Presentation-Secrets-Of-Steve-Jobs
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106 DELIVER THE EXPERIENCE<br />
in your pocket opens up an entirely new way for you to enjoy<br />
music.<br />
<strong>Jobs</strong> dresses up numbers to make them more interesting.<br />
Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell once asked <strong>Jobs</strong> what he<br />
thought about Apple’s market share’s being “stuck” at 5 percent<br />
in the United States. (The interview took place in 2003. As of<br />
this writing, Apple’s market share of the computer industry is 10<br />
percent.) The average reader might consider a 5 percent market<br />
share to be tiny. <strong>Jobs</strong> put the number in perspective when he<br />
described it this way: “Our market share is greater than BMW or<br />
Mercedes in the car industry. And yet, no one thinks BMW or<br />
Mercedes are going away and no one thinks they’re at a tremendous<br />
disadvantage because of their market share. As a matter<br />
of fact, they’re both highly desirable products and brands.” 2 A<br />
5 percent market share sounded low but became much more<br />
interesting when <strong>Jobs</strong> put it into context using the automobile<br />
analogy. Comparing Apple’s market share to that of two admired<br />
brands told the story behind the numbers.<br />
Twice as Fast at Half the Price<br />
Data transfers on the original iPhone were often painfully slow<br />
on AT&T’s standard cellular network (EDGE). Apple solved the<br />
problem with the launch of iPhone 3G on June 9, 2008. In the<br />
presentation, <strong>Jobs</strong> said the new iPhone was 2.8 times faster than<br />
EDGE, but he didn’t stop there. <strong>Jobs</strong> put the figure into a context<br />
that normal Web surfers would understand and appreciate.<br />
He showed two images back to back—a National Geographic<br />
website loading on the EDGE network and also on the new 3G<br />
high-speed network. The EDGE site took fifty-nine seconds to<br />
fully load. The 3G site took only twenty-one seconds. 3 Further,<br />
Apple offered customers a bonus by lowering the price.<br />
According to <strong>Jobs</strong>, consumers would be getting a phone that<br />
was twice as fast at half the price. Average presenters spew numbers<br />
with no context, assuming their audience will share their<br />
excitement. <strong>Jobs</strong> knows that numbers might have meaning to<br />
the most ardent fans but are largely meaningless to the majority