“It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we’d given customers what they said they wanted, we’d have built a computer they’d have been happy with a year after we spoke to them – not something they’d want now.”
- February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011
- American
- Entrepreneur, businessman, industrial designer
- He brought to the world revolutionary products that combined technology and design at a high level, such as the personal computer Macintosh, iPhone, and iPad, and also revolutionized the music industry with the iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Store.
Quote
“It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we’d given customers what they said they wanted, we’d have built a computer they’d have been happy with a year after we spoke to them – not something they’d want now.”
Explanation
In this quote, Steve Jobs reflects on the process of creating the NeXT computer, emphasizing the importance of vision and foresight in innovation. He suggests that if the team had simply listened to what customers said they wanted, they would have created a product that would have satisfied current needs but would have quickly become outdated. Instead, Jobs and his team took the time to develop something that anticipated future demands, creating a product that was ahead of its time. This approach reflects Jobs’ belief that truly innovative products are not merely reactions to current trends or demands, but rather creations that shape and define the future.
Jobs’ insight into customer desires highlights a key principle in Apple’s design philosophy: innovation often requires going beyond what customers think they want, and instead delivering a product that can transform their expectations. By looking forward and thinking creatively, Apple has consistently produced products that revolutionize industries, even when the market may not have been ready for them.
The creation of the NeXT computer, while not an immediate commercial success, was influential in shaping future developments in computing, particularly in the software that later contributed to the development of macOS. Today, this mindset of anticipating needs rather than simply reacting to them remains crucial in the tech industry, where companies that innovate beyond what customers can currently imagine are the ones that define the future.
