Why Apple Should Ignore the Press
January 28th, 2008From time to time, Steve Jobs has said that certain product features were added because of lots of customer requests. Notice he never mentions the press as being the source of such changes, but wouldn’t that still make sense?
Wouldn’t you think that long-time journalists who have covered the technology industry for years ought to have some semblance of an understanding of what features might be salable and significant and what features simply won’t work in the real world?
Maybe, maybe not. I’m kind of leaning towards the latter, and I don’t regard myself as an example of the typical Mac user, for example, that Apple ought to listen to. Having been exposed to all this gear for so many years, I’m probably more of an elitist — make that a financially-poor elitist — and my tastes don’t necessarily reflect the mass market.
So let’s look over the years, particularly during the time when Apple was an allegedly beleaguered company, and what the pundits were telling the company to do. And, worse, when Apple actually listened to them once upon a time.
