What would happen to Apple without Jobs, Lee Crowe and Jonathan?

Baidu said that "Jingqi Shen" is a Taoist internal alchemy term.

Fine, generally refers to the fine matter in the tangible state; Qi, generally refers to the fine matter in the invisible state; God, generally refers to the vitality of the essence.

If we put aside medicine and philosophy and apply it to Apple; Then, Jobs, who died in October 2011, is the "god" of Apple, Lee Crowe, who retired in February 2019, is the "qi" of Apple, and Jonathan, who left office in June 2019, is the "essence" of Apple ".

Jobs created the myth of Apple, Lee Crowe's two advertisements established Apple's temperament, and Jonathan shaped Apple's aesthetics with star products such as iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. However, after the second half of the 2019, Apple will no longer be the familiar Apple.

Let's start with the three perspectives of Jobs, Lee Crowe and Jonathan to explore the deepest imprint they each left on Apple.

(1)
"God"-Jobs
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What is Apple to Jobs?

It is career, life, obsession and faith.

The destined encounter with Wozniak led to the birth of the "Blue Box.

The emergence of "Global Overview" and "Home Brewing Computer Club" gave Apple I and Apple the opportunity to be born.

The cold of Apple I has determined the positioning of Apple II as a complete and full-featured consumer product.

The mac, which was short-lived in 1984 and was not popular, made Jobs completely lose power in 1985.

The obsession with computers made Jobs deep in NeXT mud, and opened a new skill tree for Pixar's investment. The success of Toy Story gave Jobs the bargaining chip with Disney. It also paved the "road" for returning to Apple again ".

At this moment, Apple's market share fell to 4% from its 16% peak in the late 1980 s, and Apple's share price plummeted to $14 from $70 in 1991. What is more ironic is that Apple became the only "abandoned child" of the high-tech bubble at that time ".

On December 2, 1996, Jobs finally set foot on Apple's land in Cupertino again after 11 years.

Since then, Jobs launched the "next decade products" iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad in 1998, 2000, 2007 and 2010 respectively.

IMac and iPhone are worthy of their names: iMac has opened the era of consumer computers, but Jobs was expelled and Microsoft has given too much time to develop. The iPhone has started the era of smart phones. Although it is late in the 5G outlet, it still earns the vast majority of the profits of smart phones.

iPod-Putting a thousand songs in your pocket is the perfect work of technology, art and marketing, but it is squeezed out of the altar by your own iPhone.

As for the iPad, it is still difficult to take on the important task when it is 8 years old. For the time being, it cannot become "the third device between mobile phone and notebook computer" in Jobs' mouth, even if Apple crashed into its own system -- iPadOS on WWDC in 2019. However, this may be Jobs' last "legacy" to Apple. It was only about 6 years premature.

Even if the iPod is replaced, the iMac and iPhone are a bit outdated, and the iPad is unusable. Jobs' insistence on a closed iOS system has become Apple's biggest moat, just as Jobs is deeply imprinted in Apple's culture.

②
"Qi"-Lee Crowe
○
What is Apple to Lee Crowe?

It is a job, a bosom friend, a business and a concept.

If Jobs is Apple's "savior", it is he who has assembled all available forces to save the building; then Lee Crowe is Apple's "plug-in", and he has detonated Apple's "chakra" again and again ".

Lee Crowe has worked with Apple for more than 30 years since he met Jobs in the 1980s.

Among them, the advertisement "1984", which was broadcast at the Super Bowl in 1984, is regarded as a classic case in the advertising industry, helping Apple to promote Macintosh computers to the altar.

More or less, Lee Crowe saw something in Jobs and Apple, and Jobs also found his obsession and Apple's goals in 1984.

Only Mac fell too fast, but the connection between 1984 and Apple never broke.

Jobs continued to repeat the same "mistakes" on NeXT and Pixar imaging computers until the unintentional "Toy Story" pulled him out of the mire.

After Jobs returned in December 1996, Lee Crowe's 1997 new work "Think Different (Different Thoughts)" paid tribute to famous historical figures of various times, helped the precarious Apple regain the trust of its customers, and helped Jobs find his own sense of belonging.

In addition to the Different of 1984 and Think, Lee Crowe's "Get a Mac" was also elected as the "10 most important advertisements to define the Apple brand" in the 40-year advertising history of "Marketing Magazine" in 2016 ".

He is not an Apple employee, but he is the one who knows Jobs and Apple's "temperament" best.

(3)
"Jing"-Jonathan
○
But in fact, most people realize that Apple does not have Jobs or Lee Crowe.

The reason why we know Jobs is because of his definition of smart phones. A bunch of domestic players regard Apple aesthetics as "dogma"; in their tireless and our sudden enlightenment: Jobs' personality, success, defects, mystery, perfectionism and death, all of which made him a belief in fruit powder and an idol in the eyes of ordinary people.

