Apple didn't invent portable personal audio.
The Astraltune Stereopack did. September 1975. A wearable chest-mounted cassette player with orange headphones designed for outdoor athletic use. Four years before the Sony Walkman. Sold for $210 — nearly a thousand dollars in today's money.
I know the Astraltune because I had one. I wore it skateboarding.
It was expensive. It was awkward. And the sound was extraordinary for its time.
The direction was right. The technology just wasn't ready yet.
The category existed for twenty six years before the iPod arrived in 2001. Apple didn't arrive first. They arrived with a direction clear enough that everyone knew what better meant. Three years later they owned the category.
Under Tim Cook the Apple Watch arrived into a category others had proven. It captured 23 percent of the global smartwatch market. Garmin — a GPS company — grew fitness wearable revenue 33 percent in a single year.
The execution is still excellent. But the purpose that generated the direction that told everyone what better meant isn't driving it the same way anymore.
Better products don't come from better engineers. They come from a purpose clear enough to generate a direction, and a direction clear enough that everyone knows what better means.
That's not first mover advantage. That's direction advantage.
Dominic Luzi · Chief Answer Grape, Management Alchemy
