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How Apple's Story Is Like Breaking Bad
theodp writes "Over at CNN, Omar L. Gallaga explains how Apple's story is like Breaking Bad, the TV drama whose protagonist — high school chemistry teacher Walter White — decides to use his science skills to cook methamphetamine to provide for his family after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Walter takes shocking, out-of-character risks but reinvents himself as a brilliant, feared meth chemist who grows more ambitious, ruthless and cocky with each victory. 'Like Steve Jobs,' writes Gallaga, 'Walter White's cancer awakens a panic in him to hurry up and leave a legacy through his work.' Gallaga continues: 'Like Walter White, it [Apple] has mixed the proper elements at just the right amounts to create highly pure, addictive products. The products have been made within secretive working conditions. The skill employed to design and manufacture them tends to make what competitors put out seem like cheaper, cloudier, less effective imitations.'"
And Samsung is Pollos Hermanos or just Tuco?
Can't we for a while at least stop ascribing a success, which is due to the hard work of a very large group of people over a long period to one man, and further look for some magical parallels where there are none?
Is that why there have been so many deaths surrounding the manufacture of Apple products?
It is shocking how putting effort into producing a good product actually pays off from time to time.
Nowdays it takes a real outlaw to put significant effort into appealing to customers.
Slow news day?
Walter White didn't invent anything! He just packaged up his meth in blue crystals instead of boring white ones and the spinners were all like, duuude, I'm only going to buy your meth!
The CB App. What's your 20?
Walter was a cunt as well.
Really? This article is just dumb. And ridiculous. And link-bait.
Stop with the BS "like Apple" stories and OMG Apple-is-amazing stories!
People always blah blah about KISS. But when it comes to most products it usually ends up being too many cooks. Years ago I built a website for a telco. They wanted two things. One was online bill viewing and the other was to promote this new thing called DSL. Website was supposed to cost around $50,000. So we cook along and they keep adding more and more to the website with nearly every department in the telco getting their little bit in; one part being a what's happening at the local universities. After the budget blew through $200,000 they started to suggest that we cut the online bill check part along with the rate card. One of our people stood up in the meeting and said, "Those are the only two things on the whole damn site that people will want. Cut those and you have $200,000 worth of dog shit."
But it gets even worse. This new DSL was being introduced at a time before cable modems. The highest speed connection of any geek I knew was a 128k ISDN line and this new DSL was going to give you 1Mbs for $40. Then as I did up the specs for it for the site I realized that the whole business model was a stupid Novell system of renting applications such as Microsoft office. Internet was way down on the list of features. I called up the Product Manager and he said, "Well we might not even offer connectivity to the internet initially." I told him that if they were able to offer 1Mbs for $40 when all the competition was offering 56kbs for $20 they were going to clean up. He told me that there was pressure from their own dial up to not offer internet via the DSL. I think what may have saved it was that I told him he would be out of a job if he didn't offer internet and they would be out of a job while he would ride a wave to the future if he did.
Now think about the above. This is the big telco in my area taking business advice from a tiny web shop. Good advice if I say so myself.
So how many companies don't have a single man who can stand up and say "whoa there cowboy. That might look good on a spread sheet but our customers will want to ram it up your ass.... sideways....covered in the juice from a ghost pepper."
From what I have read about Steve Jobs is that people brought shit to him with a great story and they left his office crying. Then they came back to him with something less shitty and left crying again. This would happen over and over until it just wasn't shitty anymore.
It is hard to tell an employee that what they just spend a lot of time on was crap. It is unpleasant for most normal people. So I suspect that where Steve Jobs' genius lay is in somehow being an ass right up to but not beyond the point where everyone quit. Beyond that he was probably just pretty smart.
Yeah right.
The protagonist in breaking bad was a normal upright person who turned "bad" after he was diagnosed with cancer and tried to use his knowledge to support his family in the event he would die. Apple was an arrogant bully from the get go, they just hadn't had the chance to show it when they were smaller.
It wasn't about underestimating Apple, but rather, needing a visible competitor to not be broken up via an antitrust suit. Also, in what universe does apple have the 'online video' market?
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The difference is that breaking bad is fiction- it doesn't actually demonstrate anything. The writers decide the outcome, and the results are imagined, not real.
For the "I hate Apple week", has it already started?
Steve Jobs (Wikipedia): According to Wozniak, Jobs told him that Atari gave them only $700 (instead of the offered $5,000), and that Wozniak's share was thus $350. Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.
Breaking Bad ("Say My Name" Recap): When Walter tries to browbeat Jesse into staying, the young man will have none of it. He even walks away when Walter tells him he won't get a nickel.
OK, there may be worse, but admit it - this is pretty bad.
