknowledges that, “Our goal is not to make money – that may sound a little flippant but it happens to be true. Our goal, and what makes us exist, is to make great products.”

The last quote got me thinking a bit. The last time I checked, Apple Inc is a business and a “For-profit” business organisation – not a charity. So where does this company philosophy leaves Apple’s investors? At the moment, very rich. No one can dispute that over the last decade Apple has innovated incredibly well. The company has produced greats products and made lots of profits along the way. However, Apple is competing with companies such as Microsoft and Google. These two companies have huge resources at their disposal and are also keen on innovating and bringing new products to market. For example, Microsoft is set to launch Surface Tablets with Windows 8 and Google is working on its Project Glasses. In addition, these companies are not hindered by Apple’s obsession of making ‘great’ products.

Looking at Microsoft, it can be argued that the first Windows Operation System was not ‘great’. However, this so-call inferior product almost made Apple go out of business:

Steve Jobs on Microsoft Windows Product:

Now look at Google, Android 1.0 was also not a ‘great’ OS. But again, this did not stop Google from bringing the OS to market. In fact, Google has a strong track record of bringing beta products to market.

My point here is that Apple is a great company that makes ‘great’ products. However, at some point Apple would have to start selling ‘good’ products that have the potential of becoming great over time. This seem to be the case with the current Apple TV. I firmly believe a ‘good’ product from Apple would be be  able to compete successfully  with a similar ‘good’ product from its competitors.

I’m hoping that later this year Apple would reveal a new iPad mini. Whether Apple can produce a ‘great’ $200 tablet and make a decent profit is debatable. But what I do know, Apple cannot afford to concede the low-end tablet market to Google and Amazon with their $200 tablets. Otherwise, Apple could once again be pushed to the brink by cheap and inferior products from its competitors.

Source: The Independent

Storm is a technology enthusiast, who resides in the UK. He enjoys reading and writing about technology.

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