Apple (AAPL) reported earnings Monday night that failed to meet expectations. The stock is down 7% in early trade today and at least six sell-side research firms are cutting price targets.
So what is Apple doing wrong and what could it do better going forward?
Here are a few thoughts...
1. Stop Idealizing Your Devices
The new Apple advertisement with Robin Williams riffing poetic over a bunch of dreamy images is beautifully produced and profound in many ways. It makes me want to gather rosebuds while I may and so forth.
Nevertheless, its a terrible commercial for Apple at this moment in time. It's terrible because it reveals something about Apple's outward strategy and possible self-perception that is hindering the company.
That is, the idealization of Apple products is stifling critical self-examination and improvement.
When you idealize something, you split off the bad parts and sweep them under the rug. You feel great but completely miss the things you're doing wrong. You have no chance to fix mistakes because you don't even acknowledge they exist.
Apple would be much better off thinking about the utility of its devices in the real world rather than fantasizing about them.
It's not art, it's just phones.
2. Focus on the Future, Formulate a Vision and Live It
What is Apple's vision of the future?
It's odd to even ask this question because there was a time Apple represented the future of consumer technology better than any other company in the world.
Now, not so much. Maybe you can repeat the party line with something like "make great devices" but that feels stale already, especially when you're missing real-world expectations.
Google (GOOG) is out with their version two of Glass Tuesday morning and, even though it's still beta, dorky and much-maligned, they are moving in the right direction, iterating and reiterating, with an innovative product. By the time they get to version five, Glass will be insanely great.
At such time, will Apple still be pondering the wrist?
3. Loosen Up
CEO Tim Cook and design head Jonathan Ive seem like they are playing tight.
Sports fans will know what I mean here. Sometimes, at a big game, one of the teams will come out too nervous and they'll play tight, unwilling to take risks or missing easy shots.
There are a bunch of examples but here's one: It's now excruciatingly clear Apple missed the bigger-screen phone trend. They missed due to stubbornness and a flawed ethos. They claimed they would only put out such a phone if they could create one that lived up to the Apple quality standard. This was nonsense and so they missed the trend.