Ex-Apple and now venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki writes for CNN: “What I learned from Steve Jobs“. There’s some great stuff in there, which should be required reading for anyone in product design, sales, marketing and even journalism.

If you ask customers what they want, they will tell you, “Better, faster, and cheaper”—that is, better sameness, not revolutionary change. They can describe their desires only in terms of what they are already using—around the time of the introduction of Macintosh, all that people said they wanted was a better, faster, and cheaper MS-DOS machine. The richest vein for tech startups is creating the product that you want to use—that’s what Steve and Woz did.

This is the one that almost no companies understand. They’re too scared to create something they really want to use, and they focus-test everything to death. But focus testing often results in safe decisions and mediocrity. You can see it in high-profile tech right now, with Metro being welded to Windows 8, rather than Microsoft making a braver move; but you see it everywhere in media, too, with most games, television shows and movies being tiny incremental steps, more or less copying what already exists.

Take a look at Steve’s slides. The font is 60 points. There’s usually one big screenshot or graphic. Look at other tech speaker’s slides—even the ones who have seen Steve in action. The font is 8 points, and there are no graphics. So many people say that Steve was the world’s greatest product introduction guy. Don’t you wonder why more people don’t copy his style?

This goes for more than just presentations: it’s about communication and clarity in a more general sense. Plenty of print and web design doesn’t follow this mantra—there’s a desire to try to get too much information over, which overwhelms the readers. Stick to what’s important and make it clear. If someone wants more detail, they can always ask you.

Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence. When Apple first shipped the iPhone there was no such thing as apps. Apps, Steve decreed, were a bad thing because you never know what they could be doing to your phone. Safari Web apps were the way to go until six months later when Steve decided, or someone convinced him, that apps were the way to go—but of course. Duh! Apple came a long way in a short time from Safari Web apps to “there’s an app for that.”

The problem with changing your mind is that too many people consider it a sign of weakness. This is most common in politics: politicians will run with the most bone-headed idea, because otherwise the press will be on at them for weeks about a “humiliating U-turn”. And the same sometimes happens in tech, too. The reality, as Kawasaki says, is that you can often think you’ve got it right, but experience states otherwise. I’d argue stronger people are willing to admit they got something wrong, not weaker ones. People who fix problems are strong; people who ignore them are idiots.

CNN:

Steve Jobs, the visionary in the black turtleneck who co-founded Apple in a Silicon Valley garage, built it into the world’s leading tech company and led a mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone, died Wednesday. He was 56.

Apple’s statement:

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

Rest in peace, Steve. You will be missed.

Charles Arthur rounds up analyst responses to the iPhone 4S and iCloud. As you might expect, it’s a mix of sensible, rational objectivity and quite a lot of crap.

CK Lu, Gartner:

Apple no longer has a leading edge – its cloud service is even behind (Google’s mobile operating system) Android

It is? The seamless integration and back-up of iOS and OS X data doesn’t seem behind Android’s equivalent cloud services, nor do the media-oriented options (at least in the USA), although they’re not really ahead either—just different.

it can only sell on brand loyalty now.

And not, say, build quality of the devices, usability, and the fact iOS has way more useful apps…

Users may wait to buy the next iPhone; if they can’t wait, they may shift to brands with more advanced specifications.

I’m at a loss to see how the iPhone 4S is particularly underspecced. On Twitter, wireless charging was the one thing a few people complained to me about it lacking, but that’s hardly commonplace in competing systems. Other than that, you’re into specification willy-waving about things the mass market rarely cares about.

 

Thomas Husson, European consumer mobile analyst, Forrester Research:

Apple’s product strategists have opted to satisfy the premium position with an iPhone 4S that, like the 3GS at its introduction, relies on improved processing power and a new interaction paradigm, but eschews technology upgrades that their Android competitors rely upon today such as LTE and a larger screen.

LTE isn’t fully baked yet, and kills battery life, so Apple’s gone for compromise here. A larger screen would reduce the resolution and make the iPhone worse, not better.

Apple’s new Siri Assistant, unique to the new 4S, is a powerful harbinger of the future use of mobile devices [but] consumers will be much more slow to adopt this new interface than they did Apple’s revolutionary touchscreen of its first iPhone.

