Apple is one of the biggest and most profitable tech companies in the world. An article released in December 2019 stated that despite having only 20% of sales in the smartphone market, the company owns 66% of the profit!

This is astounding. Yet, questions remain: how did Apple get here? How did Apple create the most lucrative fan-base in the world? The answer is actually straightforward- seriously, it’s literally based on the principle of “simplicity.”

Simplicity has been present in Apple since the very beginning. The founder of Apple, Steve Jobs himself, was a firm believer in this idea. “Jobs truly believed that simplicity was a virtue,” says Isaacson– Job’s biographer. His belief eventually resulted in a complete revolution.

According to the opinion of Ken Segell (Apple’s renowned marketing expert), the world by its very nature is already complicated, which is why simple products stand out. They also help to create an emotional bond among users. However, creating ease for the consumer practically means an immense amount of work on the company’s side. Let’s take a look at different areas at Apple, where this notion is present.

Simplicity in Naming

Apple has always had a history of having simple and precise names. The literal name of the company is the epitome of simplicity. When asked the reason for choosing “Apple” to be the company’s name at a press conference in 1981, Steve Jobs replied, “I love apples and like to eat them. We can infer from this that the fundamental idea behind Apple is bringing simplicity to the public in the most sophisticated way, and that’s it, nothing else.”

From the iMac (1998) to the IPhone (2007) to the present day, you will find no Apple product has an intricate name. You won’t realize this, but unpretentious names are not only easy on the tongue but also subconsciously create a stronger link between the user and the device. You can observe for yourself; it is significantly easier to say that you love your Mac Pro, but it’s difficult to say that you love your “HP cs0058wm”. 

Simplicity in Products

Whenever Apple introduces a new product, they never focus on the features of the product. Instead, their entire emphasis will be on the benefits provided by it. The first iPod introduced at the end of 2001 became the big talk of the world; however, it wasn’t necessarily anything revolutionary from a technological perspective. The iPod was a simple and portable MP3 player with hardly 5 GB of storage, but that is not how Apple marketed it. Apple instead highlighted the plain fact that you could store a “1000 songs in your pocket”. 

Apple’s promotional ad for the first iPod

Pause at this statement. Immediately, you are not thinking about holding a dreary device in your hand or complexities of its storage capacity. On the other hand, it drives you to think about the multiple playlists you could have in your hand while scrolling through your iPod, leading to your favourite song playing in your ears as you swing to its melody.

Another example of Apple taking it simple is with the iPhone 11. The IPhone 11 can record videos at 4K resolution, and that too at 60 frames per second. The way this device does so, is surprising. The smartphone produces 120 frames per second and, through its fast camera sensors, alternates between standard exposure and short exposure frames to fuse them together and prevent the bright areas from overexposing. Now I know that all of this might have made little sense to you (unless you are tech-savvy), and Apple knows this too, which is precisely why they do not draw attention to this feature. Without this description, their product would be more “simple” and not complicated for the user. Had it been any other company, they probably would’ve advertised massively over the fact that their product could do this. 

pple iPhone 11 Pro Announced - Featuring Four Cameras, All ...
Apple announcing the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max

Simplicity in Announcements

If you’ve looked at other smartphone companies such as Samsung or Huawei, they’re making announcements throughout the year. Their social media pages are very active. In fact, each of them has individual social media pages for the specific country that they operate in, such as Samsung Pakistan, Samsung Indonesia. Apple, on the contrary, is silent for most of the year. Their Twitter page, for example, has 4.5 M followers and yet, it does not have any major tweets. Apple’s Instagram page has 650 posts, which is nothing compared to Samsung’s 2700 posts or One Plus’s 3100 posts. With all these other companies and their constant updates, the news becomes overwhelming and difficult to digest. Samsung’s news diffuses into Huawei’s news, which blends in with One Plus’s news, and all this just turns into a tumult. Apple only goes public when they need to, and they do it in the right manner. When they announce something, everybody wants to listen to learn the reason behind why they broke their silence.

Other Brands Don’t Exist

Another thing that Apple does to create ease for its user is that it pretends that other companies are non-existent. They never mention other brands, nor do they compare their benchmark scores with their rivals. Whenever they introduce a new iPhone, for example, they only compare it with the last iPhone to paint a vivid image of its improvement in comparison to the last one.

Apple comparing the A13 Bionic chip with the last A12 Bionic

What this intuitively does for the user is that it changes the question in their mind from “Which phone should I buy,” to “which iPhone should I buy?”. If you already have an iPhone, then it allows you to decide whether you should buy one this year or wait for it until next year. All this does is that it creates ease and contentment for the Apple user and increases decisiveness – that too within the Apple ecosystem. Apple does this with other products as well. Arun Maini, aka famous tech YouTuber, Mrwhosetheboss, describes this behaviour of Apple perfectly in his video– “It’s almost like they live in a parallel universe where the only tech products that exist are Apple products.” You must have seen, for yourself, people who may call themselves tech fanatics, but the only tech that they genuinely care for and use is Apple tech.

In conclusion, I know simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean being economical, and I am not an Apple user. Still, Apple’s approach of taking things simply is not only interesting but also inspiring. It shows that a business cares for its customers and wants to make them as comfortable as they can with their products and decisions. In addition, it creates a healthy connection between the consumer and the company. On the contrary, it is also a probability that they just want to increase sales and they will use any means necessary to attain that goal. Whatever the true aim may be, I think many firms can still take valuable lessons from Apple’s approach and benefit not only themselves but also their customers. 

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Hamzah Zahid, an A1 student, was in awe of a magazine run solely by the youth. Aside from gaming and programming, he has decided to explore another talent hidden inside of him through this magazine. He is the editor for the Business section at Jayzoq.
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