Apple Has a Lot In Common With The Rolling Stones (Video)

Tech journalist Ron Miller (not a relative) wrote a piece titled Apple has a lot in common with The Rolling Stones, based on the song It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It). In the article, Ron writes: "Much like the Rolling Stones, Apple has to get up on stage again and again and figure out a way to blow the audience away – and it’s not always easy." In fact, Apple's latest iPhone announcement seems to have been greeted with a massive "ho hum" instead of the frenzied interest some of their earlier product announcements have created. In today's video, Ron tells us why he thinks this is, and ruminates briefly about the future of Apple and what kinds of products might help people get excited about Apple again.

Comments

Yup

[sexconker]

Old, played out, desperate to remain relevant.

Re:Yup

[Em Adespoton]

Old, played out, desperate to remain relevant.

...and yet any new repackaging of their material is met with instant sellouts.

Re:Yup

[HornWumpus]

If Apple were really like the Rolling Stones, after the Ho-hum new announcement they would yet again introduce the Lisa and the crowd would go wild.

Re:Yup

[cayenne8]

You know, for the sake of humanity, we really might need to get DNA samples to sequence from Keith Richards, just so we can figure out how he has survived all these years.

Apple or any company would do well to survive like that guy has.

As the old joke goes, "What will be left after a nuclear holocaust?"

--Cockroaches and Keith Richards

Re:Yup

[cayenne8]

Must... resists ... making... dried... up... corpse... joke...

In some ways true...but I think there's other reasons the Stones (no, not talking Fred and Wilma here) have been around so long.

In their heyday...they WERE just about the most important musicians in the world, they got world wide attention just for picking their nose, and they were one hell of a rock band. Look back at films like "Ladies and Gentlemen", and watch concerts from back in the '69-'74 era.

While they did try to start putting on stage shows that rivaled anything of their day, often they were simple lights, maybe a slightly whacky stage....but the draw was the performance. The Stones were a FUN band to listen and watch.When I see these old shows and then think about acts today that are lip sync'ing, using auto tune, and have no concept of improvising on stage, I literally cringe.

The Stones were sloppy often....hell, much of the time they didn't start or stop a song all together, but somehow they have a sort of magic that made the event something to see and hear. Where is that in bands over the past couple of decades? I just don't see it....

We've not seen much like that in a band with few exceptions...many of those exceptions being other bands in their day (Zeppelin, Floyd, etc).

The Stones, in addition to being one of the largest money making and popular touring bands ever....produced a legacy of music that is still strangely popular today. Why haven't we seen a large number of bands in the past 20-30 years that have done the same? What happened to music? Where are the songs from the 80's and 90's and 00's that will be the classic rock that will have the longevity the Stones' songs have had and somehow still do? I see young kids today wearing tshirts with the Stones tongue on them or AC/DC shirts, and surprisingly they KNOW the songs from these groups of *my* youth....

I'm saying and asking much of this, to just say that we've not really had bands that came along to supercede them and replace them, and hence their long professional lifetime.

I still get a rush when driving down the road, and something like the Stones' song "Gimme Shelter" comes on. I get shivers down my spine when I hear that chick Merry Clayton singing with them hit the last note so hard that her voice breaks.

I miss songs that you can 'feel' the soul coming through the speakers.

Re:Yup

[cayenne8]

Sorry, gramps, but you're really out of the loop. There is loads of music from the 1980s and 1990s that shows longevity (surprising to me, as I don't care for these particular acts). Michael Jackson continues to get lots of radio play and he sold out that comeback concert he planned before his death. Nirvana not only gets remembered by older columnists in mainstream news, but I've witnessed teenagers today expressing their admiration for Cobain. For younger listeners who prefer rock of a "progressive" sort, Tool's 1990s releases are stil a rite of passage. Rush, who are along with the Stones continue to be one of the most successful touring bands, put out their most widely remembered album in 1981. The list could go on and on.

I'm actually not quite THAT old...I was quite young when the Stones were in their heyday...I grew up mostly in the 80's and 90's, and even then during the middle of them, I didn't find much music that caught my attention they way older groups did.

Yes, Jackson did have a bit of a comeback when he died....but in the past year or so, that seems to have faded from what I hear being played.

I was there for Nirvana at the beginning...pretty powerful stuff, but aside from about 3 songs, all off the same album, you don't hear much being played in public really...

I'm a huge Rush fan....but even with them, they ran out of steam for good stuff around the Signals time. But they do have quite a catalog up till then and a few after...so, I'd give you that one. However, I'd also say that Rush doesn't have quite the large swath of people that would know much of their music like the Stones or Beatles did and still do.

