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Apple Comes Clean, Admits To Doing Market Research
colinneagle writes "In an interview with Fortune a few years ago, Steve Jobs explained that Apple never does market research. Rather, they simply preoccupy themselves with creating great products. On Monday, Apple's Greg Joswiak — the company's VP of Product Marketing — submitted a declaration to the Court explaining why documents relating to Apple's market research and strategy should be sealed. Every month, Apple surveys iPhone buyers and Joswiak explains what Apple is able to glean from these surveys. And as you might expect, Apple conducts similar surveys with iPad buyers. Apple wants all of these tracking studies sealed. Joswiak explains that if a competitor were to find out what drives iPhone purchases — whether it be FaceTime, battery life, or Siri — it would serve as an unfair competitive edge to rival companies. Further, competitors, as it stands today, have to guess as to which demographics are most satisfied with Apple products."
A few other interesting facts have come out of the trial so far; Apple spent $647 million advertising the iPhone in the U.S. from its launch through fiscal 2011, and they spent $457.2 million advertising the iPad from its launch up to the same point.
Obviously, since he died, this new generation of Apple leaders have lost their way. They need to turn back to Steve before it's too late and realize that only through him can they find the correct path. And that path is not through market research, it's through listening to Steve's own words and letting them into your heart.
>> Joswiak explains that if a competitor were to find out what drives iPhone purchases â" whether it be FaceTime, battery life, or Siri â" it would serve as an unfair competitive edge
Hint: It's that patented rectangular shape.
Not only was he megalomaniac, but a liar too. Who knew?
Yeah, right. Marketting research tells you who wants to buy your stuff. If they haddn't bothered with it, Apple would have died back when they finished burning their original funding on beer, weed, and pizza in Steve's garage.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Once again, Apple afraid of a little competition, the same reason the sue everyone and their dog.
iMarket, therefore iAm
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Marketting research tells you who wants to buy your stuff.
Not entirely. More importantly, market research also tells you what people who are not buying your products want or need. Getting feedback from people who do not choose your products can be more important than feedback from your customers.
Obviously, Steve meant market research for future products. The article describes a survey of existing customers, and I've gotten them before. While this plays a part in product development, they don't use focus groups. It's one of those things where, if Apple asked outside people (not customers), "what do you want in a phone," they'd end-up with a terrible product. Instead, they make the phone they, themselves want to use. As they've stated in their conference calls, they only enter markets where they think they can improve things. One example is student information systems. They sold PowerSchool to Pierson, exiting that market because they felt they couldn't do a killer product there. It's so obvious how they work; the only mystery is what future products will be. They keep those under wraps because, if they decide to scrap it or change it dramatically, there won't be a Microsoft-CES-announcement-style embarrassment. As the Samsung court documents show, they have hundreds of iterations of products that never see the light of day.
Jo[b]s/W[ozn]iak? Coincidence?
Wow, the formerly squeaky clean image of Apple seems to be crumbling away before our very eyes.
Yeah but they don't do it quite as much, on average.
And it's as anticlimactic as the cough syrup in Flaming Moes... they buy it because it has an Apple logo on it. The logo itself is a status symbol.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Joswiak? Sounds like Jobs + Wozniak.
Using it as Apple is saying here, to survey users, is one thing. It helps gather info on actual uses, usage patterns, customer feedback.
Using it to design a product or to test a product design, is quite another, especially if, like often, it ends up justifying half-baked committee-think. Apple forte has been Steve Job's "I'm the customer, please me" stance, which is far superior to the "Make none of us dislike it too much" design-by committee version. It requires strong leadership. Apple had that, and storng value too: sexiness and easse of use.
As an Android user, I wish, I wish Google did more user surveys. There are a handful of very easy changes that would make Android rock, observably so, including in the shop right next to an iPad.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Instead, they make the phone they, themselves want to use.
What Steve himself wanted to use.
FTFY
Set your phasers on "funky"!
How is market research relevant to patent squabbles?
