What does this?
What is this the culmination of what does this represent?
you know we we opened our first retail apple retail store five years ago today, and
It was in California, California and one in
Virginia I think and
we felt very strongly that we could provide just an exceptional buying experience for our customers and
So we not only sold computers
But we had things in these stores like genius bars where there were math geniuses to help you with problems and if you had you
Know even even problems with other products in her own and that formulas really worked and we've now got
147 stores
including one in in lower Manhattan here and
what this represents really is a
Strategy that said we're not just going to sell products. We're going to help our customers, and we're going to help customers
using windows which is sort of an inferior product move up to a mac and we're going to show how much better it is and
That that worked and it worked so well that we could open up a store right here on Fifth Avenue
a pretty big store and know that it's it's going to be packed with customers and
Half the computers we sell in our stores
Now are really are the people that have never owned a Mac before their windows customers switching to a mac
Almost 50% and so it really says that that some of those ideas were they worked and and now we can
we can implement them in an even larger way here in the you know the
Heart of the United States you realize you're taking a risk on an antiquated notion of service
We we don't do that anymore in the United States suite
We got out of service you think people are ready to have service revived
Well, you know you don't need service if you're not innovating if you're doing the same thing that you did five years ago
Then maybe you don't need as much service and a lot of our competitors don't innovate so much
But we do and and we like to bring people the latest stuff where you can really put your whole digital life on your computer
You know you can make films in your computer, you can
Make blogs and podcasts on your computer a lot of people don't know what a blog or a podcast
Is and so they can come to an apple store and find out what what all this?
Excitement is about and learn how to do it themselves if they want to
They can learn how to video conference with their kids or their grandkids
You know stuff like that and so as the technology keeps moving and lets us do more and more
We want bring customers with that you know with us and and not just
Leave them using stuff that they could do five years ago
But not the stuff that's been invented since then you know the downside of innovation the rap on it is
The minute you buy an iPod you got to get the newest iPod and is there is there a truth to that?
Well, you know yeah, there is
You keep on innovating keep on making better stuff
And if you always want the latest and greatest then you have to buy a new iPod at least once a year
But you know you a lot of our customers buy one every two years
maybe the courts if they buy one and they hand it down to their kids and
What we've gotten them down to where they're not too expensive
Well, you know where's the point where you'll be happy how much of our lives should we be carrying around on our computers?
Well it depends what you want to do
What's what's exciting? Is that this technology? That looked like it was getting stale
maybe you know five six years ago has really taken off again and
Young people especially are doing some pretty amazing things with it
Will it ever well your technology ever merge and come back around with what we have today?
what I mean is
If an iPod got live audio signals, we'd have to call it a radio and if your video ipods ever get live
Television signals that's what we're going to have to call them is it ever going to come full circle in one technological box?
There's a lot of technology in search of a customer. You know in other words a lot of companies do things because it's technically possible
but in the end
nobody Cares nobody wants to buy them and
So we see a lot of that technology in search of a customer
I think the hard thing is to figure out what can be done, but also what people really want to do
So what we found is an example in ipods is most of our customers
Don't care about having a radio built into their iPod as a matter of fact
The reason they got an iPod is because they don't want some DJ in a radio station determining the music
they listen to they want to determine it themselves they want to build their own playlists, and so that's why they buy an iPod and
So we have a radio feature that you can attach to your iPod now
but most customers don't buy it because they want their own playlists, so
It's a lot easier to come up with technology that people don't want than it is to come up with
Technology that people do want are you the one applying the pressure to the brand name a friend of mine today said?
In today's society we've degraded a lot of things apple is
Elegant it's really what passes for
Elegance in its simplicity and beauty and design in this country does that put inordinate pressure on you to watch that?
Brand like a hawk every day. You know I?
People talk a lot about brands to me a brand is one simple thing and that is
Trust
Your customers trust you and so brands are like bank accounts
You can you can have withdrawals and you can have deposits?
So if a customer has a great experience they buy an iPod, and they love it
That's a deposit into our brand account in their in their mind if they buy something from us and have a bad experience
Then it's a withdrawal and so if we have a good brand
that means that people are trusting us to
Make great products and to give them a great experience, and if something goes wrong to take care of them
And that's what we try to do we focus on the basic stuff like that
We don't we don't spend a lot of time talking about the brand
We spend a lot of time talking about how do we make the best products in the world how do we make the best buying?
Experience in the world if something goes wrong, how do we service a product in 24 hours instead of in a week?
How do we take care of customers and if we do that?
Then customers will have great experiences with our product and our brand will will they'll trust it and we'll have a good brand
But I think people that run around worrying about their brand all day long instead of worrying about their products
Maybe don't get what they want. How do you look at all this?
Obviously with pride, but is this your model t. Is this year space program?
um
Well, you know we've learned a lot. We have a hundred and forty seven stores now
Most of them in the us, but some of them outside, and we've learned a lot about what works for customers
And what doesn't and this is the best store we've ever built
and I think that it's it's the state of the art that we know how to do and
We wanted to express that as well. I think the Cube
is
Extremely state of the art use of glass you know there's no. There's hardly any metal holding it up
It's glass fins holding up glass and some of this glass you know 32
Foot high pieces of glass that were impossible to make two years ago
so it's it's very state of the art and we were really lucky because
You know the largest real estate developer in New York Sakai named Harry Macklowe
and he bought the Gm building a few years ago for a lot of money and
He called us up and he said I want you in my building and we were thinking about putting a store on Fifth Avenue
We said sure we're interested. What do you have in mind? And he said well?
There's this plaza in front of the GM building, and there's some stores underneath the Plaza and why don't you go there?
we said
Subterranean are you crazy?
But then we called him back a day later
we said we got this crazy idea if we could redesign the Plaza make it really nice and
We could put an entrance to our store right in the middle of the plaza to go down into the store
We might be interested, and he said what do you have in mind?
we said well a 32 foot blast Cube and he loved the idea and we got it through the city and
And you know a Few years later here. We are
You uh you really don't like introspection. I know that about you
But I'm going to ask you to be introspective for a moment
where do you fit in the American family of thinkers and inventors when you see a mouse in public when you see a
Click drag garbage pan logo all the things you had a hand in that are part of our daily lives
Where do you put yourself? How do you view yourself and your
achievement
you know I I
Don't I don't really think that way
Try it well
yeah, I'm I'm a private person and when I think of of
the most
Valuable things in my life, and I think in my family
and
When we talk about our work, you know the people I work with in myself
when we finish doing something that we're really proud of
That we want to get on to the next thing
So we're you know what I think if you do something, and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful
Not dwell on it for too long
just
Figure out what's next so while you should be applauded for saying that about your family in a society that doesn't always venerate those things
The fact that you have left us with the tools of our life now
Is not really the most important part of your life you
Know that's for other people to figure out
I'm very lucky I get to work with a group of extremely talented people and
You know we're racing ahead. We've got some really great ideas of the products
We're going to build next year in the year after that. We're working real hard on. Where is so I think that's our
Focal length is you know it's always forward