My other account has mod points!
Walter takes shocking, out-of-character risks
Out of character? You haven't been paying attention, especially in the current season. They made it clear from the very first episode that Walt is not a nice guy. His anger issues cost him his share of the startup that would have made him rich, and sent him off to a teaching job he despises and that doesn't pay the bills. Later, he refuses to accept help with his medical expenses from his former partners, obviously still pissed at whatever issue forced him to break with them.
He wears a mask of a mild-mannered suburban nebbish, but his sociopath side becomes evident early on and gradually becomes the only face he shows to his colleagues in the drug business. More and more, people suffer because of Walt's lack of moral center, sometimes just because he's mad at them. (So long Mike!)
Mr. Wizard was always a front. Now he's Nero.
Jeez, what a great show. I look forward to the final 9 eps with anticipation and dread.
If you study the Betamax vs VHS, you will see many similarities between how IOS vs Android is playing out. Betamax was technically better in the beginning, it had an earlier start in a new market and it was controlled by basically one company but VHS came on strong with lower prices, more choices, flexibility and options. It eventually won over the consumers. Smartphones are not exactly like in a "format war" like home video was but based on the strong showing of Android devices in the last 2 years, the consumers are basically following the same pattern and eventually moving to the route with the most options. I know a lot of people like to claim Apple is doing so well because of the limited options but is that really why people choose Apple? They still had to make a choice. Limited options does not seem to be the reason people use to buy anything else they spend their money on. Car analogy here, what car company would make a killing only selling 2 different models per year? If they were good or had a good reputation they would do well but not simply because they only had 2 models to choose from.
is this the new ' car analogy' trope? The ' breaking bad' trope!
"Apple's story is like 'Breaking Bad' in that I really don't care about either of them, and am tired of people always bringing them up and telling me I need to be watching it"
If it's soooo easy, then why is Apple finding it so hard now?
Because not one company can be a leader for many years, especially in a dynamic field with high margins. This is economics 101, people catch up in the long run. Would Apple's problems be any different today if Jobs were still alive?
"If you want to know how Apple's epic run turns out or how its ongoing battle with longtime rival Microsoft is resolved, you can watch the series, which ends its current half-season of eight episodes with a finale Sunday night."
It sure sounds like an advertisement to me... either that or CNN really has completely run out of news to create. My expectations from CNN are very low, so this doesn't surprise me much. What surprises me is that this is on Slashdot. Perhaps the story title should be "CNN ran out of news" instead.
My favorite part on the CNN page, on top it reads: Filed under: Innovations ... How this is innovation?
Jobs' sense of his specialness and his rush to get things done before he died was there way before the cancer was found. I rely on the Isaacson book for this tid-bit.
Meanwhile, Jobs is not Apple and Apple is not Jobs. Addictive, as in products, is a clumsy metaphor. Addictive as in meth is a physical and psychological state which reveals itself in isolation, anti-social behavior, and health decay.
Facile, featuring convenient memory holes, and poorly thought through. Yep, CNN all the way.
So our iPads are made out of meth? Cool recycling plan there... No wonder they want us to send them back..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
that's been happening for quite some time. i think it's too soon to say they're in the doldrums just because we're between product launches.
So, in other words, Apple is like Breaking Bad that Apple loves to do illegal things, take out the competition any way possible, and overcharge for their product? Yep, sounds about right.
I don't really like Breaking Bad, yet so many people tell me I should love it. I generally like shows like that too, just can't seem to make myself like that show.
I have seen enough to not really feel like this analogy holds any water. The show, like this analogy are weak and annoying. That's my two cents =\
From TFA:
'Like Walter White, it [Apple] has mixed the proper elements at just the right amounts to create highly pure, addictive products. The products have been made within secretive working conditions. The skill employed to design and manufacture them tends to make what competitors put out seem like cheaper, cloudier, less effective imitations.'
I am no Apple fanbois, but I had spent past few decades in the tech field
What TFA has forgotten to list are the following:
I. Vision
Almost everyone in the Silicon Valley, since the 1980's, have gone through similar experiences, and have used similar gadgets.
What Steve Jobs got, which others unfortunately didn't have, is a vision.
From hardware (Mac to NeXT to iBook to iPhone / iPad), to software (MacOS to OS X to iOS), Mr. Jobs opted for his own path
That takes vision.
II. Attention to detail
We can't deny that the one thing that makes Apple different from the rest of the crowd is their attention to detail.
From the way MacIntosh can create smooth curvy fonts to the "feel" of the original iPhone when it first came out (as versus the offering from the rest of the cellphone industry), Mr. Jobs had taken great pain in making sure that the products that have the "Bitten Apple" mark on it come with as few bugs as possible
As I said, I am no Apple fanbois, and I do not own any Apple product
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
A better analogy would be that Apple is like the Little Red Hen.
