Nothing Is Better Than Something
I recently came across an interesting titbit about the Apple iPad. Something that illustrates a dilemma we face all the time.
The iPad is a masterpiece of design, packed with several ‘wow’ features. But guess what? It does not come with a basic calculator app. Sounds unbelievable, no? After all, a calculator seems like an easy-to-add, must-have feature. Take any other Apple product – the Mac, the watch and the iPhone – and you’ll find they all have a calculator. So why does the iPad not have it?
The story goes that when the first iPad was being designed, the software folks built a calculator app to put on it. But when Steve Jobs saw it, he thought the calculator wasn’t great. It was functional all right, but not great. Jobs is reported to have said to his team “Make it great. Or don’t make it at all”. So they decided to ship the iPad without the calculator app. And for some strange reason it has stayed that way. Fourteen years after its launch, the iPad still does not have a built-in calculator app.
And that made me think. It’s a dilemma we often face in business, and in our lives. Should we wait until we get it perfectly right – or should we just do it and not overthink it? One school of thought would suggest Apple should not have tied themselves in knots trying to over-engineer it. They should have just put in the app. After all, an iPad with a not-so-great calculator would still be better than an iPad without that basic feature. Makes sense to put in a basic calculator and then work to make it great. I must confess I have often followed this line of thinking. Don’t overthink it, not everything has to be great, something is better than nothing, and so on. Have you thought along similar lines too?
But as I began to think again about the missing calculator in the iPad and the Apple philosophy, I began to understand the merits of having the Steve Jobs mindset. “Make it great, or don’t make it at all”. It’s easy to think it’s better to have some calculator app – rather than not have it at all. After all, the iPad is so cool, so feature-rich, no one would complain that the calculator isn’t great. But we don’t think of the long-term implications of that approach. Once you drop your standards, and change your philosophy to ‘it’s ok, it doesn’t have to be great” – you will soon find yourself racing to the bottom, creating ordinary products filled with ordinary features. The iPad would then have a calculator app, sure. But it wouldn’t be the iPad that’s so loved by the whole world.
And that’s a choice leaders need to make. Wait till you get it right. Or prioritise progress over perfection. It’s nice to have a sense of urgency. To just do it. But good to remember great products and organisations are built when you are not willing to compromise. Not willing to settle for less.
Something to think about. The way you do anything is the way you do everything. Before you lower the bar and say ‘something is better than nothing’, think again. Sometimes nothing is better than something. In the iPad. And in our lives too.
Maybe Jobs was right after all.
The writer is an author, speaker and leadership coach and former
