Just do what's right

I have passed many books about Apple in the bookstore. The most famous one should be the biography Steve Jobs. As an Apple fan in the past, I didn’t read it.

For many years after Steve Jobs passed away, I have been feeling Apple has continued to be successful, but in a different way. I was attracted by Apple at the very beginning by their ergonomic and unpretentious design. They have their own understanding how users should interact with their products, instead of being most compatible as possible. This unique way makes Apple special. Sometimes it fails, but in most time it makes Apple perfect, in an imperfect way.

Some of those uniqueness seemed to have changed since Tim Cook stepped into the chair of CEO. The biggest change that Apple made which took me many years to adapt is the bigger screen. As Steve Jobs explained the best size for the phone is the size that you can comfortably use with one hand. I have always been convinced by that, though I don’t know if I can still go back to the smaller size like iPhone SE. There was a time that bigger screen was definitely a hard requirement to win the market for mobile phones. When Apple caught up that trend, it triggered my Apple fans alarm. “Is Apple losing their soul?”, I pondered. I continued using a smaller iPhone, then iPhone SE, and then when my iPhone couldn’t make it and iPhone SE was not continued (till a couple of years much later than needed), I switched to Android. I was eventually forced by the market to accept big screen, as even Android the options for small screens are limited. When I switched back to Apple again, it was more of a thoughtful decision based on the benefits. I have somewhat lost my passion in Apple.

Then I walked past the Book After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul . For some reason, I went back and got it. I don’t know what it’s going to tell me because I have just started, but I am very touched by one part. It was one line in Tim Cook’s speech in Apple’s steven event to commemorate Steve Jobs after his passing.

“He thought about Apple till his last day,” Cook said, “and among his last advice for me and for all of you was to never ask what he would do. ‘Just do what’s right’, he said.”

Throughout all the years I struggled with trying out bigger screen, I have wondered many times if the same choice would be made if Steve Job were alive. But after starting using the big screen, I have to admit it is not a terrible idea. The advantages Steve Jobs mentioned indeed have gone, but some other advantages also come up. After all, it’s always about the pro and con, and what suits the users best. For myself, I find it’s hard to tell by myself, so I chose to just follow Steve. When he is gone, every new decision seemed to be wrong.

Now I understand, Steve is not only a great technologist or imaginist (however you would call him), he is also a fantastic leader. Being a great leader sometimes means losing themselves. Things can be done in many different possible ways. Surely some are better than others, but different people also have different styles and advantages. A normal leader knows how things can be done; a good leader knows things must not have to be done in their way.

I have been trying to get rid of my mirco-management problem. That’s because I didn’t understand this point.

Giving Cook the full support and ability to be him brought some changes to Apple; for example, the bigger screen, more fashionable Apple Watch (or at least they tried to become more fashionable), notched display. Some of those changes were not understood by me, but they kept Apple thriving for a following decade. If they chose to stay in the castle that Steve built, they probably had already fallen.

“Just do what’s right”. This is the wisdom that I learned from Jobs.