OT: A still open question, how much credit belongs to Jobs? (Has it been documented?) Fans will dismiss the market research as a curse, blasphemy, when perhaps they should be happy about it? Any part of the process that did not require Job's input can be reproduced, and would mean the company could continue its happy, profitable path.
Isn't this whole case about the fact Samsung has figured it out already?
Any company can poll people to find out what they think of Apple products. It's not like Apple is the only company capable of finding Apple customers - call 100 people at random, and 30 of them will be Apple customers.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Steve Jobs was full of shit? Next you will be telling us that he was an arrogant asshat too!
for shame...
I think that the summary misses a major point. Sure there was a bit of hyperbole when Steve said that Apple never did market research. But every word that came out of that man's mouth was hyperbole. What I think Steve's point was is that Apple doesn't base their product categories on market research. They just use market research for refining products once the categories are established. They didn't base the idea to have an all-touchscreen smartphone, a high capacity hard-drive based mp3 player, or a GUI centric PC on market research. If they did, they would have found out that people were perfectly happy with their blackberry and symbian keyboard smartphones, their low capacity flash mp3 players, and their DOS based IBM PCs.
That's pretty rediculous, $1.1 billion advertising two new products?! I always knew Apple was a marketing company but damn.
This could simply be because I haven't seen regular ad numbers before though. Does anyone know what competing products have spent on advertising? That kind of information would help make more sense of their numbers.
An habitual truth-teller is simply an impossible creature; he does not exist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who think they never lie, but it is not soâ"and this ignorance is one of the very things that shame our so-called civilization. Everybody liesâ"every day; every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning; if he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his attitude, will convey deceptionâ"and purposely. Even in sermonsâ"but that is a platitude.
On the Decay of the Art of Lying, by Mark Twain.
Dilbert RSS feed
How does Apple presenting an argument in a court case amount to "coming clean"? If they didn't make the arguments for keeping these sealed their oh-so-amazing case studies would be out.
That's not coming clean. That's standard legal babble.
The iPod was going nowhere. I still remember when it came with a Firewire connector and the software only ran on a Mac. It sold nearly nothing. Only after they switched to USB with their fourth design did it start to sell. There were plenty of other MP3 players in the market which sold a lot more units than the iPod back then.
It is only a matter of time until Android leads in Tablets like it is already leading in cellphones. There are Android cellphones cheap enough to out compete iPods. Heck there are people doing Android MP3 players as well. It is a bit of a shame no one tried to mass market the Android ARM based laptops. Those looked promising.
There's a great picture along those lines: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2124177/internet-memes-he-was-the-first.jpg.
For those that don't wish to look at it it has Bill Gates introducing the tablet PC in 2002 and says "no one cares", in 2010 Apple introduces the iPad and "the world pisses itself like and excited dog." In 2012 MS rolls out the surface and "People claim they stole the idea from Apple." The final frame is a picture of Patrick Stewart in ST:TNG holding a PADD with the caption "Bitches, please."
Apple is rarely first on something, they rarely invent something. Nothing wrong with that, it is true of most companies. They just want to sell it like they are.
What Apple really does is sell fashion. The iPod wasn't amazingly successful because it was an MP3 player, it was amazingly successful because it was a fashion accessory. To own one was to be cool, and thus everyone wanted to own one. Suddenly the style for earbuds was bright white (something Shure, Etymotic, etc had never had demand for before) with the cable hanging down the front of your shirt to proclaim ownership to all (just like in the commercials).
Apple makes products people want as status symbols, as fashion, regardless of need for them. That is a great market if you can get it because not only is it big, but fashion is very price insensitive, indeed higher prices can be better. Consumer electronics is extremely price sensitive and charging a premium is hard. However in fashion, no problem.
Part of that image is convincing people they were the first in the world to ever do something and that because of that it is really cool.
There is nothing for Apple to "come clean" about. They never said they didn't do market research (especially how it was described in the trial as tuning their marketing). What they have consistently said is that they don't use focus groups for product development.
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."
