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My company has been in business since 1994 and we currently serve more than 500 clients who use the products we sell. Don’t get too impressed. When I say “serve” I mean that many of those clients may only use us for a few hours a year for support or training. But there are those that use us for much more. Most of these companies are smaller businesses with less than 250 employees. We’ve had successes. We’ve made many mistakes. But one thing is certainly true: you can’t please ‘em all. In fact, I have conceded that if at least two-thirds of my clients are happy at any given time, then we’re doing fine. This is the technology business. Technology doesn’t work all the time and often it doesn’t live up to the hype or the dreams of its user. People blame software companies for this. They blame their partners too (that’s us). This has been a fact of my life for the past 18 years.
The guys at Apple have been living my life recently. The company has received its share of criticism during the past few weeks over the recent release of its iPad 3 tablet. Lots of criticism.
Users have complained that the iPad’s battery gets too hot and testers have found that indeed the unit does run at least ten degrees hotter than its predecessor. The new and powerful video capabilities are reported to eat up a user’s data plan quickly and according to the Wall Street Journal “…either consumers will have to get used to paying more or wireless carriers will come under pressure to change their pricing models.” Then there’s the issue with wireless hotspots - apparently, many users are reporting problems connecting and then maintaining their connections.
There’s more.
Apple customers are saying there are problems with the iPad’s new “smart covers” – the magnetic casing that turns the unit on automatically. The smart covers are also reported to cause fuzzy screens. And speaking of covers, other users say that many online magazine covers don’t display properly on the product’s new Retina display. ZDNet says there are power issues when docking with some third party products. The iPad 3 takes significantly longer to charge than prior versions. It’s heavier and more fragile. And one famous Apple lover (OK, it was Howard Stern) complained that he couldn’t detect much of a difference between the screen resolution on his iPad 2 when compared to the new model. Or maybe he was just making a comparison to a porn model, I’m not sure. Anyway, it seemed to be a problem for him.
I’ve heard some Apple customers say that the improvements in the iPad 3 weren’t worth the cost of buying a new unit. One client said to me “I bet if Jobs were still around, he never would’ve let it be released. He would’ve had these problems fixed and also would’ve had a product with more features too.”
In a blog last week, MIT’s Simpson L. Garfinkel wrote that Apple is no longer creative and suffering from growing pains. “The Apple of today is turning its back on that creative class. Apple no longer designs for creators of digital media, who tend to be very demanding about product quality. Instead, Apple builds for consumers—in both senses of the word: people who spend their own money, rather than their companies', and people who consume digital media, as opposed to people who produce it. Focusing on digital consumption has made Apple wildly profitable, but the company's products have trended downwards in quality, flexibility, and even reliability.”
Wow! Seems like a lot of issues here, right? Apple has more money than most countries on earth. What, they couldn’t afford a few extra weeks of product testing and quality control? They couldn’t wait until everything was perfect? They couldn’t come up with more incredible features to satisfy our never ending appetite for more cool stuff? They had to get this product out on the market so fast and risk their reputation? Would Steve Jobs have let this happen under his watch?
Of course he would.
For starters, these problems are not significant. I’ve been selling Microsoft products for years. Believe me…I know what significant problems are! Yes, the iPad 3 runs a little hotter. But no one’s saying it’s going to catch on fire. And yes, there are glitches with its “smart covers”, Wi-Fi connections and other stuff like that. Hello? Welcome to technology. It’s not all going to perfectly work. Even for Apple.
The problem is that Apple has set the bar so much higher that we have certain expectations of them. We actually start believing that human beings can make something that works well and works all the time. We believe that Apple is the definition of quality. The fact is that nothing’s perfect, particularly technology. There are too many moving parts. There are too many partners. There are too many other technologies that interact with the iPad. Steve Jobs was a very smart man. But he could not have thought of all this. He would have been furious, I’m sure, if there were more serious problems, like “blue screens of death” and system freezes when doing simple tasks. But this is not the case.
Apple gets way more media scrutiny too. The company’s products have affected so many of us. I’m a Microsoft partner, fan and user. But even I use Apple products too (hint: check out the great new album by the Shins on iTunes). So naturally when there are any problem with the glorious iPad, no matter how trivial, it’s going to receive a lot of media attention. I don’t feel sorry for the company. They use the media to their advantage all the time. They’ve made billions and are probably the most watched stock on the exchange. Along with the benefits comes the scrutiny. Jobs, always a promoter, always a performer, always understood that if you’re going to put yourself out there you’re going to have to take some hits when things don’t go your way. This would not have stopped him either.
Steve Jobs was a genius. A creator. A one-of-a-kind innovator. But most importantly, he was a businessman. And that’s what I can relate to. He was the CEO of a publicly held company. And when you run a business there are certain things you just do.
For one, you expect and prepare for problems. Because every company and every new product has its problems. Even Apple. I wrote above that having two-thirds of my client base happy was enough for me. I bet the number of happy Apple users is much higher than that, which is amazing to me considering how many more (fickle, demanding, impatient, know-it-all) customers the company has when compared to mine. But one thing I have in common with Steve Jobs is that we’re both running (or ran) businesses. And every business guy knows you can’t please ‘em all. You release a new product or service with the best of intentions and the highest level of research and quality you can provide and then you reserve for the rest. Things will go wrong, especially in technology. Apple has reserves for product returns, warranties, bad debts and inventory obsolescence. This is not just for show. Jobs, like any CEO, knows that new products will have their problems.
And you respond quickly. Apple is supporting their customers fine. They’re responding to complaints online and in their stores. They’re not denying, defending or deflecting blame. They’re a technology company. As much as they think they can get it all right, they know that’s not reality. This is not the first time there have been problems with Apple products. Under Job’s supervision, support issues were addressed and they still are. He knew that as long as you have the right customer service infrastructure in place minor complaints can be addressed and customers can be satisfied.
Potential problems, unless they’re critical, wouldn’t stop a CEO like Jobs from releasing his next product line. Sure, he was a perfectionist, but he wouldn’t have been as successful as he was if he wasn’t practical too. Steve Jobs absolutely settled for less than perfection in order to get product out the door. Because in the end his company, like mine, needs revenues to stay in business and grow. So he too would have signed off on the iPad 3 and then stood by the product, even in the face of its minor shortcomings and major media scrutiny, while the problems get resolved and more units get sold.
Besides Forbes, Gene Marks writes weekly for The New York Times and The Huffington Post.
