With the announcement that Apple had surpassed Exxon Mobile as the biggest company in the world by market capitalization, it became apparent that the revelation brought to us by Steve Jobs to “Think Different” has become a revolution. Apple products target individual users with light computing needs, which is a stroke of brilliance but also one of the reasons it is so surprising that they were able to overtake other companies who deal in commodities and even other technology companies who have a target a wider range of uses. Here are three recent developments that could turn the tables for Apple, for better or worse.
The Death of Steve Jobs
When Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO of Apple, shareholders and customers alike felt at ease knowing that he was staying on the board, and if the new CEO Tim Cook were to struggle Jobs was there to prop him up. Looking back at the message Jobs sent to shareholders, it should have been apparent that this was not the case at all. Now that Apple has lost its visionary, it faces the same struggle to find innovation that caught up with them in the mid-1990s during Jobs’ absence, and what many companies who never had a visionary leader to begin with face every day. Even the brightest minds depend on flashes of brilliance, and people tend to forget that with Jobs because his flashes were so constant. Luck will play as much of a role in Apple’s future as anything Tim Cook will do.
iPhone 4s Release
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Apple would announce an iPhone 4s before bringing out an iPhone 5. After all, there was a 3s model, and good business is pushing the value of intermediate feature developments to sell more phones. As the basic prototype for the iPhone becomes a distant memory, it will become harder and harder to innovate on the level that advancing an entire integer in the version number sequence requires.
Each new version of the iPhone has essentially become smaller and more powerful, and the sizing aspect of that trend may have one or possibly two more iterations before the size of the human finger acts as an ergonomic barrier. The mistake that was clearly made was leading the customers to believe they would get an iPhone 5 when all they were getting was slight upgrades to existing features. The timing of this failure in concert with the death of Steve Jobs couldn’t be any worse, and there will never be a more opportune time for another company to produce the next great innovation in wireless technology to knock the iPhone off its pedestal.
The Patent Wars
While you stand in line at Best Buy contemplating the decision you made to purchase that iPad over a tablet PC from another manufacturer, there is a legal battle going on that could possibly make that choice a lot easier. Apple is currently in the driver’s seat since the iPod Touch and later the iPhone introduced many of the technologies needed to make a touch screen cellular device possible.
Apple is still yet vulnerable due to the fact that companies like Nextel, Motorola and Samsung hold thousands of cellular patents that could conceivably be considered as the inspiration for certain component parts in any mobile device. The patent wars are most likely Google’s primary motive for acquiring Motorola, and they may lead to Apple getting Samsung devices taken off the market. It is still unclear who will benefit most from a comprehensive look at who holds the most important patents, but through logical supposition it’s clear that Apple’s innovative development of the iPhone in 2007 put them ahead of the curve.