James Allworth, of Exponent and Harvard Business Review fame:
Last month was the one year anniversary of the Apple Watch. But we’re also nigh-on the ten year anniversary of the iPhone. As we crest the smartphone wave and come down the other side, it’s time to ask: has the tide turned?
Apple’s position in the market now is much more analogous to Microsoft’s, back when Microsoft was trying to navigate the shift from the PC to mobile.
And it appears that Apple has fallen into exactly the same trap. Rather than start anew — with a beginner’s mind—what the above reveals to me is that they’ve tried to take the last paradigm and just jam it into the new one. The old has bled into the new. The result, at least as it stands now: just like Microsoft did, Apple knows what needs to be built — a phone-disrupting device. It’s just that they can’t bring themselves to let go of the past in order to do the job properly.
Allworth makes some great points in this piece. A year after its launch, Apple Watch still leaves me more pleased than frustrated. That said, when it’s frustrating, it’s really frustrating. Here’s hoping 2.0 will right many of the wrongs of 1.0.