Perhaps iPhone is not from a different planet anymore

This is not the first time that a CEO is working without Steve Jobs at Apple, but after John Sculley, Tim Cook is the first person to stretch it for about 6 years. So many things have changed in Apple during this period, but Apple is one of the very few companies that has not deviated from its core value.

Doing the best product on the planet and making the world a better place

The best example of this (Apple following its core values) is Apple’s primary selling product, the iPhone. Even after 10 years after its introduction into mobile market, iPhone is still the best phone anyone can get in the market (for almost everyone). The sole credit of iPhone goes to the design of the phone. Here is where a famous quote from the founder of Apple strikes the mind:

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

It would not be wrong to say that Apple’s boundaries are defined by the efforts they spend in design. Design constitutes to a larger part of Apple’s product cycle.

After Steve Jobs, the design sense of Apple is primarily decided by its Chief Design Officer, Jonathan Ive. Jony (Ive) has played a crucial role in Apple during the period of Steve Jobs. He was responsible for implementing one of the best designs for Apple’s products (design of iMac and human interfaces for example). It is quite odd for him to design a few worst products (such as the wireless mouse which can not be used while charging or the Apple Pencil, which requires an iPad for charging).

The world has not seen anything revolutionary from Jony Ive in the recent past.

Though Apple has not revolutionized anything under Tim Cook’s administration, it is still deciding where future technology should move, which we have already discussed in our previous article. The sole reason why Apple has the upper hand in the market is because of iPhone. iPhone is the only product, which has bettered all its previous releases and earned considerable profits to the company (almost 67% of Apple’s profits come from iPhone).

Apple runs on iPhone.

The question of how Apple could make iPhone successful even when other products are failing lies on a fact told by one of Apple’s liaison officer that Steve Jobs had worked on iPhone 5 (and probably 5s and 6). When it comes to iPhone 7, there has not been much of a change in its design from its predecessors, it can also taken as a product, which has arrived from Steve Jobs’ ideas and intuitions (remember the quote about design).

His ideas remain even after years of his death, for he has remained the greatest visionary at his time.

So, the next iPhone is possibly the first phone made by Apple, without Steve Jobs’ intuitions in it (except that the launch event is gonna take place at Steve Jobs theater for the first time). Tim Cook is gonna face his toughest challenge. He is completely on his own while releasing the new version of the product, which is the major profit generator for the company as mentioned earlier.

Since Apple is missing its touch in design recently, next iPhone is probably the deciding factor of Apple’s future. As the goal of most tech giants is to defeat Apple in the market, their future is also dependent on the next iPhone. One day if they wake up and find that Apple is no more the best in innovations, there will be nothing more in the world to motivate them to do things better.

It is also quite bizarre that Tim Cook has sold all his new shares (worth $43 million) from his annual stock award recently.

If the iPhone failed, Apple will not be the most trusted brand next year. If Apple is not the most valuable company anymore, the future will really be different from what we’re imagining now.