I'd posit that if you got together a fairly good distributed group of young/old spread over the last 40-50 years...and played a number of songs from bands like Rush or the Stones. The majority would know more of the Stones' songs than Rush's.....I'd guess most of Rush's would be off the single album Moving Pictures as that not much else got widespread radio play at least in the US. Add in The Trees, Closer to the Heart and maybe Subdivisions and that's about it that I'd guess that the masses knew/know.

One thing it might be however, is that that "shared existance" where much of the US knew and listened to the same thing...fragmented quite a bit, especially in music in about the 90's. Rock itself became : Rock, Rock and roll (oldies), Metal, Death Metal, etc...then all the other fragmented genre's. So, the 'group' experience kinda died and it was hard for one band to unite or gain such a large audience as they used to in the early days of rock like in the 60's and 70's.

So, possibly a combinations of things....but again, I see bands of today, and I don't see them as great musicians, with a tight band that can play and improve ON stage.....they're too worried about messing up the dance choreography and timed out light show I guess to actually be able to just jam with each other and let the audience in to enjoy it.

Re:Yup

[CRCulver]

I don't see them as great musicians, with a tight band that can play and improve ON stage.....they're too worried about messing up the dance choreography and timed out light show I guess to actually be able to just jam with each other and let the audience in to enjoy it.

Your problem is that you posit the idea of an objectively "great" musician and then assume that one of his/her attributes would be a capability to improvise.

I'd encourage you to read some ethnomusicology: whether improvisation is desirable or not varies widely across cultures and historical eras. For example, in Simha Arom's studies of the Aka Pygmies, he notes their virtuosity (their music is of a complexity that Western music arguably didn't reach until the 20th century), but he also notes that once they have learned a part, they do not vary it during performances. Westerners who have tried to play along with natives and try to add flaw by improvisation a little on their part, draw serious disapproval from the natives.

So the US is perhaps simply evolving into a culture that doesn't care for improvising but instead focuses on other aspects of the performance. Things change, and once you have a good look at musical diversity across the world and through time, it's hard to argue that the current state is any better or worse than your memories of the Stones.

Re:Yup

[hey!]

You kids make it sound like living for a long time is a character flaw or something. Trust me, your turn at being the ridiculously old guy is coming, and faster than you imagine.

Anyhow, my teenaged son and I were discussing the Stones just the other day. He said that he thought they had some good songs, but they were overrated. My response was no shit -- they were the *Rolling Stones*. Nobody could be as awesome they were supposed to be. But they put on a great show, and they had some good songs, what more could you possibly ask for?

Eternal youth, apparently.

Re:Yup

[rasmusbr]

What I mean was that if you listen to a fair bit of music, which most people do, you will eventually get to a point around age 25 (give or take) where almost everything you stumble on or get recommended seems like a rehash of something you've already heard, perhaps while you were doing something for one of the first times in your life that made the music seem more profound and soulful than it really was.

It's a lot more challenging to find music that comes to mean something to you when it is no longer almost automatically being tied to exciting memories.

But yeah, a lot of music these days is literally made to be used as soundtrack for commercials. That's not an artifact of me or anyone else getting older.

Re:Yup

[captjc]

And to finish the joke, "And then Keith will smoke the roaches"

To paraphrase an old MST3K riff...

[MickyTheIdiot]

The submitter is a SPAZ

My Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote about why I thought Apple failed in their iPhone 5C/5S product announcement just yesterday. Unlike Ron Miller, I actually get into concrete reasons why I think Apple failed.

http://www.whisper-jeff.com/apples-announcement-failure/ (no ads - not fishing for ad views)

Re:My Thoughts

[Score Whore]

After reading your blog I'd have to say that no you didn't.

Re:My Thoughts

[MachineShedFred]

You don't understand the use of 64-bit processing if you only think it is about memory limitations.

They always say that

[Tablizer]

In fact, Apple's latest iPhone announcement seems to have been greeted with a massive "ho hum" instead of the frenzied interest some of their earlier product announcements have created.

