Computerworld - In business circles, one of the most miraculous success stories of the previous century is the story of Starbucks. The company earned its legendary status not by invention of a new product, but by the rare transformation of human culture.
People have been drinking coffee for centuries. Before Starbucks came along, people made coffee at home, or drank generic coffee at coffee shops, diners, donut joints or wherever. It came in a giant can, and cost pennies, rather than dollars, for a bottomless cup. Coffee was always there, whether you were at home, work or running around town. Everyone had firmly rooted habits associated with drinking coffee that should have discouraged Starbucks.
Starbucks somehow convinced us all to pay $4 for coffee, and to ignore the coffee at hand and drive out of our way, stand in line, then wait again for them to make it. They got us to add all kinds of weird stuff to our coffee, from whipped cream to ice to chocolate. Starbucks transformed a generic commodity into a brand-name experience that people seek out. But the miraculous bit is that they changed American (and later, global) culture.
Coffee is still coffee. They didn't change the product as much as they changed the customer.
Consumer electronics companies face a similar challenge. It's hard enough to invent a better way to do things. But the most difficult challenge is getting consumers to accept the change.
Since the dawn of the PC revolution, for example, a huge number of "better" ideas for doing things have come along, and have been crushed by consumer apathy. Keyboards are a particularly hazardous market. Nearly everyone agrees that QWERTY keyboards don't make sense, and that there must be a better way. Hundreds or possibly thousands of small startups have emerged over the decades to solve the problem of the clunky QWERTY keyboard. Yet all have failed. Why? Because we're all mastered existing keyboards, and we're not going to change.
Visionary companies like Apple have better ideas for how we do just about everything relating to computers and media. They know they can invent and build the products. The big problem is convincing us to use them.
I've written in this space before about how Google is systematically nudging us to accept less privacy. Now I'm going to tell you how Apple is transforming you and me and softening our resistance to the gadget future they envision for us all.
People hate the idea of giving up their physical keyboards for on-screen keyboards. But I believe Apple wants to move us all to on-screen keyboards not only for phones, but mobile devices and even "desktop" computers. If Apple were to introduce an all-screen desktop PC today, it would be rejected wholesale by the public. But in a few years, we'll all be standing in line to buy them. How will they do it?
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