I recently ran into a YouTube video with the former Vice President at Apple, Dan Riccio. It's a talk after he pretty much decided to step down and retire. It correlates deeply with a book that I've been reading called Apple in China. A lot of the things that are covered in the book show up in Dan's talk, so I feel they are both very, very deeply connected. Give you some time and see if you want to invest an hour and a half of your life. Here below are my highlights from what I found interesting about it.
If you look back at Apple's history, the first version of a revolutionary product is rarely the one that changes the world. First generations are often compromised. They act as expensive proof-of-concepts while the company figures out what the product is actually supposed to be. Former Apple engineering executive Dan Riccio recently broke down this multi-decade journey. Let's look at how Apple iterates to find success.
When Apple enters a new category, they rarely nail the complete package on day one. Instead, they focus on establishing a foundational technology. They do this even if it means compromising on other features.
Take the original iPhone. Today, it is the standard for smartphones. But the first generation was heavily compromised. It launched without 3G, lacked a high-quality camera, and did not even have an App Store. What it did have was a revolutionary multi-touch interface. This allowed the screen to adapt to any application. That single foundational bet was enough to disrupt the industry. The device itself took a few years to mature.
The MacBook Air followed a similar path. Steve Jobs famously pulled it out of a manila envelope to show off its incredibly thin profile. But as an everyday computer, it struggled. It relied on a slow 1.8-inch hard drive borrowed from the iPod. It featured only a single drop-down USB port and suffered from thermal throttling. It took until the third generation for the Air to find the perfect balance of performance and portability. It eventually became Apple's best-selling Mac.
Sometimes, Apple launches a product with a specific use case in mind. Then they realize the market wants something entirely different.
When the Apple Watch first launched, Apple positioned it as a high-end fashion accessory. They even sold a solid gold Edition model that retailed for $15,000. Apple eventually observed how people were actually using the device. They executed a hard pivot into health and fitness. Today, features like heart rate monitoring and ECGs are the core of the Apple Watch experience. It transformed into a life-saving wearable rather than just a luxury timepiece.
The Apple TV started its life explicitly labeled as a hobby. The first iteration was essentially a hard drive that synced with your Mac. It used a basic interface. It took years of iteration to evolve into the app-driven streaming hub it is today.
Apple is synonymous with industrial design. They have learned the hard way that form cannot entirely supersede market realities.
The PowerMac G4 Cube is perhaps the most famous example of this. It was an engineering masterpiece. It was an 8-inch cube suspended in clear acrylic. It featured passive cooling, a touch-sensitive solid-state power button, and a pop-up handle that gave you instant access to the internals.
However, it was priced at $1,799 without a display. This was far beyond what the market was willing to pay for its specs. Despite its elegance, the G4 Cube was canceled just nine months after it launched. It was a beautiful product but a commercial failure.
Apple usually iterates slowly and methodically. There are rare moments where they take a massive and immediate leap. They do this even if it hurts them in the short term.
The iPod mini was the most successful product Apple had ever created up to that point. Instead of releasing a slightly better version, Apple killed it entirely to launch the iPod nano.
Moving from miniature hard drives to flash memory allowed the nano to be impossibly thin. It was a massive risk to discontinue their best-selling device. But it paid off immediately. The lesson here was clear. If you do not disrupt yourself, someone else will.
Looking at Apple's track record, a few clear patterns emerge for anyone building products:
Apple's latest major bet is the Apple Vision Pro. It is playing out exactly like the original iPhone or MacBook Air. It is an engineering marvel that is heavy and expensive. It is searching for its killer app.
If history is any indicator, this first generation is not the finish line. It is just the foundation for the next decade.