The 90/10 rule- why Apple generates fan loyalty
I had a couple of conversations today where the subject of Apple customer loyalty arose and it made me realize that I have never written about my feelings about that. You find a number of terms bandied about describing those who are big fans of Apple products, from "fanboys" to the "cult", and while these are often used by Apple’s detractors there is little doubt that there is a fair bit of envy behind them. What company wouldn’t love to have a customer base that is so happy with their products that they are recognized as zealots?
When you analyze why many Apple products are so well received anumber of factors come into play. No question sexy product design is afactor as few produce better looking gadgets than Apple. They havelong tapped into the sleek, thin, sexy materials and form factors andno one does this better. Quality components is another factor thatenters into fan dedication as there is a strong reputation for usinggood parts to make their gadgets. Apple is willing to do this as theycan usually command a higher unit price than the competition whichmakes it easier to do. All other factors aside though you have toadmit that Apple has a strong reputation for their products being easyto use. You have no doubt heard this stated as "they just work" orsomething similar but the basis of that reputation is because they maketheir products drop dead simple to use.
This ease of use is because Apple design folks have become masters at following what I refer to as the "90/10 rule"in product design. It doesn’t matter what the device is, the sameprinciple apples to the sophisticated MacBook Air as it does to theiPhone. I have come to understand that the average user spends atleast 90% of his/her time with a gadget using just 10% of itsfeatures. For example on the iPhone the user is making calls orchecking email, maybe surfing the web. While the phone has many otherfeatures and in some cases more sophisticated features these are theones that the Apple design team has determined they spend 90% of theirdevice usage time doing. So they make these 10% features work rightout of the box as intended and very simple for the consumer. They makesure these 10% work as well as possible and without giving the usererrors or problems. So at the end of the day the purchasers of thesegadgets are very happy about the device and tell all their friends.More importantly they also show them how they do those 10% and theirfriends immediately say "ooh, that just works". See how it happens?
The 90/10 rule comes into play in an even bigger way on Applecomputers but the principle is the same. Most consumers spend 90% oftheir time checking email, surfing the web, creating documents or thelike. The sophisticated computers running Leopard can do much, muchmore than that but for the average customer they only rarely doanything else. So Apple makes these things work very simply right outof the box and every time the customer does them. It’s only naturalthat they get the reputation that Leopard works more simply than thecompetition because for the 10% of the most used functions it does.Apple is very smart about figuring out what user functions make up the10% and it shows in how well their products are received.
When you compare competitor’s products to Apple’s in a given genreyou often find those that have more features or offer a better bargainthan Apple’s. Most companies cram as much function as they can in adevice to offer more value to the consumer but Apple proves again andagain that this practice is not necessarily the correct tactic togenerate customer loyalty. Often the competitor’s product with morefeatures is harder to use or it takes a while for the user to figureout how to get things to work right out of the box. When that happensthey’ve already lost to Apple because the Apple designers are smarterthan that. Apple products fire up right out of the box and performthose 10% tasks from the get go and the out of box experience (OOBE) istop notch. This means Apple customers are satisfied from day one andnot frustrated as competitor’s customers often are. Technologyproducers would be very wise to pay attention to the 90/10 rule with new products. It can make or break a product’s reception and go a long way to welcoming the customers to the cult.
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In April 1991 I wrote an article making this point to demonstrate why Microsoft Word was far better than WordPerfect. It would be nice to be able to make more such points about Microsoft today.
i think a word like annoyance is more fitting then envy, but thats very much imo…
@Mickey: I think Office 2007 fits into that category. Each time I use Word, Excel, etc. I’m amazed at the improvement.
@turn.self.off: That’s was my first thought too.
James, I appreciate that you like your Mac and Apple have undoubtedly made some good design and marketing decisions lately but I don’t think it’s necessary to describe their computers as sophisticated again and again. At the end of the day they have just as many flaws as any other PC.