The reason why we want to know Lee Crowe is partly due to Jobs, and the other part is naturally 1984 and Think Different; but many people are limited to the part where he and Apple are "coupled", and we even give him The label of Apple.

In addition to Jobs and Lee Crow, in fact, the Apple we know should be Jonathan. It was he who realized the "perfect vision" of Jobs and Lee Crow when Jobs was alive, and he still gave us a sense of familiarity in the Cook era after Jobs left.

So what is apple in Jonathan's eyes?

Apple is a profession, an interest, a design and a self-realization.

After graduating from University, from Roberts Weaver Group to London Tangerine Design Company, Jonathan's design concept was not recognized and was rated as "too modern".

After Jonathan designed the original PowerBook for Apple during the Tangerine, he became a full-time employee of Apple in September 1992.

In December 1996, Jobs returned to Apple. His first move was to reorganize the design team and redesign the company's desktop computer with Jonathan as the core. Since then, Jobs and Jonathan have started a 15-year cooperation career. Jobs has left Apple for 8 years. The reason why we think that Apple is still Apple now is that the concept and aesthetics it once adhered to have never jumped out of the concept that Jobs adhered.

If we use Jobs to divide Jonathan's design, there are roughly three eras: the pre-Jobs era (working together), the post-Jobs era (sticking), and the Cook era (cut).

First: Jobs & Jonathan's Apple Revival Design in 1997-2011

iMac G3 1998

iBook 1999

Apple Cinema Display

iPod 2001

Nano

Shuffle

iPhone 2007

MacBook Air 2008

iPad 2010

Obviously, the Apple design at this stage followed Diet Rams' "design principles" to choose between innovation, practicality, beauty and less detail, and there have been bold attempts in materials and appearance.

It was not until 2001 that I found my own "design language" on the iPod and showed the potential to dig out plastic that I began to use anodized aluminum on a large scale in 2008.

This stage is the window period for Apple's "super products" to incubate.

Second: Apple Design Shocks Trillion Market Value after Jobs in 2012-2015

Mac Pro 2013

Apple Watch 2014

iPhone 6 2014
At this stage, Apple has gone further and further on its own road of "aluminum simplicity". In order to design aesthetics and innovation, Apple has even designed such "low-level" things as "garbage cans" and "leucorrhea", and has planned to enter the "good night" of extravagance ".

But before Apple's "unprecedented" fashion storm, Apple's LOGO was still so dazzling.

At this stage, it is difficult to say whether Jonathan is Jiang Lang's talent, or whether Jonathan began to "release himself" without Jobs' "perfectionism?

It can only be said that Apple's design skills can still be seen, but it is not as dazzling as the last decade.

Of course, this stage is a "digital product" with no disruptive innovation except Apple Watch.

Third: Jonathan's Marginalized Post-Apple Design from 2015 to 2019

iPhone 7 2016

HomePod 2017

AirPower 2017

Apple Park 2017

iPad Pro 2018

Apple Card 2019

Mac Pro 2019
Compared to the Cook era with the "luxury" strategy to hit the trillion market value, this stage of Apple's "explosion" is significantly faster.

Coupled with the rise of domestic mobile phones at this stage, Huami OV punched Apple and kicked Samsung as a dark horse, and Apple's mobile phones began to cool down. However, outside the mobile phone front, the HomePod is not strong, the AirPower is difficult to give birth, the Apple Card chicken ribs, the Mac Pro pricing are floating, and only the iPad, which has just installed its own system, has a little imagination. But obviously, Apple has become the tail of a.

At this stage, Apple wants to break through, but it is already a bit "out of reach".

The main reason for separating 2015 is that although Jonathan was appointed as the "chief design officer" at this stage, Apple's head of human-computer interaction design reported directly to Cook. Jonathan once focused on Apple Park and served as the "chief voice actor" in the introduction of new products ".

Although Cook has come forward to "explain", it is certain that Jonathan has lost part of his voice.

When Jobs, Lee Crowe and Jonathan "left" Apple in various forms, when the road to "luxury goods" did not work; Apple was obviously a little "flustered" and began to use software to "feed back" the hardware.

If the "defeat" in Greater China only makes it "painful", after all, it is not so easy to make money. Then in the 5G era, being stuck in the neck is a bit "angry from embarrassment", but Apple did not wait to die. It divided iOS into seven and expected a soft landing one day.

Therefore, the current Apple is quite dangerous. It does not match the innovation of huge dividends, and it no longer monopolizes the design that is amazing. When the familiar labels leave, there is no personal charm, high concept and design execution. Now Apple is only "commercial.

Although none of us can deny that Cook is a successful CEO, the design in his eyes is obviously not as important as Jobs. It took Jobs 23 years to increase the commercial proportion of industrial design, Jonathan 27 years to implement it, but Cook only took 8 years to "downgrade" industrial design.

In the end, we only have one question: will Apple, which is no longer so focused on design, be okay?

PS: Some picture materials come from @ theverge @ yankodesign @ Tiger Smell