And if you think that´s silly do realize that Nike makes watches, has apps and produces interactive videos
My #Imagine series is intended to just ask some questions. Your collective comments will be the answer and the real value of every post. Just use your #imagination and feed the G+ beast with your creativity and intelligence.
disclaimer: as with all G+ initiatives this will probably be soon forgotten, but let´s #Imagine your input makes me put up new questions #SocMed
if you got a notification and don´t want to receive them for future #Imagine questions, just plus this comment and you´re out.
Hold it I already plussed it damn't
That doesn't mean I want out.
If you didn´t get a notification but would like to see more of the #Imagine series, plus this one.
I promise they will cover every conceivable (at least by me 🙂 area so it´s not restricted to this example post.
Apple making shoes?
Okay.
So pure trainers are out.
Pure shoes are out.
We'd be looking at something that looks sleek, efficient, classy … but performs well.
So I'm picturing a sort of hush-puppy upper and trainer soles – but thin/fine soles that permit more "feel".
Would they use leather uppers – or go for some sort of fancy material (leathers great – but doesn't "stretch" or "flex" as well as some non-natural textiles).
There's likely be tiny details … not huge patches or bright swatches of colour – but same-colour or highly similar, or possibly tiny details with a bright bit of colour?
Laces? Velcro? Elastic? Innovative auto-tighten as you slip your footin? Maybe "close" at the heel rather than tighten at the front?
That any good?
BlackBerry belt buckles.
Exactly how I hoped this would work out +Lyndon NA
So glad – I aim to please 😀
(fun excercise actually – and goes to show a lot of what people think of a "brand")
Apple can make iShoes, shoes with some smart engine in them without destroying hard won brand equity. If you read Jim Stengel's GROW he talks of how a brand is aligned against 5 Brand Ideals:
Elicit Joy
Enable Connection
Evoke Pride
Inspire Exploration
Impact Society (Change The World)
Apple's brand is heavily weighted in exploration and impact society, so as long as shoes did those things Apple could make shoes. Just to make shoes is suicide since without connection to what makes Apple APPLE they would fail and pull down the rest of the brand.
Who would have thought Apple could change PHONES as completely as they have. Shoes could be next if shoes were SMART, capable and consistent with Apple's other positioning.
They're selling an awful lot of other Apple accesoires, so why not shoes. They could even sell a lot of it if they hype it up or link it with their other products somehow, like location tracker for instance.
Shoes made in China, designed in California, expensive, basic materials but new combinations and functionality.
Stylish, minimalistic, one model fits all. Maybe even one size fits all as there is a material which can be shrinked in the Apple shop (already used by Nike I believe).
They would keep track of your steps and communicate with your Apple wristband to inform you on mileage made and calories burnt or would that be too Android?
Multi-layer coatings like cars already have so that the shoes adopt to the environment and the light. Kinetic energy storage to get some spring back in to your step based on the energy produced by landing?
perfect contribution +Martin W. Smith broadens it.
Max, yes you are on it. iShoe has to rock something DIFFERENT and APPLE-like to fit, but you just made it fit.
The iShoe would be brilliant if all Apple shoes were produced cheaply, one size, made out of adaptive material (called iFit) that simply shrank down to your shoe size when you put them on and had a permanent memory after that, retaining the size.
Obviously the low-cost production would in no way reflect the premium selling price. 🙂
I think +Max Huijgen is talking about actual innovation and +Martin W. Smith more about marketing efforts, as in selling the perceived extra value of Apple, which of course is mostly air.
No, no +Marc Roelofs I hope to stimulate the collective creativity on G+. Or better, to tap into it as it already exists.
Every angle is fine and the synergy of the comments is the value.
And after the succes of Nike-Air´s we can´t dismiss the value of adding Apple air to shoes.
+Max Huijgen Nope. Bluetooth link it to the iWatch and you also have a health and fitness monitor.
LOL, Marc makes a point, but oh what valuable AIR. Apple, like all brands, forms a BELIEF SYSTEM. Faith Popcorn says we JOIN brands we don't BUY them and I see that dimension with Apple. You are either part of the cult or you are not. If you are your belief system is complete and self reinforcing. If you are NOT the opposite is the case (as it apparently is for Marc :).
I was IN and now I am OUT. My connection was Jobs as cancer survivor, Jobs as mystic innovator. I purchased the Apple II and the ability to pop that top off and play inside made me fearless and triggered my EXPLORE button HARD.
This was in 1982 or so when I had to defend time spent on the computer. I remember my boss saying the impression with the higher ups was I was "playing" and as long as I did so on my own time they were fine with it.
Two years from that statement I was promoted to Project Manager on the first laptop based sales information system in consumer products and my "play" instinct was set forever and the ROI of that play has to now be above a million bucks.
I don't give a good HOOT about money, one of the few advantages and lessons of having the big C, but the way the Apple II changed my life's journey can't be repaid or fully appreciated. Those kinds of memories live with a person :). Guess that means I buy iShoes with iFit the first chance I get Marc sorry :). M
I didn´t want to ´overdo´ my initial question, but I´m very aware that in 2005 I could have written #Imagine Apple would make phones. Any chance on success? +Martin W. Smith
+Max Huijgen In 2004 we did a consulting project for a client as part of our MBA course. Apple already had the click wheel iPod at that time and Steve Jobs had emphatically denied making one that could playback video.
