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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.
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.
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.
The logo itself is a status symbol.
I used to think this was just an insult to apple buyers. Then the iPhone 4s came out. I'll never forget the first words that came out of my apple buying friend's mouth after seeing the design. "How will anyone be able to tell I have the new one?"
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.