I think with the iPhone, the 90/10 rule is reversed in one way: People can actually access *90%* of the phone’s features! Aside from the 3 things you mention, they can also easily get weather, maps, YouTube, buy music, and take pictures. Each one of these is incredible easy to do.
One of the 10% of the puzzlement is apparently clearing the Safari browser. This has been a popular search term that led people to my blog, so I even had to do a post about it! (Perhaps in the next revision, Apple will include a Reset Safari option up front, as they do with the desktop version!)
All hail the church of apple.
Speaking as a guy who’s bought two Macbooks, five MacMinis, two G5s, a couple of ipods, and and two iphones, let me just point out that this is largely a load of crap. Apple does some things really well, such as industrial design (though the G5s were stupidly big), and some of their UI is fantastic (ipod and Final Cut Pro). In my opinion, their biggest win is that they control the ecosystem so they can provide a better integrated experience.
But just works? Check out their support forums some time. They have many, many problems with a lot of their software. I remember when Tiger came out and broke printing on my mother in law’s Mac. That required a format and a reinstall to fix. I’ve had numerous Macs break on me (audio glitches, drives fail and replacement drives not fit, mysteriously loud fans, etc., and their stuff is insanely expensive to fix.
As for a simpler operating system, I’ve moved five different family members (none of who lived under the same roof) to the Mac a few years ago. All but one went back to Windows because the computer wasn’t friendlier for them. Some of that is undoubtedly that whatever you already know is the simplest system, but some of them had no real knowledge of how Windows worked. Only one of them is still on the Mac and happy.
I have nothing bad to say about Apple, until someone starts talking about how intrinsically better they are. That’s what gets me aggravated, because they’re more different than better. They have their own host of problems and issues, but Apple people never talk about them.
Why did I get so much Apple equipment if I’m not blown away by them? I thought the iseries of apps was really compelling for a while, and Final Cut Studio is the finest application I ever use. That seems like genius to me. The Apple OS? Meh.
@Jake: I agree about Office 2007. I like the design better than Office 2003; I just hardly use Office any more so I don’t think about it. Also Office 2007 is very different from Office 2003, which requires some learning, but for someone new, Office 2007 seems much better.
It was odd that Office 2007 and Internet Explorer 7 came out at the same time, and Office 2007 was so good and IE7 was so terrible. I never figured out why there was such a difference but wondered if Bill Gates as very involved with one of them or if the IE7 project was driven into madness by competitive fears.
The market has spoken…36% rise in profits in what is normally the quiet quarter for Apple sales.
Great take. just switched to Vista of all things from Leopard for home use. I wanted a tablet and Apple doesn’t.
But at work we use Macs still and it struck me how much more fluid and productive OSX can be with core tasks. it gets in the way far less.
But at the end of the day I enjoy a good game and exploring the tablet interface, so it all evens out.
I’m glad we have such choice, even if both are imperfect.
I just purchased my first Mac and I gotta say that I am underwhelmed. I am a long time PC user and computer consultant and have received more and more requests from clients about Mac related issues. This coupled with the unending tide of MS/Vista bashing from both apple users and the press made it prudent for me to start familiarizing myself with the OS and the hardware.
After a month of daily use I am scratching my head trying to figure out when that Mac euphoria will over take me. OS X and the mac are supposed to be vastly superior to any PC operating system. The “it simply works” philosophy should make simple computer tasks like browsing, word processing and and communication a simpler and better experience. It just isn’t so.
The Macs are good computers with decent hardware and OSX is a solid OS. But I have already had to do a complete system reinstall (this was done on the recommendation of Apple support after only 2 days of the operation of the machine…and no I wasn’t using time machine) and have had some niggling issues from networking to system lockups that don’t really tell me that the Mac is that much different then any other computer. Vista, for all the criticism it has gotten, is just as reliable for me and most of my customers.
So what is the big deal? Macs and OS X are a good alternative to PC’s and have their strengths. However all the hyperbole that is foisted on them by users just doesn’t pan out in the real world.