The Jony Ive Freakout

For those of you who haven't heard, yesterday Jony Ive was promoted to Chief Design Officer at Apple.  While that may seem like a good thing, the Applesphere and Techsphere are freaking out.  There is a pending doom in the air, Jony Ive is leaving the company.  Hmmmm.  It looks as though he is being promoted, not leaving.

One of the biggest cries come in the title.  The one that is bantering around the most is his lack of ego and no need for a title.  While this may be true of himself, there are people under him that deserve a jump in title.  I believe this allows his lieutenants to get the title recognition they have deserved for quite awhile.

Jony has the same aura as Steve did.  There is this belief that Steve had his hands in every minute decision and he was the mastermind behind all the tech that Apple had created since his return.  That could not be further from the truth.  Steve was brilliant at getting teams to focus, make things simpler, which is a form of design.  Jony falls under the same category.  He does not design everything that comes out of Apple, he leads the team that does it.  While I am not trying to minimizing his role with that statement, I am trying to emphasize that his team designs and comes up with the concepts as well.  Jony has the final say, which nothing changes under the new arrangement.

Apple is a very large company with many brilliant people who dedicate an inordinate amount of effort to produce the products we love.  It is more than just 1 or 2 people that make Apple what it is.  There is an entire ecosystem of brilliance which is lead by very smart people.  Apple has always been about focus, which is how they also operate with public figures.  This is the coming out for 2 strong individuals at Apple.  

Even though I don't know them personally, Richard Howarth and Alan Dye deserve these positions, which I'm sure they have already been doing for quite some time.  The one thing you don't want as an Apple follower is for Jony to burn out, which it seems he was on his way to doing.  This allows Jony the freedom to take a break, and dare I say, travel and decompress a little more than he has been allowed to since Steve's passing. The day-to-day will be just fine without Jony there.  He will be there plenty to guide the teams, which is what a leader should be doing.  Everyone needs to chilax.

Apple and Samsung’s smartwatches are going to be way too cheap

In the $60 billion-a-year watch sector, most of the money flows to those who sell the most expensive devices: 0.6% of the watches shipped in 2012, with an average price of $4,285, were responsible for half the revenue of the entire industry.

That’s a big potential problem for aspiring smartwatch companies like Samsung, and eventually Apple. If they don’t tap into the ultra-luxury market, they’re going to miss out on most of the revenue and the healthiest profit margins of the industry that they’re invading.

There's one big fatal flaw with these comments.  Apple is more than likely isn't going to enter the watch market.  Back when they entered the phone market, they changed what a phone was.  The phone became a personal computer that could also make calls.  

Everyone is trying to determine if Apple can succeed in the watch sector.  It really doesn't matter what the watch industry looks like today, because they aren't entering that market. Now I don't pretend to know what Apple is planning to do in the sector, if anything, but I know their history of entering new markets.  They don't compete with current incumbents of the space, they create a whole new space which has similar functionality as the market they are entering.

“People buy watches for a variety of very complicated emotional reasons, of which telling time is often just a precept or an alibi,” says Bill Geiser, a former executive at Fossil and currently the CEO of smartwatch startup Metawatch. It’s a common refrain: watches are essentially fashion, a personal expression, and therefore useful as a mark of status or a gift.

To believe Apple is not going to make a watch that is a status symbol or a personal expression is shortsighted.  Of course Jony Ive is going to design something desirable.  

It’s hard to imagine Apple or Samsung selling a smartwatch for more than their “hero” smartphones—much less for $4,285. And if only 15% of the revenue generated from the global watch market comes from devices under $500, it’s a far smaller market than some analysts have argued.

One device has nothing to do with the other.  A smartphone and a "watch" are two different things and I don't think Apple is trying to price items based on the phone prices.  Also, going back to my argument before, the size of the current watch market does not necessarily translate to what Apple will do with their smart watch.

“The wrist is beachfront property,” says Geiser. “The watch market has been around for hundreds of years, and it’s going to be around for another 1,000. All we’re doing is taking this existing market and dragging it into the modern era… By and large a smart watch is still a watch.”

Of course this is what everyone said about the phone market when Apple entered into it.  The phone market had nowhere near the history of the watch industry, however the incumbents learned very quickly that Apple was out to change the market, not compete in the current one.  

Whatever Apple does I believe they will be trying to change what people think a watch is.  They will surely not be trying to compete with the current watches of today.

Redesigning the Look of iOS Is Jony Ive's First Step Towards CEO

I don't believe that Jony Ive is being groomed for the CEO role.  In my opinion, what Tim Cook is doing is defining his #2.  I have believed for some time that your #2 should be your opposite.  Jony Ive is a true product guy, an innovator.  Tim Cook is an operations guy, a brilliant logistical tactician.     

When your #2 is your opposite, it allows you to focus on what you are passionate about, your expertise.  Let your #2 focus on the things you don't have passion for.  A trusted #2 that is your opposite will make your team more effective because the team gets the best of you.