Why Apple is successful.

I saw this link over at TUAW, its about why Apple is successful, so naturally I had to check it out. And oh man, this has got me going all cynical and such, so I think that I am going to break a part a few things that are in this post.

First let’s start here:

So what’s the secret? Why is Apple zooming along at full speed when others are stuck in the parking lot? I think the key is, simply, fearlessness. Over and over again, they choose something that feels right and they pursue until it either succeeds or is no longer interesting. It’s intuition.

I don’t mean to be so mean, but simply NO. This is not why they are successful, I have talked about why I think they are in other posts, but here I will tell you why I don’t think this is the secret. It is not Apple that Steven is referring to as being fearless, but Steve Jobs. Perhaps he is, I don’t know. I prefer to think that he is smart, and calculated, this often is seen as being fearless because other people cannot comprehend the foresight that some have. I am not saying that these people are stupid, but rather that they care not to think hard on the subject.

Companies cannot be fearless, otherwise they go broke. Plain and simple. They have to be calculated in the risks that they take, if they weren’t there stock price would suck, and so would the bottom line, and their products.

I don’t think Apple had any idea if selling TV shows on iTunes was going to work, but they didn’t seem to worry too much about it. They released a video-capable iPod, some video content, and let things come together.

What? Tell that was not typed. Ok of course they knew that TV shows would sell otherwise they would not have spent time and money on introducing them. No sane company would do this with out knowledge that they would sell. One look at blogs and bit torrent sites from the market researchers, or anybody to for that matter shows that people watch TV on their computer, and that they download it (just look at the amount of bit torrents available for TV shows).

It may be true that Apple did not know just how big this would get, but no one really can guess that (think pet rock here). Now as for the video iPod, it is the same logic as iTunes, if you release a media player, you need to make sure there is media to play on it. Apple created iTunes so that they could say their iPods can play legal ish, and same with selling videos for video iPods.

Fearlessness is what has allowed Apple to ship five major versions of Mac OS X since 2001, countless major versions of desktop apps, and engineer a complete revolution in the music industry.

Or this could be a case of good engineering, solid time tables and scheduling, generating more income streams and cash flows. Why does shipping lots of OS releases mean you are fearless?

Fearlessness allows you set aside all ideas of what people might think and focus on what feels right instinctively. Without that sort of conviction, there wouldn’t be Mac OS X, the iPod, or even the Mac.

This statement just annoys me a little. Yeah it is true it does allow you to set aside those things, but I can assure you that is not what Apple did when it made OS X or iPod or the Mac. Yes is was a large step, and a risky move, but risk is calculated, being fearless is not calculated. Being fearless is like fighting a war in lines, like the old school wars (think Red coats here), while being calculated is Shock and Awe, strategic air strikes to disable the infrastructure.

So I ask you, is Apple a Red coat? Marching into battle in a line to stand there and be shot at, knowing that some will die, or do they strategically attack and dominate the market, only killing the enemy? Being fearless sounds more like Microsoft to be than Apple. I mean MS charges into battle with half-assed attempts, and wears opponents down and sheer numbers (again think Red coats).

I could go on about what he says about Google and Apple, but I will leave it at that, I think that I have made my point.