I think this is a given and Husson’s is a smart, balanced, rational viewpoint. It’s almost like he’s done some actual analysis, rather than spewing out bile.

 

Richard Windsor, Nomura Securities

[The iPhone 4S] is [not] likely to keep the Android community up at night and we suspect that even Nokia may be sighing a breath of relief …

Yes, because it’s not like Apple’s just improved what was already the USA’s number-one selling smartphone, and made the number-two one free on contract. Otherwise companies like Nokia would be bricking it right about now. [SUB: PLEASE FACT CHECK].

After weeks of fevered speculation about a low-end model and multiple SKUs [stock-keeping units] of a new iPhone, very little has come to pass explaining the 3% decline in the share price, making the total intraday swing of 5%.

That would be the share drop Apple gets after every single event of this sort, yes? And, man, Apple not returning to the bad old days of making its product line over complicated? THE IDIOTS!

We think that a low-end iPhone would be highly detrimental to the proposition of Android, but this time around it has been spared.

Ignoring the free-on-contract iPhone 3GS, clearly.

Hence we remain comfortable with our choice of the Asian Android vendors as the best way to invest in the smartphone market: we have ‘Buy’ ratings on HTC, Samsung, ZTE and TCL.

That’s right: you back those innovators! Let’s return in a year and see how well AAPL has done compared to those guys, shall we?

 

Francisco Jeronimo, IDC European Mobile Devices research manager:

The new prices announced to the new iPhone4S and previous iPhone versions allow Apple to compete in the price segments where Android is fiercely growing, the mid-range.

Jeronimo gets it. Apple is no longer the absolute high-end across its consumer range. It’s not cheap, but it’s increasingly grabbing the mid-range, and the new iPhone line-up and pricing structure can assist with this.

Apple will attract first-time smartphone users and users from mid-price Symbian devices looking for an upgrade, but will it attract current iPhone users to replace their current iPhone’s? Definitely not!

I agree. Few iPhone 4 owners will upgrade, but I bet a lot of iPhone 3G/GS owners will. Additionally, the point Cook made in the event was important: the smartphone industry has tons of growth yet: it’ll be a long time before we hit saturation, with sales mostly coming from upgrades.

In the previous announcements, Apple implemented significant software and hardware changes able to seduce users to get the latest version, but this is not the case with the iPhone 4S.

Ah. Maybe Jeronimo doesn’t entirely get it after all. No significant software upgrades? Did you ignore iOS 5 entirely? Hardware… fair enough, assuming you avoid mentioning the A5 chip, improved camera and ‘fixed’ antenna. And, also, the fact the new guts enable two of the best features of the new softweare: Siri and AirPlay mirroring.

Without a significant hardware differentiation there’s no strong incentive for a massive replacement, as users can just upgrade their iPhone 4s with the new iOS 5.

I’d say this is a good thing. Do we really want to be binning devices every year? Is that sustainable? I feel bad enough that I’ll be ditching my iPhone 3GS for an iPhone 4S, but maybe that’s just me. More importantly, though, that iPhone 4 owners can get most of the new features is great, because it shows Apple doesn’t immediately forget about you once you’ve bought a device (unlike many Android vendors), and it shows that if you do splash out, your device will likely be usable for several years to come and, about once a year, feel almost brand-new, for free.

 

Frank Gillett, cloud analyst, Forrester Research

Apple’s iCloud is an important new software platform and service that will integrate Apple’s customer experiences across their iPhone, iPad, and Mac products. This first version creates a personal cloud experience of the individual’s work, personal, and purchased content being seamlessly available across all their Apple products, in contrast to the fragmented experience of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Next on Fox: Gillett vs. Lu ‘Who is right about these cloud services anyway?’ punch-up.

I believe the Siri Assistant feature is the beginning of a new user experience built around context that will eventually create a much more personal, intimate experience for using all of Apple’s mobile and Mac products. Both of these offerings will have enduring impact beyond the latest model of the iPhone.

Long game vs. short-termism. It’s clear Apple’s been, since Jobs’s return, laying groundwork for years. It’s into slow development and user experience, not quick fixes and knee-jerk reactions to current trends. You get the tech when it’s solid and ready, not before.