I've seen the same kind of statements from ALL the releases since the first iPhone. Incremental. Siri was about the only thing that created a 2nd iPhone buzz.....until all the youtube vids of Siri choking badly.

what kinds of products might help people get excited about Apple again

iFasterThanLightTravel (iTrek?), iFlyingCar, iCuredCancer, iBrainImplantMacPhone, iEye (captain), iFeelPorn3D, iFedWorld, iGotNerdsDatingNatalie, iGrits, iTwelveInchWanker, iResurrectedSteve, iLinuxCluster, imacs, iLisp, iMortality, iModPoints, iRanOutOfIdeas

Apple has a lot more in common with Blackberry

[JoeyRox]

• One time market leader in smartphones? Check
• Main product has been eclipsed by more nimble competitors? Check
• Has a large cash hoard but nothing to invest in? Check
• Develops overly conservative derivative products to protect its existing business and margins? Check
• Was once seen as hip and cool but now ridiculed as "my father's" device? Check
• Being prodded by vulture capitalists looking to turn a three month investment into a quick profit? Check

Re:Apple has a lot more in common with Blackberry

[drkim]

But with this new product:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/apple-unveils-panicked-ideafree-man-at-launch-even,33814/

Re:Apple has a lot more in common with Blackberry

[JoeyRox]

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5192a95969bedd702200000a-620-/sai-cotd-051413.jpg

Apple makes the jumps, or Apple takes its lumps

[govett]

East Asian, and particularly South Korean, competitors have faster product cycle times based on Japanese kaizen (incessant incremental improvement). Give Apple's long product cycles and limited number of models, the only way the company can compete is by making quantum leaps in technology. All it takes is one missed cycle to become uncompetitive. Ask Motorola and Blackberry.

Ho-hum, another really amazing device

[sandbagger]

This is blog-itis. No, really. The phones these days are so bloody wonderful that apart from adding a Fleshlight and 3D holograms, what the heck else do you want. This is a 64-bit hand-held device with an amazing display and good battery life that reads porn to you. People "complaining" about the top end phones are manufacturing criticisms about minor issues of the mountain-from-a-molehill variety.

Tell me what specifically this (or any other phone of its calibre) is missing that is so wrong? The columnist is saying he's not jazzed by the recent unveiling. So what? Does he mean like most product announcements like cars, televisions and airplanes? How is this Apple's/Google's fault? These are now mature products that, like cars, will differ in the fenders but not in the operation.

I guess he had space to fill.

Other Parallels

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Apple took ideas from Xerox and others, and put them together in a commercially-successful way. Xerox did make some money from Apple's popular work via stock.
The Stones took music from black blues musicians and some pop flavor, and found commercially success. The blues musicians did make some money from the Stones' bringing their music into the mainstream.

Steve Jobs got screwed out of his own company after initial success in part by youth and immaturity.
The Stones got screwed out of their own pre-1971 copyrights by Allen Klein, and paid "the price of an education."

Apple was sliding into obscurity without Steve Jobs. Neither did as well apart.
The Stones were sliding into obscurity in the 80s when Mick Jagger went solo, leaving Keith Richards to play with his own new band. Neither was a great success solo.

Early Apple founder Ronald Wayne is largely forgotten after he sold his share and left.
The Stones founding guitarist Brian Jones is largely forgotten after he left the band and died shortly after.

I think they did just fine with this conference

[damn_registrars]

First off, I don't own an apple anything. I was apparently the only person in the known universe who did not find the original iPod to be intuitive to use. I am too cheap to buy an iPhone. I despise Apple mice and have no use for an iPad. On top of that I also don't think they've made a relevant computer since switching form G5 CPUs to Intel.

That said, I think they did just fine bringing attention to themselves with their most recent conference. Even NPR covered it and mentioned the reduced price iPhone 5R and the fact that it has a plastic cover instead of a metal one. We've seen news of people already getting in line to buy one at various places around the world.

So while it might not be the most exciting announcement in history, it seems to have done what they wanted to do (sell more crap) just fine.

"People" vs "pundits"

[danaris]

Obviously we don't have the data for the iPhone 5S and 5C yet, but based on every single previous iDevice release ever, I don't think Apple has a problem with people not being excited. People have been buying their products in ever-increasing numbers for over a decade now.

The people who are vocally un-excited are the pundits. You know, the ones who, in order to keep money coming in, have to keep writing about something amazing and new that gets people excited—or about some scandal. The ones who are quite happy to compare existing Apple products to rumoured or vaguely announced future Samsung, Google, or Microsoft products—and compare their own straw-man versions of rumoured future Apple products to current and rumoured future products from competitors—and in all cases, find Apple's products wanting, no matter how many convolutions and fabrications they have to go through to achieve that.