Anyway as part of our project we were trying to forecast what would be the ways a business could market its products services in the future. One of the things I forecast is that Apple will create a device that will act as an MP3 player, PDA and phone all rolled into one.
A year later while interviewing with Google, they asked what one product would you like to make here. I said voice search.
That's right and I think you've tapped into some of the GOLD of creating a meaningful brand. More than just an organic shorthand brands outline the possible. Here you and +David Amerland have, in minutes, extended Apple into shoes. The ability to do such an extension so effortlessly speaks to the strength of the core brand.
When we know the core as well as we do with an Apple or a M&M's extensions within certain groupings are easy. M&M's shoes would be harder unless they were chocolate and no matter HOW GOOD someone told me they taste I am not sure I am ever going there (lol).
When I was at Mars the big battle was over extension into seasonal. Now that might seem an obvious extension, but the Mars family didn't want to do something where they were #2 and Hershey and Brachs (remember them) owned the high ground on seasonal candy.
Took a brave marketing champion named Kevin Martin and his boss J. Langdon to sell what would quickly become a $50M idea (and I bet many multiples of that now). Extension takes guts and can be done WRONG very easily.
Put me down for a pair of iShoes though. M
+Debashish Samaddar do you happen to know tomorrow's Lottery numbers? 🙂
Or on a similar train of thought #Imagine that the king of tweakers aka the manufacturers of the Apple II would release a closed all-in-one system? (yes it was the Lisa, but no the Mac changed their image, still hard to predict)
And voila! Out of thin air +Max Huijgen creates a thread of value. You gotta love G+. Brilliant additions +Martin W. Smith!
+Martin W. Smith the death of the core busines…
I think you can close the system once the brand is established, but to have done so in 1982 would have been hubris to the point of extinction. All those "Home Brew" guys would have run for the doors and they were the early adopters back in the day.
That Apple so effortlessly crossed Moore's Chasm is due to the fact you didn't have to pop the top to get Woz's genius to actually work so you killed two birds with a single marketing move.
The world changed a lot when Apple began closing things. Now the developer ecosystem is the "pop the top" crowd and apps are about to rule everything (can tell from the way my Air is already focused in that direction).
Timing is everything and Woz would have killed Jobs if he closed the II. I am glad they didn't, but who has the time to play like that now? Now we play like that with TOOLS and SaaSes trying to find the five minute lead needed to thrive.
You´re usually right +David Amerland but nope I didn´t create this out of thin air. I´m tapping into the thick air of G+ which is the intention of this series.
Makes me think I need to add a "Magic of Real Time Q&A" to this piece: http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/the-seo-magic-of-questions-and-answers/ with attribution to Max :).
I had a fierce argument with Steve Jobs about the release of the closed architecture, but boy was I wrong.
Oh, for at least twenty years i was right so i´m still not convinced that it was a sensible decision at that time but the death of the customizable PC is imminent.
There is some solace in the fact that Apple wouldn´t have survived without some luck, some needed support by Microsoft to keep the anti-trust guys at bay and some early access in DTP.
Nevertheless they were close to death for the so maniest time until they released the iDevices.
+Debashish Samaddar great comment and an interesting profile. To what kind of circle do you want to be added? Thinkers, Techies, Philosophical, Marketing/SEO, or ´other´ as I have at least 50 circles 🙂
Max, TOO COOL to have had a fierce argument with SJ. That puts you in good company and I will envy your forever (lol).
I suspect he would have reduced me to rubble in nothing flat. I bet he (SJ) would have pulled things out of me I never knew were there.
Some places require a lion tamer to tap (at least for me), a lion tamer or the right kind of competition. Realize this means I an not very evolved :). Working on it. M
BTW, Max the @ScentTrail tweet is me. Marty
Now to contribute to the original question. With all due respect to all those who have enthusiastically said yes, I say, no, it wouldn't. In fact I don't think Apple will survive past this decade at all.
One of the things we examined once, in great detail, was Apple's strategy. It was similar to the Allied troop movement in WWII after D-Day. There was a two-pronged approach. One was to claim new ground (or reclaim old ground if you will), and the other was to bolster the already claimed territory. New products launched at regular intervals claimed new ground while updates to existing lines of product bolstered existing territory. iPod, iPod Mini, iPod Nano, Mac Mini, iPhone etc. That forward motion has been stalled for quite some time now. And with Steve Jobs gone I doubt it's going to come back. The man was mean, but he was one unique innovator.
Shoes are a very different kind of product that is not only about coolness but also about fit and comfort. No one thinks of wearable comfort for a computer (yet). In order to tap into this market Apple will have to rely (very) heavily on an already established shoe manufacturer, cut deals with them, adapt to their requests and needs, perhaps even open up their closely guarded secrets. None of this is how Apple operates. If they tried, they will make a mess of it.
