Sure, even with Jobs having departed the company, many of the names and faces at Apple remain the same. But Jobs is known to have micro-managed since he returned to Apple and transformed the company into the behemoth it is today. With that guiding force gone for good things are all set to change.

One of the key components of Apple’s winning strategy has been its premium pricing. Apple products have always been expensive, the choice of those not on a budget, for whom the need for quality overpowers the need for affordability. But that strategy is already changing, and could change even more as the company heads further into the mainstream.

The question is, should Apple cut its prices across the board?

The Argument For

Apple is now about as mainstream as they come. What was once the small, independent-like company fighting against the big corporation that was Microsoft, the roles have changed. Apple is now rich, powerful, and a member of the new mega-corps. With that status comes a responsibility to lower prices. People now want to own Apple products more than ever after buying into the brand, and for people to do so in bulk the prices need to be lower than they currently are.

Apple can also afford to cut its prices. It famously now has more cash reserves in the bank than the U.S. government does. The iPad, which is the first of this new breed of affordable Apple products, is fairly priced, and yet Apple is still making a healthy profit on each unit sold thanks to the scale of its production line and the methods it uses: Chinese labor is cheap.

The Argument Against

Apple could lower its prices quite easily, but should it do so? The fact is it doesn’t actually need to. The iPad is a phenomenon, selling millions around the world and still being the cream of the tablet market despite various attempts by rival manufacturers to match or beat it. The Amazon Kindle Fire could derail its dominance, but that isn’t guaranteed. Meanwhile while the iPhone isn’t the best smartphone money can buy it is the one people invariably crave owning. And they’re buying even slight upgrades en masse.

There is also an argument that lowering prices could actually harm Apple in the longterm. While the company will gain more customers, those ever-so-loyal fanboys may turn their backs when the great unwashed join their little club. If Apple products become so affordable that the proletariat can buy them then expect some Apple fanboys to seek the next tech company selling overpriced wares.

It’ll be interesting to see which way new CEO Tim Cook goes on this one. If he gets it wrong then Steve Jobs’ legacy could soon turn to dust.

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Image Credit: Paulswansen

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However, I was hit by the death of Steve Jobs. It affected me when I heard the news that he’d passed. And that was something I didn’t expect.

Realization

While Steve Jobs was alive I made jokes about his everyman attitude (despite the fact he had $65 billion sitting in his bank account), and about his black turtleneck and blue jeans uniform which made him look like a kind of Kickass-style superhero. I ranted and raved about the level of Apple fanboyism which saw Jobs treated as the Second Coming, and how in some people’s eyes he could do no wrong. But his passing saw that disappear and be replaced by sadness, and a realization that the tech world has lost someone mighty, someone important, someone who will never be replaced.

Steve Jobs was more than just the CEO of a company, a company that was transformed from near-bankruptcy into the richest in the world in a little over a decade. While he isn’t the only reason Apple is as successful as it is, he’s a huge part of the puzzle, and his return in 1997 was the starting point for this sea-change in the company’s fortunes.

He was a visionary who changed the world.

Impact

Imagine if the iPod hadn’t been invented, or the iPhone, or the iPad. And while I don’t personally use iTunes, I regard it with the reverence it deserves, as it changed the way we buy digital content. How about the design sensibilities which Jobs, along with Jonathan Ive, dragged into the mainstream. It’s a visual mindset that other companies have since adopted, with only mild success.

What has become clear since Steve Jobs’ death is how much of an impact he had on people’s lives. Whether or not they knew him personally, or had an anecdote to share with the world, his presence made a difference. Jobs changed the order of things as the ultimate disruptor of technology – from challenging Microsoft’s stranglehold on the personal computing market to using his and his company’s influence to force old media into letting the Internet blossom – and that is how he should be remembered.

Gone But Not Forgotten

In hindsight I guess writing about someone, covering the products they have imagined, seen through to production, and then brought to market, and reading about the impact one person has had on an industry and the wider world meant that his death was always going to at least resonate with me. But still, I was shocked by how news of his passing made me feel.

I still don’t like Apple fanboys. But Steve Jobs fanboys? I understand them a little better than I did before Jobs took on his new role as CEO of Heaven.

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Is it one or two individuals who made all the difference? Or the products and how they’re presented to the public?

Steve Jobs

The most obvious candidate as the true genius behind Apple’s rise to the top is Steve Jobs. Jobs co-founded the company alongside Steve Wozniak in 1976, and helped build it up before being ousted in 1985. Apple quickly rose and then fell back again to its low point in 1997, which was when Jobs regained control and completely changed the structure of the company and its product line-up.

The iMac, Mac OS X, the iPod, the MacBook, the iPad, the iPhone, Apple retail stores, and iTunes then followed over the next decade, all under the ultimate guidance of Jobs as CEO. Jobs eventually stepped down in August 2011 due to ill health, and passed away just six weeks later, on Oct. 5, 2011.

Jobs had an innate ability to see where the market was headed and arrive there before the rest of the world, which is why all of Apple’s products released over the last years of his life were so innovative and influential.

Jonathan Ive

The only other individual who can claim to be the main reason behind Apple’s success of late is Jonathan Ive, an Englishman who is now the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at the company. He has led the design team responsible for the iMac, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, amongst others.

If the reason Apple has built such a loyal fanbase is because of the aesthetics of its products then Ive is the man responsible. Jobs determines the direction the product line is headed in, and Ive determines how the product line is going to look.

Apple’s products have a certain look to them and it’s a look that has undoubtedly added to the company’s appeal.

Quality

Whether you like Apple’s products or not, you cannot possibly deny they have a certain quality to them. They look great, they feel fantastic, and they just work. Very seldom has an Apple product been released with a major bug that immediately needs fixing.

The user interface is always intuitive, and everything works seamlessly. This is where Apple’s proprietary software and over-the-top control of everything that exists on it comes into its own.

Marketing

Last, but definitely not least, is Apple’s marketing. It’s generally masterful. Knowledge of the products is kept under wraps until the day it is ready to be revealed to the public. This builds incredible buzz around each new product launch, with the rumor mill meaning Apple is the main focus of technology blogs in the weeks before the existence of a new device is even revealed.

After the announcement comes the ads. Simple, to the point, and able to sell someone on the idea within 30 seconds. These are the final weapons in Apple’s considerable war-chest.

Conclusions

One thing I’m completely convinced on is that the genius of Apple isn’t present in the ‘Geniuses’ who hang around looking smug at the ‘Genius Bar’ in every Apple Store. No, they’re just geeks who chose to specialize in Apple rather than Microsoft, but then ended up working in retail.

It may be something of a cop out but I think the true genius behind Apple’s success is a combination of all of the above. It’s as though the planets aligned in 1997, and Apple has been reaping the benefits of that alignment ever since. Steve Jobs may have now sadly departed, but with all the other components still intact, and a millions-strong army of fanboys to rely upon, I cannot see Apple going in any direction other than up for the foreseeable future. And that’s coming from someone who doesn’t own even one Apple product. Yet.

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Image Credit: Yutaka Tsutano

Updated to note Steve Jobs passing on Oct. 5, 2011.

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