Apple’s possible product paradox
Apple has a lot of pride for its products. Since it’s birth in the late 70’s Apple has turned out product after amazing product to a degree of expertise centered around its holistic design process and popular culture. With each new product unveiling there has been a clear use case, obvious reasons for the creation of the product and every one of its features. In fact, in every product unveiling, Apple, actually Steve Jobs, gave a detailed history of the evolution of it’s products and status of the tech industry and where its new product fit into the industry and in consumers lives. However, possibly because Steve Jobs is not alive to direct the direction of the company he started, in this most recent product unveiling of the Apple Watch and Iphone 6 and 6 Plus, that historical analysis and use case reasoning did not happen in the way it used to.
As stated in a post on Stratechery.com, if one were to look through videos of the past product unveilings, one would see Steve Jobs talking about where a new product fit into the world of technology for up to ten minutes. In October 23, 2001, Jobs explained the history of the music market, why Apple could succeed in the market, and exactly how the Ipod would revolutionize the market. In January 9, 2007 Jobs explained the history smartphone market, how Apple could succeed in it, and what was so beneficial about the Iphone. In January 27, 2010, Jobs explained how a new market was available between the smartphone and the laptop computer and that many use cases needed to be combined into one extremely useful product. Last Tuesday, September 9, 2014, Tim cook introduced the Apple Watch and did nothing similar to Jobs. Not to say that the product is not useful or well designed, but its unclear as to what Apple’s direction is with its Watch and what its particular place is in a the tech world and a consumers life.
You could ask this about every smartwatch, what is its place in our lives? However with each company we are getting different features and uses, here I only discuss Apple’s. With all the features packed into the Apple Watch, along with the amount of customization available to the user, some people, myself included, question its productive powers and usefulness. As stated in Networks, Crowds, and Markets, by David Easley and John Klienberg, “We all have an informal sense that “upgrading” a network has to be a good thing, and so it is surprising when it turns out to make things worse.” In a similar way, I think that the Apple Watch may cause a Braess’s Paradox both for a user and Apple itself. By creating a bunch of new options, Apple could have made the experience of its products worse.
First, using an Apple Watch, one can control it by a combination of using the scroll wheel, the touchscreen with two categories of touch, the haptic engine for subtle notifications, or through speech with siri. These options alone are all great ways to interface with a product but might prove to be a step toward confusion when jumbled together as they are. It’s like building a new road which connects two roads to the same place, people think its better to switch between and use the best parts of them all when really the former direct system is more efficient. Another of the many examples of this is the fact that on the Apple Watch a user can access and manipulate maps to get directions. The ability to be able to do this from your wrist is an amazing display of technology, however its actual reality is discomforting. A person standing on a street corner twisting the crown of their watch to zoom in and out of a tiny map on their watch to find where they need to go seems so obviously counterintuitive to pulling out their Iphone from their pocket, actually being able to type an address with their thumbs, and being able to familiarly pinch to zoom in and out. Maybe the extent of having directional capabilities enabled on the watch should have been its ability to notify you which direction to turn, but leave all the setup, search, and map viewing to an Iphone. The intended use of the “digital crown” itself, to scroll through content, seems so counter intuitive to the subtle unobtrusive qualities a that a more singularly notification based smartwatch has. Although the Apple watch proves to be a hit among hungry consumers, it may prove to disrupt the Nash Equilibrium that a user has with their technology. Although there are more features available in more places, the efficiency of the system overall could be compromised with the Apple Watch. Users may end up stumbling in transitions between an Iphone, Apple Watch, Ipad, and Apple laptop, trying to decide which to use for what functions. Just because there is a new way to get from A to B doesn’t mean its better.
In addition to the problems with the consumer, Apple itself may have problems with the new products options it has created. Although a consumer now has increased options to buy Apple products that suit their needs, it will be more difficult to distinguish and decide between them. The new large screen Iphone may cause disruption in the Ipad market, a consumer will have a difficult time deciding between the smaller of larger of the new Iphones, the Apple Watch may not prove all that necessary in contrast to an Iphone. In a very basic attempt at market analysis, one could create a game theory grid and place Apple on one side, and the consumers on the other. Each player doesn’t know the other’s choices. Apple can either remain the same and simply upgrade its existing products or it can create entirely new products. The consumers could not buy new products and keep using their old ones or buy all the new products Apple makes. Here’s what a possible grid of that could look like: 
both the top left and bottom right are Nash Equilbria. As we know with our capitalist society, bottom right happens almost every time. However, the one thing that could vary a huge amount here is that bottom right box. If consumers don’t like a product, struggle to find use for it, or simply can’t buy it, their benefit goes down as well as the company’s. Without people buying and liking their products, the company has a decrease in sales, growth and reputation. Thus the bottom right box could be a -1,-1 for the Apple watch case. This makes bottom right way less likely and less satisfactory. Apple has just chosen to make new products, I guess we’ll see if users choose to stick to their old ones or adopt the new ones and either benefit from them or have Braess’s paradox from them.
http://stratechery.com/2014/apple-watch-asking-saying/
http://www.wired.com/2014/09/apple-made-a-perfect-watch-but-needs-to-decide-what-its-good-for/