+Max Huijgen Thank you for the kind words. Thinkers and/or Philosophical I think. I have done my time with tech (and marketing, but not SEO). Now I am mostly an observer and occasional partaker. My priorities have changed.
I've seen the chinks and let downs +Debashish Samaddar mentions in Apple's immediate past. The new iPad ad is shrill and I've noticed a real "thing" orientation emerging in their marketing.
I wrote a piece not long ago about how PEOPLE not things sell. I wrote the piece for startups because they are always so in love with their toys they don't realize investors are buying THEM.
I counted the number of people in an Apple iPad ad and it was over 30. Now the toy seems to be center stage and that is a mistake since EXPLORATION and Impacting Society (Changing the World) are where Apple needs to live. Another way of saying that is Apple used to be about OUR aspirations and lately it feels like the toy is both means and end. Good comment Debashish. Marty
You just described the recent failure of Apple to get into the TV market +Debashish Samaddar Deals with content providers were needed and Apple can´t. Same reason Apple is not on the Chinese phone market. They need to cut a deal with the main provider and they just can´t.
It´s not Steve Jobs, if anything Tim Cooke is better in appeasing others. It´s the old, going alone mentality, which is very much Steve Jobs which is the problem.
+Martin W. Smith Indeed. I have happened to meet many VCs, early stage investors, advisors and they've always said that they don't look at the product, they look at the team. When they get a business plan they first turn to the page that lists the people. My favorite professor in grad school was another Marty. Marty Anderson. Brilliant guy. Wonder if he is on g+. His mind is a gold mine!
Of course like all Apple products they can't get the battery to last more than 2 days
How about square shoes with rounded corners? 🙂
On a serious note (as much as we can be serious with iShoes), here are some ideas:
– just like rumored iWatch, shoes could be a part of wearable computer apparel.
– some of the features:
— transform kinetic and heat energy into electrical thus charging devices
— magnetic surface for walking on the handrails
— apps that assist in sports, dancing and anything else that requires precise motion thanks to various built-in metering devices
— adjustable grip – from soccer to gliding.
— tracking (of children for example)
— adjustable/expandable sole so as to transform into flippers
— health monitoring
— stimulation of various reflex points on feet
— automatic tweets for every step made, place visited and butt kicked ('oh! My baby made his/her first step')
— make music with your feet (probably in a form of an app)
– so basically, not just one size fits all but one pair fits all purposes.
– and/or then there could be millions of accessories that you can attach to the shoes: flippers, blades, flashy lights, sound generator.
Apple did have a patent published about a month ago for a sensor in shoes that would tell you when they've worn out:
SHOE WEAR-OUT SENSOR, BODY-BAR SENSING SYSTEM, UNITLESS ACTIVITY ASSESSMENT AND ASSOCIATED METHODS
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220130021152%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20130021152&RS=DN/20130021152
The iShoe might not be too far-fetched an idea. Would love to see a way of having them generate their own electricity as well. Having to jog or sprint or dance to repower your shoes sounds like a good idea to me.
If anyone knows about Apple's patents it is +Bill Slawski or AKA the Amazing Patent Man.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392678,00.asp
+Max Huijgen Thanks for the corroboration. I hadn't followed Apple TV. I gave up on Apple when they stopped innovating and started litigating. Exactly the route RIM followed and now they are irrelevant.
I agree that Steve Jobs was the go it alone kind. But he also had extraordinary negotiating skills. I don't know if Tim Cook has that. The primary difference between Jobs and Cook is that Jobs was an entrepreneur, Cook is a manager. The difference in mindsets between those two types is like day and night. And despite Jobs' idiosyncrasies, his vision and innovative nature helped Apple move ahead. Now they are stuck with the ego but they don't have the vision.
Yes it could happen and people would probably love it because Apple users often show great devotion to Apple. +Max Huijgen what does your disclaimer mean?
The iShoe would have to exist on the concept of one size fits all. It would look and feel nice, and may track your steps. Don't get lost in its mapping system. And pray nothing ever goes wrong in the interface between the iShoe and Google Glasses.
+Angyl Bender I wasn´t even aware of these extremely rare Nikes.
+Singularity Utopia the disclaimer is just a reality check. Lots of projects are started on G+, but most of them don´t get traction.
Based on this exchange I´m happy with the result so I will certainly try a second ´installment´
Yes Apple could do shoes:
– It will be a new take on what footwear means, not just a pair of shoes
– In the context of wearable computers/sensors and the quantative self.
– As an accessory for energy generation
– In tandem with developing a novel kind of floorsurface in their new circular office. Those shoes would provide different levels of grip by varying friction for instance. You could skate through long corridors and still have grip or sticture when needed.
– As a tribute to Steve Jobs in order to improve on his trademark grey New Balance sneakers
No they won’t do shoes:
– More about physics than computing
– More about materials than computing
– Loss of focus (Apple woud need to clone itself into many smaller differently focussed companies)
– Good shoes are available, not all of them suck (like mobile phones used to)
– You can sense where you are and how many steps you take through other sensing techniques.
– It will be very hard to catch up with Nike
http://m.technobuffalo.com//2013/03/13/google-talking-shoe-concept/