Lost among the noise of the Apple event and subsequent online whinefest by idiot tech hacks was the gem you see when you scroll down to ‘more features‘ on Apple’s iOS 5 features page:

AirPlay now supports video mirroring. Which means you can wirelessly — and securely — stream whatever’s on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S to your HDTV via Apple TV. Everyone in the room sees exactly what’s on your iPad or iPhone display up on the big screen — even when you rotate your device from portrait to landscape or zoom in and out.

For some people, this won’t make any odds, but for me, this is fantastic. It not only enables me to get mirroring over AirPlay without buying an iPad 2 (hello, iPad 3 instead!), but it shows Apple’s moving ahead with this technology, for any devices that have the relevant clout. This is particularly good news for gaming. By next year, Apple’s iPods will have A5 chips, meaning all current-gen iOS products will have AirPlay mirroring with an Apple TV. This has the potential to revolutionise Apple’s ‘hobby’ device, not least in the field of gaming.

I’ve written about the movie industry in the past. Like the TV industry, these guys are living in the 1990s, when it became immensely profitable to sell slightly different types of physical media every few years. It was like a bath of money they could roll around in, safe in the knowledge warm, new money would continue to flow. As long as some exciting ‘extras’ could be found to get idiots to rebuy the same material time and time again, obviously.

Now we have digital. Digital is great. Digital enables you to cut through the crap and get to the content. You get a movie. What you don’t get: a non-skippable ten-second studio logo; a non-skippable card saying that the opinions of the people banging on in the commentary don’t necessarily overlap with those of the studio’s idiot legal department; possible skippable adverts, to try and get you to buy barely relevant films the studio has also released; and tedious animated menus that take ages to run. If you’re really lucky, you’ll also get an anti-piracy warning, telling you in the most patronising manner possible that you shouldn’t copy the movie you’ve just paid good money for, you almost-thief, you.

With digital, you don’t get any of this, and, essentially, there are just two forms of digital:

• Stuff you pay for.
• Stuff you don’t pay for.

That’s it. There is nothing else. So it showcases the idiocy in the industry that Mike Lang, CEO at Miramax, is now suggesting Apple is a bigger threat to the movie industry than piracy. (Sources: Music Ally and Rapid TV News.) That would be the same Apple that’s managed to convince people to buy music rather than download it and, through iTunes Match, has even managed to monetise dodgy downloads. But, no, Apple isn’t smart: it’s a threat.

Apple is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can’t then influence, packaging, merchandising… all the things that are vital

Packaging: vital? Really? Newsflash: very few people care about packaging. What people want is content, at an affordable price, and when they want it, preferably in several formats. Instead, you guys are withholding your content from certain services and cutting deals with others. You’re removing rentals after a few months, to force people to buy movies (whereupon many people just think “sod it” and download them from torrent sites instead). YOU are the guys creating the lock-in, not Apple. YOU are the ones screwing up competition, not Apple.

We want multiple players to be successful… It’s really important as an industry that we try to allow multiple players in markets around the world… Our goal as an industry should be to have as many as possible, and may the best service win.

The point isn’t that one service will ‘win’, but that by being more open with your content, every service will ‘win’, and so, too, will the consumers.

Still, Lang does at least acknowledge the industry’s biggest blunders:

Piracy really is not the bigger issue for our company or for our library. It’s been lack of exploitation, just not getting it out there.

Quite. But to then suggest Apple’s the main culprit in terms of restricting competition is absurd—it’s the studios. And the same goes for TV shows. Make your content available and affordable in a timely manner and for as long as people want it and they will buy it. That’s all you need to do, bar realising that the disc era of media consumption was a blip that you’re never, ever going to see again.

Update: Stuart Dredge provides a liveblog on the event, suggesting Lang does understand the arguments. A particularly good quote:

When consumers tell you what they want, figure out a way to give it to them, because they will figure out a way to get it.

But worrying about Apple in this industry is a hiding to nothing. Let Apple sell and rent your content and everyone else too. Don’t yoink movies because you can make more money from a shiny disc no-one wants.