Ken Segall: Apple is Struggling to Present a Simple Image to Customers

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Posted June 3, 2016 at 4:00pm by iClarified

Ken Segall, who worked with Steve Jobs as his ad agency creative director for twelve years, offers his thoughts on what's changed at the company since Steve Jobs in an article for the Guardian. Segall led the team behind the Think different campaign, named the iMac, and authored Think Simple.

Under Steve Jobs, Apple had a leader with extraordinary instinct who could make things happen by sheer force of will. "Steve’s vision, strength and charisma made him the benevolent dictator – able to align all the forces within Apple," says Segall.

While Apple may never be the same under Tim Cook, Segall believes it can still succeed. Much of Apple's growth under Jobs can be attributed to his love of simplicity. Looking at Apple now, one might wonder if the company has lost that simplicity.

Apple's array of products has grown and its naming conventions are somewhat convoluted (we're hoping Apple finally renames OS X to MacOS at WWDC). Segall cites the iPhone with its current 6S, 6S Plus, and SE versions noting that the 'S' designation has absurdly trained customers into thinking there is an off year iPhone. There's also inconsistencies in which products start with 'i' and which start with 'Apple'.

Apple has also gone from a very small group of people working directly with Steve Jobs to create award winning advertising campaigns to a large in-house marketing group that competes to produce new campaigns.

Despite this, Segall believes Apple is still focused on simplicity but is having a problem presenting a simple image to customers.

There is serious work to be done in rebuilding the perception of simplicity that helped Apple become the world’s most valuable company. Existing problems need fixing, as do the internal processes that have allowed complicated products to make it into the hands of customers. That said, it’s important to put Apple’s issues in context. Despite its current challenges – and its lapses – I don’t see any other technology creating a simple experience as well as Apple.

Hit the link below to read his full post...

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Ken Segall: Apple is Struggling to Present a Simple Image to Customers

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gamerscul9870 - June 3, 2016 at 7:23pm

Then explain why the iPad Pro is doing good than all the other tablets and peoples expectation still hold up against the 6s?

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oldschool - June 4, 2016 at 12:36am

Does it have English language courses on the Apple App Store? Far be it from me that I'd suggest that you download one. The iPad Pro won't be taken seriously until it has Os X (or whatever replaces it) on. It can't touch hybrids.

gamerscul9870 - June 4, 2016 at 12:41am

1. iPad Pro has immediatly been ranked number one in the detachable market. 2. Can hybrids have a transparent effect on keyboard that make any background image on the home screen the art style of the keyboard. Did I forget to mention iPad Pro's keyboard has emojis and symbols to type right from it. 3. Do hybrids offer a digital pencil like Apple Pencil along with palm rejection feature? 3.2. iPad Pro can't touch hybrids because it's too good to touch them, but it can touch tablet lovers because they come to it.

oldschool - June 4, 2016 at 2:18am

You are easily pleased by gimmicks. It is essentially a souped-up iPad, so is just a toy for apps, as well as a rather large hand-held(!) camera and posh iPod. It may well have some good hardware under the bonnet but what use is that if you can't use it for intense productivity? They give it the Pro tag implying it is aimed at professionals but it doesn't do what a professional needs. It's like sticking a Ferrari engine in a Ford Fiesta. There are also other tablets/hybrids around that use stylii to good effect, it's not just an Apple exclusive.

gamerscul9870 - June 4, 2016 at 4:17am

More like pleased by effort that critics have praised this iPad Pro for. This so called toy goes a step beyond others than just being another computer with just bending back a screen when you have a slide in keyboard with all the computer keyboard functions with extra stuff to type with along with shortcuts to type even more symbols. Did you not see a single video showing the huge advantage in productivity? I'm not reffering to just the Apple Pwncil in which most have said its the best drawing tool they have ever used which is just as close as drawing on real paper except not wasting anything unlike a real pencil. The only close way other styluses are like apple pencil is that if you select different sized marks to draw rather than adjusting it in any way instantly with the Apple pencil and to completely make the drawings like that, it would have to take a lot of erasing to do.

