Unusual Ways That Made Apple the Most Admirable

Steve Jobs defines a generation with his great innovative ideas and legendary products. He has used different strategy and principles which is one of the reasons for the huge success of the company. Alyson Shontell has explained some unusual ways that Steve Jobs had implemented.

Partner with the enemy

In the business war, it’s hard to believe that two competitor companies getting together. It’s unimaginable that two rival companies can be together. But here, Steve Jobs applied his extraordinary ideas and he made Bill Gates to invest a $150 Million in Apple. Apple had a financial loss from 12 years and that’s make him turned to Bill Gates and in 1997 at Macworld Expo Apple and Microsoft announced their partnership.

Change the business plan

When Apple started, it was only a Computer company. But Steve always wanted Apple to grow and he knew that the company needed to broaden its aspects for better growth. To become truly successful Apple needed to widen its approach. So the company began expanding its products. It did not stick to only computers and started release of Final Cut Pro, followed by MP3 players, music, iPhones and iPads. Even Jobs changed the company’s name from Apple Computer Inc. to Apple Inc. in 2007 to symbolize the new, broader vision.

Stylish Products

Apple products can be considered as the most stylish product till date. In the year of 1998, Jobs called a meeting at Apple, and said, “You know what’s wrong with this company? The products have no sex in them,” as he realized that Apple’s products looked dated. But today Apple is credited for creating the most beautiful and stylish technology, from colorful iMacs to sleek iPads.

 

Creating their own retail store

Apple owned their own retail outlet stores as other retailers were not giving Apple products adequate solutions. Now Apple has more than 255 retail stores worldwide and they are the most favorite of the retail industry. This is one of the most thriving formulas for the success of the company.

Hiring different employees

Graduates and Engineers are not the only employees that Steve had hired, according to him they are not the only people who can run a company. Jobs said “Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, and poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

Think differently

“Think Different” is an advertising slogan created for Apple in 1997. The campaign was one of the most effective of all the time. It inspired innovation and reinvention which Apple portrays today.

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The Journey of Apple’s Showman

There was a time when hearing the word Apple brought into picture the fruit, but today when we hear Apple, the smartphone and Steve Jobs comes into picture. Such is the power of Apple of Steve Jobs, which has transformed its meaning.

Jobs once said, “If there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.” Stepping down from his post as the CEO of Apple, he has created a big vacuum for the company and the entire technology industry too. Let us glance through the journey of Jobs – taking Apple from a garage startup to a billion dollar business.

An American business mogul, Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, and was adopted by Paul and Clara. He is the co-founder, chairman on the board and the former CEO of Apple. He always had distinguished ideas much ahead of the time, which the world did not readily accept. Jobs always said “Have patience and wait until the world changes its mind and accepts your idea.”

After graduating from high school, Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland. However, he dropped out after attending only one semester. But, he still continued auditing classes at Reed. Jobs used to sleep on the floor of his friend’s rooms, return Coke bottles for food money and grab weekly free meals at the Hare Krishna temple. Jobs later stated that if he had never dropped the single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.

Back home in 1974, Jobs started attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with his friend Wozniak and later took a technician’s job at Atari who manufactured video games,just to save money for a spiritual retreat to India. He returned from India as a Buddhist along with Daniel Kottke, with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. Later, he resumed his job at Atari.

Apple came to life in 1976 when Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne co-founded the company in a garage. With expansion of Apple, the company looked in for an experienced executive thus appointing Mike Scott as the CEO. Jobs introduced the Macintosh in 1984 in Apple’s annual shareholders meeting, which became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. The development of Mac was eventually taken over by Jobs from Jef Raskin.

Jobs founded NeXT Computer around 1985. He marketed the products to the scientific and academic fields due to the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated. NeXT Mail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail. With the announcement of Apple to buy NeXT for $429 million in 1996, Jobs was back into the company. After taking charge as the CEO of Apple in 1997, Jobs took several intricate decisions like termination of a number of projects. He also changed the licensing program for Macintosh clones, making it too costly for the manufacturers to continue making machines. Under his guidance, the sales of Apple increased significantly with the introduction of iMac. Jobs brought into picture appealing designs and powerful branding which played an important role in the success of Apple.

In recent years, the company sprouted in to various digital appliances. Jobs brought in innovative products in the market with the introduction of iPod, iTunes Stores, iPhone and finally iPad. The world finally started accepting his concept and thoughts and realized that just a machine doing the job is not enough; you require a machine that matches your style statement along with high-performance thus providing you every possible technology in your hand.

But, with Steve Jobs resigning from his post and Tim Cook taking over, the question stands that what’s next in and for Apple and what’s next for the world of technology. Time will only answer the question. Michael Gartenberg, Research Director at Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, says, “While this marks the end of an era for Apple, it’s important to remember the there’s more to Apple than any one person, even Steve Jobs. Continuing as chairman Mr. Jobs will continue to leave his mark on both the company and products even as he transfers the reigns to Mr. Cook.”

 Whatever may be the case, the world is going to miss the charismatic man, who with his great vision, technology expertise and vivid talents mesmerized the world. Let us wait and watch the further journey of Apple.