Ch 10. Product Concept

Apple iPhone’s design is one of the main reason it has been able to take the cell phone industry by storm in such a small time span. Today, Apple is world’s second largest cell phone manufacturer. Apple’s iProduct can be called a shopping product, because it is "more expensive than a convenience product and found in few stores," but, yet Apple products enjoy the status of specialty products, thanks to Apple’s marketing team. Apple retail store plays a major role in portraying this image. They offer the boutique like experience on personal basis.

          Apple’s product mix consists of iPhone (cellphone), iPad (tablet), iPod (portable music players), MacBook (laptops), iMac (desktop computer) ,iWatch (smartwatch) and many more. It also sells headphones under the brand name of Beats and Airpods, the wireless Apple branded headphones which comes out later this year. Apple product mix components further breakdown into different sub category with few hardware tweaks and price difference. In 2014, Apple extended their iPhone line by including a 5.5-inch screen phones, providing an alternative for Samsung’s phablet phone lovers.

Most of the design success of iProducts can be credited to one person, Jonathan Ive. Ive is currently Apple’s Chief Design Officer (CDO). He is the designer of many of Apple's products, including the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch and iOS. He has also contributed towards Apple’s retail store designs, one of the famous one is the 5^th Avenue Store in NYC.  Ive is one of only four C-level executive at Apple along with CEO Tim Cook, CFO Luca Maestri and COO Jeff Williams.