-- Steve Jobs, BusinessWeek, May 25 1998
By having the sense to look up what he actually said, instead of relying on media soundbites. Here's what he told Business Week in 1988:
Q: Did you do consumer research on the iMac when you were developing it?
A: No. We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of research into our installed base. We also watch industry trends pretty carefully. But in the end, for something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why a lot of people at Apple get paid a lot of money, because they're supposed to be on top of these things.
So now we're seeing breathless media reports saying "Apple does research into their installed base, proving that Jobs was lying when he said that Apple did not do this!!!" Except of course that Jobs specifically said that Apple did do that. If you look at the context of Jobs' statements about Apple not doing market research, you'll see that all of them are in the context of how Apple designs new products, as opposed to how they improve existing ones.
If they don't want to reveal stuff in court, maybe they should stop suing everyone
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
Maybe they should ask the average american? I, myself, would love to by The Homer http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Homer
I don't know where else to post this. Is there a way to stop any apple and apple/samsung patent war posts from being displayed to me? I can't express how much I don't care to see this on slashdot while I browse for interesting things, but seemingly have to. Is there a way to block these types of posts?
That's a fine comparison if you really need a small computer, or a powerful one.
The thing is, I'm a non-gaming software developer. My main dev machine is a laptop with an i5 with 8GB of RAM. It does everything I need it to do, including running multiple VMs while simultaneously building code. I haven't noticed it slowing me down significantly compared to what an i7 could do.
My secondary laptop is used mostly for web browsing, typing documents, facebook, and watching downloaded HD video on the TV. It's an i3 with 3GB of RAM and it does those tasks just fine.
If you don't actually _need_ the i7 then there are cheaper options. A Dell Vostro 260 desktop is currently available for $429. It's got a 3.1GHz i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM (but that's easily dealt with), and Intel graphics (also easily dealt with if needed).
Did you know any person how has already been baptised, can baptise another person.
There is no exclusive club or requirements besides one.
The official church has no monopoly.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Steve Jobs never said Apple doesn't do at least some market research. What he said was the products don't stem from market research and boardroom decisions. I believe Apple's marketing is targeted at how to sell the really cool-yet-secrative things they are making now that none of us know about, as opposed to market research that dictates what they should make next.
1. Aspiration.
Some people aspire to being considered part of certain groups and feel that the caché of carrying such devices will help this.
2. Fashion
When all the "right people" seem to have iShiny devices, they will be copied. Similarly to 1.
3. Rumour
There are rumours that insist that iDevices are more reliable, easier to use, even better value for your money.
4. Price
Some people genuinely believe that paying more for something makes it better than something that costs less, even if there are no other improvements.
5. Condideration
Some people have considered the matter and examined the matter and genuinely believe Apple makes better phones & tablets.
6. Stupidity
Some people have not thought about it and think it looks pretty.
7. Gullibility
Some people believe advertisements.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
You are wrong. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is currently selling more than the iPhone 4S. Samsung manufactures more models, there are more Android cellphone manufacturers, but there is a single Android cellphone model that is beating the iOS model in units sold. You are deluding yourself as usual. The high margins simply mean Apple is price gouging the consumer in the middle of a financial crisis. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what will inevitably happen.
The Diamond Rio sold more than 200 000 units and was released in 1998. The iPod was released in like 2001. As usual Apple fanatics rewrite history.
It's easy for people to forget but Apple didn't always dominate the MP3 player market. This is mostly interesting for historic value since the top end of the MP3 player market has been getting overrun by smartphones for quite some time already. Their margins on MP3 players (iPod) have already been squashed to near irrelevance.
the i7 machine is a standard ATX board, which you can buy dozens of cases that are fancy, and no i dont want a stupid fucked up cube, where I cant put in 3x HDs, and bluray drive + SSD + 16gig ram + 2 PCIe cards.
And my i7 is dead quiet. Does apple offer a $500 solid gold heatsink?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
No one cares what your scum evil wholesalers are doing, and refusing to sell to AU or other countries at the same USA rate.
Yes, I buy parts, but it still cost me $500 to build a 3.4ghz i7, none of this crap 2.4ghz shit
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.