oldschool - June 4, 2016 at 10:14pm

I am in the market to upgrade now, I have a Surface Pro 3, i7 (Why, you may well ask). I bought it to replace an aging Alienware laptop, I needed something that would give me i7 power and a SSD and I took the plunge. Incidentally,it has a pen , which is pressure sensitive to 256 grades, so the Apple Pencil is not something new to me. But I also have a Surface so I can run Office, Acrobat and many other .exes, which is why I need it. I run macros in Office, I convert to and from .pdf, facilitate databases and the like. I need a lot of processing power. It also works very well as a tablet. I have looked at the iPad Pro, and correct me if I am wrong, but it can't deliver for me on those fronts. So if I bought it, I would still need to go back to the Surface to perform some of my tasks. The iPad Pro would then just become a leisure device. There is a comparison of the surface pen and the apple pen here: siliconangle.com/blog/2015/09/11/apple-pencil-vs-microsoft-surface-pen-do-more-than-just-circle-stuff/ It is interesting that we know the variation of pressure with the surface 4 pen, being 1024 grades, but haven't been afforded the luxury of technical details from Apple. What might be of interest to you as well is this, publish on 29th May: www.androidorigin.com/microsoft-surface-pro-4-vs-ipad-pro-uk/ "According to The Magister, Surface Pro devices sold approximately 275,000 units as opposed to 107,000 iPad Pro units in the UK" Now whatever the reason for this is, it seems to show that tablets/hybrids with full operating systems are what people favour. As I said, I did look at the iPad Pro, but I can't see where it fits in with the Apple range; what hole it was supposed to plug. It just seems out of sorts. Build a powerful tablet, but run iPhone software on it. Just doesn't make sense, I am not sold by it.

oldschool - June 4, 2016 at 10:23pm

I am in the market to upgrade now, I have a Surface Pro 3, i7 (Why, you may well ask). I bought it to replace an aging Alienware laptop, I needed something that would give me i7 power and a SSD and I took the plunge. Incidentally,it has a pen , which is pressure sensitive to 256 grades, so the Apple Pencil is not something new to me. But I also have a Surface so I can run Office, Acrobat and many other .exes, which is why I need it. I run macros in Office, I convert to and from .pdf, facilitate databases and the like. I need a lot of processing power. It also works very well as a tablet. I have looked at the iPad Pro, and correct me if I am wrong, but it can't deliver for me on those fronts. So if I bought it, I would still need to go back to the Surface to perform some of my tasks. The iPad Pro would then just become a leisure device. There is a comparison of the surface pen and the apple pen on the silicon angle website. Just search for Apple Pencil and the blog from 25th Sept 2015 It is interesting that we know the variation of pressure with the surface 4 pen, being 1024 grades, but haven't been afforded the luxury of technical details from Apple. It was also reported this week: According to The Magister, Surface Pro devices sold approximately 275,000 units as opposed to 107,000 iPad Pro units in the UK. This is more than double the number of units its competition sold and it appears that the primary factor in this battle is in fact pricing, as the iPad Pro is far more expensive and the accessories add up to more than the Surface Pro 4 does. Now whatever the reason for this is, it seems to show that tablets/hybrids with full operating systems are what people are favouring now in the higher end of tablet sales. As I said, I did look at the iPad Pro, but I can't see where it fits in with the Apple range; what hole it was supposed to plug. It just seems out of sorts. Build a powerful tablet, but run iPhone software on it. Just doesn't make sense, I am not sold by it.

gamerscul9870 - June 4, 2016 at 10:26pm

I prefer an iPad Pro because if not only optimization and apps that were made for iPad Pro that goes to show the effort and creativity behind what people did with it, but it actually did replace my laptop in terms of how it can work like one all without being one. I don't get which part you wanted me to correct one, but despite that, I can understand the Apple Pencil is sold separately but like I mentioned along with what others do with it, it's why I prefer that and I find it to be the best. By the end of the day, the iPad Pro feels more like a underdog tablet than a leisure tablet. As for how many iPads and surfaces sold, say what you want about how many surfaces sold more than iPad Pro, but surface pro has been out for years especially for a cheap price, so when it comes to price drops, there's no doubt that iPad Pro's can eventually outsell surface and by that, just look at the total number of iPads sold compared to surfaces. Heck even my school or the entire gisd district in general uses iPads. I'm not going to provide sources because they all show what you'll eventually see.