Were Steve Jobs, John Ive, Tim Cook and other Apple guys crystal clear about the theory when they started iPod/iPhone? I don't think so. Apple has a unique weapon called design and is willing to pay whatever it costs to enhance it. Its business is to use the weapon wherever there is a chance: mp3 player, tivo, mobile phone, watch and more to come. The rest is upon professors in business schools to figure out.
What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
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Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#22I guess this is a 2013 article, but I'm surprised that what hasn't been mentioned in the comments yet are the platform/network effects of iOS apps and the App store. I think it's interesting to identify a consumer focus on status/UX/psychological benefits, but I actually think it's wrong to say that the consumer isn't paying for more functionality because I think the iOS app ecosystem actually provides pretty compell…
which comes first, a good consumer product or a healthy ecosystem around it? it's a positive feedback loop thing in later stage but product always comes first. it's not a big secret but only few nailed it occasionally in a decade.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is pretty bad. The OP, however, is quite good. In a nutshell, it argues that (1) disruption theory assumes rational actors and (2) consumers are much less rational than businesses.
ISTM that the author is not so much saying or arguing people are not rational, but that the economic definition of "rational" is missing the modeling of consumer behavior in this area. (i am not an economist.)
I think the economic notion of "rationality" actually gets a lot less credit than it deserves. While there are definitely situations in which consumers do not behave rationally (in the economic sense), they are relatively few and far between.
There are lots of situations in which consumers do not behave according to an observer's (non-economic) notion of "rationally". This is rarely a failure of economic rationality, and much more often a failure of the observer to understand the consumer's notion of utility or cost (or both).
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#24I get a little bothered when people expect pundits like CC to be right 100% of the time. If they get nit-picked too much, then people stop making predictions. And CC may indeed be correct on the iPod - it had a great run, but sales are falling through the floor. Similarly, Apple is looking great in the iPhone, but it is still under attack on the low end.
I see my kid's teen friends running around with android phones.
Also, there's something to be said for competitors catching up in terms of design. Several are catching up and forcing apple to complete on their terms - see phablets starting with samsung galaxy note.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#25Ben Thompson is mostly wrong: Customers don't 'buy' iPhones, Carriers do i.e. iPhones are protected from low end disruption by carriers subsidizing and obscuring the price with plans/contracts. In markets where carrier subsidy isn't as popular (e.g. Europe) iPhone market share is very low. Likewise, iPad market share is dropping quickly becausr there are few subsidies for that product. NB Apple was always careful to…
I've got an android phone that costs the same (within 10%) of an iphone of the same screen size. You can usually get a step up in storage space in the same price bracket as an iphone, but they are on par with each other from what I've seen.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#26I get a little bothered when people expect pundits like CC to be right 100% of the time. If they get nit-picked too much, then people stop making predictions. And CC may indeed be correct on the iPod - it had a great run, but sales are falling through the floor. Similarly, Apple is looking great in the iPhone, but it is still under attack on the low end.
I see my kid's teen friends running around with android phones. Also, there's something to be said for competitors catching up in terms of design. Several are catching up and forcing apple to complete on their terms - see phablets starting with samsung galaxy note.
Oddly I saw the opposite: my nephew and his friends using iOS only.
Yesterday he bought an iPad mini with his savings, I suggested him to get an Android tablet "hey, an android will cost you 1/3", but he declined, because all his friends had invested a LOT of time on their (iOS) games.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#27Were Steve Jobs, John Ive, Tim Cook and other Apple guys crystal clear about the theory when they started iPod/iPhone? I don't think so. Apple has a unique weapon called design and is willing to pay whatever it costs to enhance it. Its business is to use the weapon wherever there is a chance: mp3 player, tivo, mobile phone, watch and more to come. The rest is upon professors in business schools to figure out.
I think their secret weapon is design expertise, not design itself. I have a 2014 moto X, and I like it. I switched from IOS due to bugs I was experiencing with IOS 8, and I liked the idea of a more open environment.
I can say with a high degree of confidence (but not 100%) that I'll switch back to iphone next year.
The reason centers on two things: Google's baffling lack of design sense (google's own apps look bad), and google's inability to filter out sham reviews on their app store.
The google app store and the apps are just awful. There are some diamonds in the rough, but they are few and far between and hard to find because nearly all the apps (good or bad) have 4+ stars.
There are tons of crap apps on the apple store too, but the good ones are easier to find because the ratings still have meaning on the apple store.
There is something seriously wrong with google's store. The AT&T app, which is a marginal semi web app, has 25,000 5 star reviews on google's store. It averages somewhere above 4, I can't remember the exact number. I'm sorry, there is just no way 25,000 honest people gave that app 5/5 stars. It's ridiculous to even consider.
It's barely a 3 star app on apple's store and that sounds about right. I'd give it 3 just because it is functional.
I think the real problem behind it is the concept of freemium apps. Apple has it too, but I think because of scale android/google are head of the game in terms of the damage caused by fremium apps.
I think the best way for either company to fix it would be to not allow in-app purchases on free apps. The reason I think it would fix it is that both app stores require you to have the app to vote on it, but with free apps it's no big deal to download-vote-delete an app. This opens you up to mechanical-turk type exploitation.
If it costs a buck to download, you've raised the cost of buying a vote, you've raised expectations of buyers. It has a side benefit of destroying the freemium market which in my opinion can only be a good thing.
My gut tells me that google could filter out sham reviews if they wanted to. I'm sure they can detect the download-vote-delete pattern easily, and if 25000 come in over the course of week or something, well, it just seems like it'd be obvious if the spent time mining the data.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#28Ben Thompson is mostly wrong: Customers don't 'buy' iPhones, Carriers do i.e. iPhones are protected from low end disruption by carriers subsidizing and obscuring the price with plans/contracts. In markets where carrier subsidy isn't as popular (e.g. Europe) iPhone market share is very low. Likewise, iPad market share is dropping quickly becausr there are few subsidies for that product. NB Apple was always careful to…
This model is changing due to disruption from T-Mobile. With AT&T you either buy a phone up front or pay for it in full over 18-24 months.
Not sure why, but they do still have a subsidized 2-year plan, but the monthly rate is higher and you end up paying more than the cost of the phone over 2 years.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#29I get a little bothered when people expect pundits like CC to be right 100% of the time. If they get nit-picked too much, then people stop making predictions. And CC may indeed be correct on the iPod - it had a great run, but sales are falling through the floor. Similarly, Apple is looking great in the iPhone, but it is still under attack on the low end.
He was absolutely right about the iPod, except that the company that disrupted Apple was Apple. Jobs ostensibly was "deeply influenced" by "The Innovator's Dilemma," so it's not inconceivable that he learned from it and cultivated disruptive projects within Apple.
Re: What Clayton Christensen Got Wrong (2013)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is pretty bad. The OP, however, is quite good. In a nutshell, it argues that (1) disruption theory assumes rational actors and (2) consumers are much less rational than businesses.
ISTM that the author is not so much saying or arguing people are not rational, but that the economic definition of "rational" is missing the modeling of consumer behavior in this area. (i am not an economist.)
My GF is an economist, and she takes great exception at any phraseology that describes people as irrational. As far as she's concerned, everybody is rational. See this for more details: http://mises.org/library/what-do-austrians-mean-rational