Apple for the day

The New York Times has a blog post about Steve Jobs:

When technology companies like Apple and Samsung go to trial, one significant price they must pay is giving up some corporate secrets.
Take a 2010 email written by Steven P. Jobs, the former chief executive of Apple, who died in 2011. Samsung lawyers obtained it as evidence to present to jurors. In the memo, which Jobs prepared for a meeting, he provides an outline that reveals several tidbits about how the secretive Apple ticks.
Here are some lessons learned from it: 

Apple's Elite Club
In the email, Jobs explains the context for the meeting: “primary reason for this Top One Hundred meeting; you will hear about what we’re doing in each presentation.” Here, Jobs confirms a rumor that was previously detailed in Fortune magazine: Apple hosts a top-secret meeting for top employees, referred to as the Top One Hundred. At the meeting, held in undisclosed locations away from Apple’s campus, top executives go over the company’s plans for the coming years. 

Apple's Holy War with Google
Apple executives and people who follow the company have often said that Apple generally does not care what its competitors are doing, and that it releases products when the technology is just right to delight its consumers. But, in the email, Jobs explicitly acknowledges that Apple faces tough competition and is particularly behind Google in Internet services like email and calendars. So he declares 2011 to be a Holy War with Google, the same year Apple’s iCloud was released. 

Apple's product timelineIn his outline, Jobs summarizes hardware for the iPhone 5, which was released in 2012, showing that Apple generally knows what it plans to release at least two years in advance. So while some consumers eagerly anticipate an iPhone 6, which is rumored to be released this year, Apple is probably already busy tinkering with an iPhone 7. 

Apple's Lock-In strategyApple generally offers proprietary software and services that run only on Apple hardware. For example, iMessage is Apple’s free text messaging service offered only for iPhones and iPads. Analysts have called this approach Apple’s “lock-in” strategy to keep customers loyal, a term that has been described as cynical because it has a connotation of imprisonment. But in his email, even Jobs recognizes that Apple’s goal with its cloud services is to “tie all of our products together, so we further lock customers into our ecosystem.” 

Apple's television strategy
Jobs offers some clues about what could be ahead for the Apple TV set-top box. He says Apple’s plan is to “make a great ‘must have’ accessory for iOS devices”, suggesting that the iPhone and iPad could play a stronger role in future versions of the Apple TV (currently devices can be used to stream or remotely control content on the television). He also says Apple wants to form partnerships with content providers like NBC and CBS.
Though this note about the Apple TV is vague, it is more modest than what Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, in the book Steve Jobs. He said he wanted to make a television set with an extremely simple user interface that would synchronize with multiple devices and iCloud. “I finally cracked it,” he said.

Rico says the guy had a great mind; too bad he's gone...