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When Apple introduces a new feature in a keynote presentation, they usually explain it using an admirably consistent three-part structure:
Problem
Solution
How it works
But, for those of us interested in strategy, there’s more to the story. Businesses don’t just do things because they’re good for the consumer. They also do things in order to enhance profitability, accelerate growth, and deepen competitive moats.
I like to imagine that every new feature announced today, when originally pitched to some manager inside Apple, had a fourth standard part of the story:
Strategic rationale
We’re not going to hear about that kind of thing in a WWDC keynote, but it’s there in the background, animating all their decisions. I personally find them quite fun to deduce :)
From this perspective, some features that are really interesting to me as a user turn out to be kind of boring to me as a strategist. And the inverse is true too: some seemingly boring features turn out to be quite important to Apple’s strategy.
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So, without further adieu, let’s roll through the top five most interesting decisions announced today from the strategic perspective.
1. ARM Macs
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“When we make bold changes, it’s for one simple yet powerful reason: so we can make much better products.”
I don’t doubt this is true. But also, it doesn’t hurt that this move gives Apple the ability to bypass Intel’s large profit margins, exert greater control over their own destiny, and consolidate their entire device ecosystem around a unified processor architecture.
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