I'm honestly not sure whether to believe the more paranoid people who have alleged it to be deliberately orchestrated, but there has certainly been a smear campaign targeting Apple...approximately since it failed to produce the iHolodeck on schedule the day people stopped being interested in reading about the release of the iPad. If you pay any attention to it—and read it without a raging anti-Apple prejudice—it's pretty obvious that there is a huge volume of "Apple is DOOOOOOMED" articles being written with practically no evidence to back up any of the (often quite wild) claims made in them.

And yes, I realize that one of the factions on Slashdot right now does, in fact, have a raging anti-Apple prejudice, but come on, people; this is supposed to be a site for smart people. Turn on your brains a little, quit the knee-jerk reactions, and actually apply a little critical thinking when you see someone writing about how the smartphone that Apple will not even announce for months has already failed and doomed the company, or other similar such ridiculous notions.

Dan Aris

Re:How about they Think Differently?

[MachineShedFred]

How about they try to revolutionise their neglected computing line?

This event was about phones. They wanted media focus on phones. Other product announcements will be made at other events about those product lines. How do you get the media to write less about your phone? You give them other things to fill column inches with.

How about they sell their OS, looking why iWork failed before?

They did licensing to clone makers before, and it practically killed the company because none of the clone makers had the R&D costs that Apple did in order to make the OS and hardware to begin with. It works for Google because Google cares about ad impressions, and not hardware sales.

How about they buy Dell; Nintendo; Nokia; Netflix?

Dell (the company) is already being bought by Dell (the guy). Besides, what value would purchasing Dell add?
Apple is already beating Nintendo by accident. What value would purchasing Nintendo add?
Nokia is already being bought by Microsoft; and Microsoft isn't even getting the patent portfolio which is one of the reasons to buy Nokia.
Netflix is an interesting proposition, but they also aren't for sale.

How about competing with Office instead of limiting it to their products?

Apple has long had a strategy of not making products that already have useful versions available, where they have nothing to add. This is why they never attempted to go after Exchange. Going after Microsoft Office is the same - there's nothing to add in a compelling or novel way, and it's the biggest uphill battle in the world because of the entrenched nature of Microsoft Office.

They never went after Adobe Creative Suite either because it's a fully functional suite of tools for doing print layout and photograph editing. However, After Effects was a piece of shit (back in the day) so Final Cut Pro was born, along with Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack Pro, LiveType, and Compressor.

How about they compete against Amazon; Facebook; Google search and advertising?

They compete against Amazon where it makes sense - music, Apple merchandise, books, video.
There is no reason to compete against Facebook - it's far easier to just work with them; and you can ask Google how that social media competition is working out for them.
They do compete against Google in mobile advertising. It's called iAd.

How about they they do a Netbook or a Console; Car Radio?

Netbooks are traditionally underperforming stale technology at razor thin margins which would erode Apple's most valuable asset - their brand. Besides, Apple does compete with Netbooks - it's called the iPad. iPad launched, Netbook market evaporated overnight.
Apple's full living room strategy is yet to be realized - the Apple TV is a self-proclaimed "hobby" which clearly shows promise for much more, if they decide to do it.
iOS in the Car was announced at WWDC in June, and has a list of manufacturers on board to ship in 2014.

How about they buy or build a University or Manufacturing facilities?

They used to do their own manufacturing way back when, and it's much more convenient and scalable to pay people that have core competencies in manufacturing to do the manufacturing. That's why everyone does it that way, not just Apple.

Apple's biggest problem

[FyreMoon]

Apple's biggest problem is that unlike in the past where their products were kept secret, their products are available before they are even announced because they rely on the supposed trust of their Chinese factories.

As soon as Apple realises this blunder and brings manufacturing home the better. I don't want to know what the next iPhone will look like until the keynote speech and all the hard work that goes into it to woo the public.

Apple: doomed since the beginning!

[mveloso]

Yeah, I mean, give Apple a break. They only did, uh:

* the first mass-market personal computer (Apple ][)
* the first mass-market GUI (Mac)
* the dominant music player (iPod)
* the dominant online music store (iTunes)
* the dominant laptop mouse input device (trackpad)
* the dominant laptop form factor (Powerbook)
* the dominant laptop form factor (Macbook Pro)
* the dominant small laptop form factor (Macbook Air)
* the dominant smartphone phone (iPhone)

I mean geez, what a bunch of fuckups. It's not like they're doing anything special. I mean, just look at Tandy, Atari, Creative, Gateway, Leading Edge, Compaq, Tandem, Sandisk, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Sony, Panasonic, Commodore, Tower Records, and the rest of the industries in those spaces. It's not like they've been standing still doing nothing - oh wait.