Apple Could Be Huge in Mobile Commerce, But Will It?

Will Apple, though universally considered one of the most-important potential influences in mobie commerce, decide that the mobile commerce experience is big enough to matter, and is conducive to the creation of devices that are the best possible approach to that problem?


It's an important question. For starters, Apple makes products. To be interesting, an unmet need has to lead to the creation of a device that offers a dramatically better experience. 


"Our goals are very simple, to design and make better products," says Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design. "If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it." 

Apple's approach therefore requires identification of a mobile commerce problem that can be solved by a product. Also, Apple creates consumer products. That doesn't mean those products are not used by people in their business roles. It's just that Apple doesn't do "industrial" products. 

In many cases, there's a problem which is clear, such as Apple's belief that mobile phones and TVs offer experiences that are terribly sub-optimal. 

In a startling number of cases, though, Apple tackles problem people are not aware of, or for which nobody has articulated a need. That's one reason Apple does not do focus groups or other market research to uncover unmet needs. 

"It’s unfair to ask people" how well they would like a product they have never seen and do not know they need, he argues.