Greg Joswiak is Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPod, iPhone, and iOS product marketing. He’s presented at past iPhone and iOS Apple events and is a critical member of Apple’s corporate team.
While speaking at the “Silicon Valley Comes to Cambridge” event in the UK, Joswiak shared what he believes to be the four keys to Apple’s success.
As quoted by The Wall Street Journal, Joswiak explained Apple’s four keys to success as being “focus,” “simplicity,” “courage,” and “best.”
In terms of focus, Joswiak explained that Apple says no to decisions that typical companies frequently make. Apple has always been judicious with its purchases and investments.
We do very few things at Apple. We are $100bn in revenue with very few products. There are only so many grade A players. If you spread yourself out over too many things, none of them will be great.
The company thinks about product simplicity in a way that goes against the normal school of thought. While many companies struggle to maintain a consistent, simplified experience while battling fragmentation between hardware and software, Apple focuses on the whole package. The advantage of developing software and hardware in unison is that Apple is able to achieve a level of simplicity that most technology companies simply cannot.
When you start to build something, it quickly becomes really complex. But that is when a lot of people stop. If you really know your product and the problems, then you can take something that is complex and then make it simple.
Apple’s “Think Different” campaign is an excellent example of the third key: courage.
Courage drives a lot of decisions in business. Don’t hang on to ideas from the past even if they have been successful for you. You don’t build a product just because everyone else has one.
Finally, Joswiak simply called the fourth key “best.”
If you can’t enter the market and try and be the best in it, don’t enter it. You need that differentiation. At Apple if we can’t be the best then we are not interested in it.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
4 responses to “Apple VP Greg Joswiak Explains Apple’s Four Keys To Success”
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I guess other companies are dammed either way.
If they take heed, they get accused of copying Apple’s way.
If they don’t, they fail and folks say “why aren’t they doing what Apple does?”
Steve Jobs told us what Apple’s key to success is: “steal shamelessly”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
That and great marketing. To Apple’s credit, they also do a decent job at engineering, but they charge a pretty penny for it too.