"Who will dare to make a computer that gets rid clunky serial ports and is USB-only to drive development of USB as a platform?" asked Apple.
"Not I" said Dell.
"Not I" said Gateway
"Not I" said Compaq.
"Not I" said Acer.
"Then I'll do it myself" said Apple. And she completely broke backwards compatibility to make the iMac.
"Who will make a minimalist music player without a billion clunky extras that product managers want to add and that has a really neat jog-wheel that give people a great user experience?"
"Not I" said Phillips.
"Not I" said Diamond.
"Not I" said Mitsubishi.
"Not I" said Sony.
"Then I will" said Apple. And they made the iPod.
"Who will spend large sums of money to have design engineers experiment for months molding a block of clay into a non-clunky shape that works great for cell phones?" asked Apple.
"Not I", said Samsung.
"Not I", said Nokia.
"Not I", said LG.
"Not I", said HTC.
"Then I will" said Apple. And she designed a phone with rounded corners.
"Who will spend lots of money and take some risk designing cell phones with a revolutionary slide-to-unlock feature and the first really non-clunky mobile web browsing experience that includes pinching and swiping gestures?" asked Apple.
"Not I", said Samsung.
"Not I", said Nokia.
"Not I", said LG.
"Not I", said HTC.
"Then I'll do it myself" said Apple. And she designed the iOS UI.
And when the iPhone was released, the tired little company in Cupertino asked her competitors "who will help me use my designs to make billions in revenue I've earned by taking all sorts of marketing and design risks and putting in so much efforts to do what competitors didn't to move a stagnant and complacent industry forward like I've always have had to do?" asked Apple
"I do" said Samsung.
"I do" said Motorola.
"I do", said LG.
"I do" said HTC.
"No, I'm going to keep all of those designs to myself" Apple said, and she happily sued them into oblivion. The end.
If it's soooo easy, then why is Apple finding it so hard now?
Because not one company can be a leader for many years, especially in a dynamic field with high margins. This is economics 101, people catch up in the long run. Would Apple's problems be any different today if Jobs were still alive?
Apple is having trouble? Since when?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
CNN really has completely run out of news
News is very slow right now. Huge news teams were tied up reporting the GOP convention, which is over, and Hurricane Isaac, which is over. So there wasn't much in the TV pipeline. Neither CNN nor Fox has anything substantive today.
Clearly Apple should sue the producers for intellectual property infringement.
Ask GP for the details, but last I heard they appear to be losing market share to various upstarts in various mobile markets, despite their enormous marketing advantage.
I thought "cloudier" products are on the contrary, being promoted, these days.
Ask GP for the details, but last I heard they appear to be losing market share to various upstarts in various mobile markets, despite their enormous marketing advantage.
How is that trouble?
Everyone knows for years the iPhone was not going to be the king of phones forever. And everyone knows for years that Apple will not be the biggest smartphone manufacturer ever.
It's not their strategy and has never been. They are perfectly happy with 10% of the market and 70% of the margins. Why do you think they only release one phone per year?
I mean, Samsung releases 25 new smartphones every year, of course they're going to eventually outrun Apple in sheer number (I believe they already did).
Write boring code, not shiny code!
How is that trouble?
The same way it was trouble in the early 90s. One company can't outrun the whole market for long.
Why do you think they only release one phone per year?
Partly because of the strong brand value in the US, and partly because they can't do much more and keep the margins high. This isn't new thinking. Ford was thinking along the same lines long time ago-- any color as long as it is black. It also works well ... Until your competitors blow you out of the water. Wait until the margins slip because of something, and the short selling sets in ... It will be a fun ride.
and they didn't shift nearly as many as they expected, once most people had worked out that they could buy the same actual Apple functionality in a more 'normal' box for a fraction of the amount.
Oh, and then the cubes all started cracking as form had over-ridden function and every engineer who said it was a stupid idea was proven right.
Conversely though (and I'm not an Apple customer a few ipods aside), it did looked awesome, got placed in art/design museums AND as I look back over the thousands of computer designs that have come and gone, I remember this one and still think it looks stunning and am glad it existed.
I've no idea what the lesson to be learnt here is, see also Delorean.
How is that trouble?
The same way it was trouble in the early 90s. One company can't outrun the whole market for long.
They've been out of trouble since 2000 and they haven't outrun the market until 2007 on anything. Outrunning the market is not a necessity for Apple nor is it for any company.
Why do you think they only release one phone per year?
