Designers Running Amok

Henry Blodget:

Specifically, Kedrosky thinks that, in the power-vacuum following Steve Jobs’ death, the design team, led by Jony Ive, have been given too much latitude — such that Apple is now designing products that it is not capable of manufacturing as smoothly and quickly as it needs to to meet demand.

Yeah, it’s not like Apple ever had problems meeting demand with new products when Steve Jobs was in charge. The white iPhone 4 came out right on schedule.

Update: Let’s get serious for a second. Here’s the final paragraph from Blodget:

In any case, something has clearly gone wrong at Apple. And this is an interesting theory about what that is.

That pretty much summarizes what’s driving the current wave of Apple jackassery: start with the “fact” that something has gone wrong with Apple, then speculate about just what that is. Apple has real problems, isn’t perfect, and faces numerous serious competitors — but it, like every company, has always had problems, has never been perfect, and has faced serious competitors. The error in this line of thinking is that something has “gone wrong” for Apple in the last year or two. The truth is, most things have gone exactly right for Apple for the last 10 years.

Something has clearly gone wrong, but it’s with the perception of Apple, not with Apple itself.

★ Monday, 4 February 2013