History repeats itself
Apple doesn’t often invent something completely new. However, they’ve done it at least 3 times before, and have had real issues marketing what their new product does.
You see, what makes Apple marketing so powerful is they hone in on the one thing they do better than anyone else in whatever category they go after. The formula is simple, and Apple is the master:
- Music: Put all your music in your pocket.
- Computers: Make them easy so everyone can have one.
- Phones: Put the web in your pocket…along with your music
But with Newton, they did not have an established category to fix. So their marketing was rambling. Witness this video:
“Newton is for all you mobile professionals who like cool stuff.” Huh?
With iPad, they were again without an established category to fix. And they seemed just as lost as with Newton.
I got wind of this with their original mention of it being a “magical and revolutionary” device. Doesn’t say much. And it also happens to describe the wheel, or a cigarette lighter or a toilet.
Now witness their first iPad commercial:
Sounds similar? Eventually the Newton was canned and iPad is still with us. Turns out the iPad did solve one problem: it became a bigger iPhone with a large enough screen to consume content. To this day, as much as Apple tries, the iPad isn’t used much to create content.
Which brings us to Apple Vision Pro. What problem does it solve? Will people actually work all day in them, creating content? And why is Apple insisting on forcing the term “Spatial Computing” on the world. I get what they mean, but does that term matter?
You can see what Apple focused on in their launch commercial above. And here is the first real Apple Vision Pro commercial:
Seems a lot like they are aiming for the Newton crowd. Dreamers who have money, like cool stuff, but don’t really have a problem to solve.
We all know that the first mobile phones were targeted to that same crowd and look how that turned out. Just need another 10-30 years for spatial computing to change the world.