Apple is in a very unique position in the tech industry in that expectations of the company are much higher than those of its competitors. Let’s be honest, when was the last time you heard someone talk about Dell or HP product releases with the exuberance that we talk about Apple. That also puts Apple in a tough position of meeting, what are sometimes, inflated expectations from Wall St. and consumers.
To be clear, some of those lofty expectations are Apple’s own doing, but there is a big difference between them and other companies. Every company wants to be the best—they talk about how innovative they are and how their products are the best. For the most part, we can see that for what it is—marketing talk.
When Phil Schiller, Eddy Cue, Craig Federighi, or Tim Cook say they want to make a better product or a better experience, I believe them. I think what they’ve done over the years with iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac shows they believe it too.
With the exception of Craig Federighi, I’ve interviewed the other Apple execs over my 20 years of reporting on Apple. I’ve also interviewed a lot of other tech executives and can see the difference in not only what they say, but how they say it. There is genuine belief from Apple that they are doing the best thing for its customers, whether that’s building a better product, or standing up for privacy.
Our Responsibility and Reasonable Expectations
Despite their belief, sometimes Apple products aren’t what we expect them to be. I do believe that we have a responsibility to let them know in the strongest possible way that they have fallen short of our expectations and their promises to us.
I have been a very harsh critic of Apple Music since it was released just over a year. For me, music is a very personal thing—it permeates every aspect of my life. I wanted Apple Music to be exactly what they promised when it was introduced. Sadly, they fell short of what they promised, and way short of what I expected.
Apple is a company that typically under-promises and over-delivers, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.
Having said that, the music team has made incredible strides over the past year to fix all of the problems with Apple Music. They deserve a lot of credit for that, and I’ve been just as vocal with my praise as I have been with my criticism.
I think that’s fair.
You can take my stance with Apple Music and put it to any other product that Apple makes that you are happy with or dissatisfied with. We should be critical, but fair.
Holding Apple to a standard that they set for themselves is more than a fair and reasonable measurement of how they met our expectations. I would argue that Apple Music (insert your favorite product here) did not meet those reasonable expectations.
Our Unreasonable Expectations
While there are many reasonable expectations for Apple, we also have a lot of unreasonable expectations. Let’s look at MacBook Pro.
We all want a new MacBook Pro. However, expecting Apple to release a new product when it’s not ready is unreasonable.
Apple could have released a new MacBook Pro in June at WWDC. It probably would have had the same processor and maybe a couple of upgraded chips. Would that have been enough to satisfy our expectations? Absolutely not. People would have lost their collective minds over a minor upgrade.
I don’t see using Intel’s Skylake as an alternative for Apple. There were shortages in the chips, which would have made for MacBook Pro shortages. Worse still, the Skylake chips had a major flaw that affected processing.
It would have been a disaster for Apple to release a MacBook Pro based on those chips, but people still kicked up a fuss. That’s not reasonable.
Fairness
We expect Apple to make some decisions for us. We expect that when a MacBook, iPhone, iPad or any other product is released, it will work flawlessly. For the most part, Apple has not let us down with that, especially with hardware.
While it is completely reasonable to hold Apple’s feet to the fire when they disappoint us with a product, it is not fair to expect the company to release products that are not ready for the public. Whether it’s their technology or the technology from another company like Intel.
Many people continue to wonder about Apple’s ability to release another blockbuster product. To be clear, most companies have one blockbuster product in their entire history—Apple has had several.
Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple Watch cover just the hardware. You can argue what rises to the level of blockbuster, but all of those products have sold well and are widely considered to be the best in their category.
No company can release a revolutionary product every year or two—it’s just not possible.
The only way you can lose faith in Apple is to think that the executives are not pushing the company forward and trying to innovate with every product they release.
I don’t believe that for one second.
Our expectations of Apple are higher than any other company in the market. For the most part, they have met—and exceeded—those expectations time and again.
You can bet against Apple if you like, but I believe there are a lot of great things still to come out of Cupertino.
