Steve Jobs - Apple Product Matrix Strategy 1997
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in Apple product-line threads as a reminder of the focus Jobs brought by reducing offerings to a few great products.
What it is
A one-minute clip of Steve Jobs describing how he cut Apple's product line down to a four-quadrant matrix of consumer and pro, desktop and portable, during the 1997 turnaround.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2016 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites bdrool · 2016-04 · on “Apple extends iPhone production cut for another quarter”
The article mentions the iPhone SE and how its expected sales are not expected to offset the slowdown of the iPhone 6s and 6s+ sales. I realized I had forgotten the SE even existed (even though it was just been announced a few weeks ago) until this article reminded me of it. To me, this is just further confirmation that Apple's product line is a complete mess. Just go to (apple.com/iphone/compare) or (apple.com/ipad/compare) and look at how ridiculous it is. Can anyone really tell me which one of those models is "best"? There is no clear winner -- the ones with the bigger screen sizes and storage capacity don't have the latest CPUs or other features. Anyone remember the simple "Good, Better,
Cites beautifulfreak · 2019-01 · on “Steve Jobs on why Xerox failed”
I remember that back then it was very hard to figure out which Apple computer to buy. Model names had proliferated, thanks to the marketing department, and you needed a spreadsheet to figure out the differences between them. One of the best things Steve ever did was to reduce the offerings to just "four great products." [this video]
Cites jsgo · 2019-03 · on “New iPad Air and iPad Mini”
[this video] I don't think he aimed for 4 products in a specific line, so he'd probably be miffed about how many variants there are between each. I think the 4 iPads would be forgivable if there was consistency between the various product lines naming. iPhone _ Plus vs iPad Pro vs iPhone XS Max? That by itself is 3 different "descriptors" for their big screen devices (granted, Pro is less about big screen and more about spec stuffing, but non-tech consumers I know think iPad Pro = big screen iPad = expensive iPad).
Cites tim333 · 2026-03 · on “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo”
I think Steve would have approved of the Neo. The 96/97 lineup was a mess so if a customer asked what to buy you wouldn't know. Now it's fairly simple - Nano for budget users and school, Air for general public, Pro for pros. 1m vid of Jobs on the product line [this video]