There’s an odd sentiment among nerds that Steve Jobs (and the fine people at Apple) hate buttons. I have a different theory: they absolutely love buttons.
Would you say to someone, “Wow, you must hate dogs. You only have one. You enjoy his company and playing with him, but seriously, only one? What do you have against dogs?”.
No, you wouldn’t say that. Because it’s a stupid thing to say.
The shallow assumption of Apple’s buttons is they hate buttons, the deeper conclusion is they love the shit out of a few important buttons. I bet they obsess over the placement, color, label, push-back and feel of every single button on every Apple device.
Why is the appropriate and careful use of buttons hateful? Love is shown in quality, not in wanton misuse.
About a week ago, John Gruber linked to an “iPhone Death Watch”. An interesting quote from Steve Ballmer was included; an unusually insightful prediction, and a predictably stupid conclusion.
There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.
His market share prediction seems more-or-less accurate. Two or three percent seems very reasonable since Apple was recently reported to have roughly 2.5% percent of of the worldwide cell phone market. Ballmer, of course, overestimates Windows Mobile (which peaked at 11%). But it’s less interesting Balmer continues to be wrong about Microsoft, and more interesting that he’s absolutely right about Apple.
“They may make a lot of money”. That is the nugget. That’s solid gold. Because now, almost three years from the original iPhone announcement, Apple is murdering everyone else in profit.
What surprises me is how Ballmer shrugs it off. So what if they make all the money in the world? It strikes me that Balmer isn’t stupid, but deely in love with market share. Why not? It’s what propelled Microsoft to fame.