Partly because of the strong brand value in the US, and partly because they can't do much more and keep the margins high. This isn't new thinking. Ford was thinking along the same lines long time ago-- any color as long as it is black. It also works well ... Until your competitors blow you out of the water. Wait until the margins slip because of something, and the short selling sets in ... It will be a fun ride.
One less competitor is not a fun ride. It's a sad one. Did you ever ask yourself what smartphones would look like if no iPhone had ever seen the light of day?
We might disagree with Apple but we should be grateful. They made the sector make a leap jump into the future.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
You are confusing the Next Cube with the G4 Cube.
The Next cube was a cube made of magnesium alloy. The PowerMac G4 Cube many years later wad not really a perfect cube, an was made of sheet metal and moulded clear plastic that was not a perfect cube.
Because the signal is always breaking and the voice quality is bad :(
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Apple may not have faced bankruptsy in 2000, but it was certainly not the tech jewel it is perceived to be at the moment. Their stock performance was not very impressive until about 06, when they started selling the iTunes. But since the topic is their performance in the mobile phones/tablets market, what is interesting is the development since the release of the iPhone.
In this particular market, Apple outran the competition in the US between 08 and 10, and this is why their stock went up. They are now fighting to stay level.
As for what smartphones would be like - they would be more or less the same. The iPhone isn't all that much different from an Axim or HP PDA from 2004, except for the better hardware, which was not invented at apple.
The iPhone isn't all that much different from an Axim or HP PDA from 2004, except for the better hardware, which was not invented at apple.
Let me guess, you've never ever used either an Axim or an iPhone. My guess is that you've never used either.
If you can't tell the difference btw both, you're clearly completely out of touch. I don't even know what to tell you. Maybe you think the iPhone was all about hardware or something...
The iPhone was all about stopping to compete on specs and get a shitty OS. It was the first "integrated" modern phone and the revolution we talked about was in the device (as in HW+SW) not in any of them.
A few examples:
- There was no touch screen as usable as the iPhone's
- There was no smartphone with an OS that didn't require a reboot at least every week
- There was no phone with a browser that made is acceptable to look at a website
- There was no phone where SMS could be send by my grandma only after 10 minutes of explanation
- There was no phone with a mapping experience as good as GMaps on the iPhone
The list is long. Of course, you'll point me out that all the points I mentioned have exceptions, and it is true. But no phone had two of these features, let alone all of them.
I've owned several Windows Mobile devices pre-iPhone and let me tell you, there is a reason why Microsoft took so long to design a REAL phone OS. The difference is abysmal.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I've A3 and iPhone 4. This is why I can say with certain confidence that outside of the significant hardware upgrade, which made a better OS and apps possible, the devices are not that far apart. RSS, ebooks, excellent offline maps with reasonably good performance and navigation, email and even web browsing was doable on the A3. And sending SMS was comfortable for grandma long, long before the smartphones. Maybe you need to improve your explanation skills. But this is all irrelevant to the discussion above, so excuse me for stopping here.
Well I've always thought Apple Fanboys must be smoking something.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Maybe it's just because I've seen every episode of BB.
Who is so desperate to keep Jobs' name in the press that they'd stretch things this far?
I've never seen "Breaking Bad", but if it is about a genius nerd (Woz) being exploited by an arrogant businessman, then I think the comparison is spot on.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
...so Tim Cook (get it.. cook?) is going to arrange to whack google, htc, motorola, samsung and LG in the same 2 minutes. /I really liked Mike.
When I saw the headline I expected that the story would be about how once apple went down the path of suing their competitors they got sucked in and the whole thing began to snowball as it become a bigger and bigger part of what defines them.
-- QED
Aha.
I couple more of these "Apple's Story is Like [TV Series]" and we can finally debunk this Slashdot poll "How much TV do you watch in a week"
i'm well aware of the differences. pro video would give a max of 40 mins NTSC, 48 mins PAL, in the "S" case (the betamax-ish shell).
the physical difference between the shells was similar to the distinction between HD and DD floppy disks, or the difference between S-VHS and VHS - just a tab punched out of a bit of the shell to allow a simple mechanical way to distinguish.
of course, the tape itself was higher grade (metal particle v whatever).
later versions didn't use a different case - just different colours and various bits punched out or filled in. they did come out with a large size though - a huge tape that could hold 120 mins (or 144 in PAL).
beta SP tapes are incredibly still used in broadcast today, though not too often. Digibeta never completely displaced it, because the decks were so expensive and the perception was of little improvement (though it was a VAST improvement, the perception came from the fact that the rest of the production chain needed to catch up when digibeta came out. there's no point resolving 702 lines when your film chain barely gives you 400 and your patchbay and router is still analog).