Life after Jobs: For Apple, the real test is yet to come

All its current offerings are still products of Steve Jobs’ innovative mind.

KARACHI:

It has been well over a year since the passing of the man who was and perhaps always will be synonymous with not just Apple but with bringing about a technological revolution that has changed the IT landscape permanently.

Over the past year, Apple has launched several amazing products, the iPhone5, the new iPad and the iPad mini.

It has continued to build on its reputation as a company that produces well made products that work as well as they look. The company has also managed, for the most part, to maintain its loyal fan base as was suggested by the fact that it posted record profits and record sales.



This is despite the many issues that have cropped up with the new iPhone, the lack of a Retina display on the iPad mini and the overall absence of any ground-breaking innovations.

While the iPhone5 has had many hiccups not the least of which have been because of the new OS, it has come through as a product that many believe still has the ability to give strong competition to its much more popular Android rivals.

But with all this success, something feels different. Maybe for most Apple fans it is something as simple as the fact they have become used to always having Steve Jobs around. His vision and his determination to not launch a product unless he was absolutely sure that it was perfect will not easily be forgotten, nor will they be easily replicated.

Because of his status as one of the co-founders of Apple – and, later, as the savior who brought the company from the brink of catastrophe to a position of dominance – Jobs had more power within Apple than any major CEO anywhere ever.



That power – combined with an iron will, an incredibly keen intuition and hard-won wisdom about which ideas are likely to work – is what made Jobs so valuable to Apple.

In any organisation, the leaders have to contend with a multiplicity of competing directions, ideas and perspectives. One wants to go left. Another wants to go right. So the company stands still. Or moves forward without any clear vision or direction.

Apple benefited from Jobs being able to overrule anybody in the company.

Here’s an example: Apple had been developing the iPhone for years. After major arguments about materials, the team had decided to use reinforced plastic on the screens for the first version. Just one month before the first iPhone shipped, Jobs threw a spanner into the works. He said the screen would be glass.

At any other company, a decision like that would take months to change. But Jobs was Jobs. The phone shipped on time with a glass screen.

Many would have taken heart at the continuing success of Apple products and as a result gain confidence in the new management, except for one niggling feeling.

Even though it’s been a year, we probably haven’t even seen what a real post-Jobs Apple looks like. In the last year, there have been a number of high-profile product launches – from the new iPad to the iPhone 5, but given the product life cycle, Jobs probably had at least a small amount of input – and probably was central to the design and features - on those gadgets back when they were in the planning stages. We’d probably do better to keep an eye on Cook and designer Jony Ive in the next year and beyond to see what they do with what Jobs taught them. That will be the real test.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2013.

Like Business on Facebook to stay informed and join in the conversation.