Many years ago Steve Jobs, then alive and beginning his second run at Apple, realized that his company was making too many products. Realizing that cannibalizing your own sales and confusing your customers is not the best way to go about business, he came up with a simple grid.
The entirety of Apple’s lineup would be streamlined following this grid. The end result is plain to see for everyone on account of Apple still being with us. However, there has been more than a little diversion from that original idea. Whenever someone on the internet says that Apple is about to go down the drain (which seems to happen no matter how well or not they’re doing), there always comes a point where the phrase “It wouldn’t be like this if Steve was here.” This, of course, is said with flagrant disregard for the fact that the tech space was quite a bit different now than how it was in his tenure. And inevitably it comes with some implication that the man was somehow infallible.
That being said, one does wonder if their lineup would be as it is right now with him around. Comments of that ilk have come back to the popular consciousness with the rumor mill’s firm belief of the launch of a 15" Macbook Air. As far as product launches go, it’s one that makes the most sensible releases if it turns out to be true. No need to drop $2500 on a Macbook Pro 16" if all you want is the additional real estate. This is actually addressing a gap in the market.
Over on the mobile side, I’m not so sure. The iPhone seems to be split into Consumer (iPhone 14) and Professional (iPhone 14 Pro) and small and large versions of those. It’s all nice and laid out so long as you ignore all of the older models they’re producing. That makes sense.
And then you remember the iPhone SE exists, on its own little corner over yonder providing amazing value for people who just want a really powerful and cheap phone. So that’s out.
The iPad too takes that simple grid from a simpler time and uses it to wipe the floor. Size does not correlate with positioning thankfully. Punishing people who want a smaller device didn’t work so well for the American auto industry. It does still mean that if you say “I want to buy an iPad”, there will still be some research involved. Same with watches, not so much with earbuds.
But despite the much larger array of products compared to that simple grid of the late 90s, nothing could be further from the truth than saying that Apple is going back to the bad old days in that regard. Amelio’s Apple had lines upon lines of computers cannibalizing one another, not that they needed much help in that regard once Apple-approved clones could go “WHAT IF APPLE BUT CHEAP!?”. The grid was a very useful shorthand to present how much the lineup had to be reduced at the time. What worked then doesn’t necessarily work now. And if it doesn’t, it should be ignored and replaced with what works.
It’s what Steve would’ve done, probably.
