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Three things Apple can learn from Dyson
The US tech company should take notes from a British innovator, writes John Gapper
This has been a bad week for Apple and a good one for Dyson. The giant US consumer technology company suffered its first decline in quarterly earnings in 13 years amid a fall in iPhone sales. Meanwhile, UK-based Dyson launched a £299 hairdryer using the electric motor technology in its hand dryers and domestic fans.
Dyson is a minnow compared with Apple, but Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive can learn lessons from Sir James Dyson on how a consumer technology company with a design focus can keep on launching premium products. The Apple Watch still has to prove itself and investors are wondering whether Mr Cook has the same inventive touch as Steve Jobs, its late co-founder.
One lesson is that it is easier to launch variations on a core technology than to keep coming up with something entirely new. Apple considered launching a television but is thought to have shelved the idea. It has a team working on a car, perhaps both electric and self-driving, but Handelsblatt reported this week that possible partnerships with Daimler or BMW have fallen through.
Dyson has kept on launching products based around a digital electric motor — its hand dryers are installed in many companies and it launched a robot vacuum cleaner last year. It has diversified widely from its original vacuum cleaner, and is now thought to be working on its own electric car.
A second lesson is, be prepared to fail. Dyson has launched a few products that did not capture the market as planned — notably a washing machine that it no longer makes, yet it has kept on going. In contrast, Apple seems hesitant to launch products that will not match up to blockbusters such as the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone.
Dyson has the advantage of being small. The personal wealth of Sir James, whose family owns the company, was estimated this week by the Sunday Times to have risen to £5bn, overtaking Sir Richard Branson’s. But Dyson’s sales last year were £1.38bn compared with Apple’s $234bn, so new products have a far lower revenue barrier to clear.
The third lesson is harder because Apple cannot learn from it: be led by a charismatic founder. Dyson relies to an extent on its version of what used to be called Mr Jobs’ “reality distortion field”. Consumers need to be persuaded that their products are worth far more than those of imitators or rivals. As well as innovative technology and sleek design, that requires a leap of faith.
Like Mr Jobs, Sir James embodies his products and is the pitch man for them, giving consumers the confidence that they are truly exceptional. Mr Jobs’ presentations of Apple’s inventions were marvellous shows, just as Sir James is an evangelical salesman in Dyson advertisements. But Mr Jobs died in 2011, and Mr Cook can never match his halo effect.
Reports in the Russian press that Google tried to acquire the Telegram messaging app last year for $1 billion have been firmly rebutted by Telegram founder Pavel Durov. The rumors had been widely reported in the tech press today.
The suggestion was that the now Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, met with Durov a year ago, when Pichai headed up Google product, to made an offer to buy the messaging platform — only for his overtures to be firmly rejected by Durov.
However Durov has very firmly rejected these rumors today.
“Bullshit,” he said, when contacted by TechCrunch to ask about the acquisition rumor. “I haven’t had any acquisition talks or meetings with Google. I am acquainted to Google people and Sundar of course, but acquisition, 1 billion — all of that is false.”
Google has of course long had its own messaging offering, Hangouts, but it’s also had a tough time trying to drive usage of the platform — losing out in the popularity stakes to other messaging giants, such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp.
That platform, which was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion back in 2014, passed the one billion MAUs mark earlier this year. While the younger Telegram, which only launched in fall 2013, has a more modest user-base but has been building momentum — passing 100 million active monthly users this February.
Google declined to comment on the Telegram acquisition rumors when contacted today, with a spokeswoman saying only that: “Google does not comment on rumor and speculation.”
The company has been making some moves to support the adoption of the RCS interoperable messaging standard, perhaps with a view to building its own Android to Android iMessage alternative.
No, Google did not try to buy us, says Telegram founder
Reports in the Russian press that Google tried to acquire the Telegram messaging app last year for $1 billion have been firmly rebutted by Telegram founder Pavel Durov. The rumors had been widely reported in the tech press today.
The suggestion was that the now Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, met with Durov a year ago, when Pichai headed up Google product, to made an offer to buy the messaging platform — only for his overtures to be firmly rejected by Durov.
However Durov has very firmly rejected these rumors today.
“Bullshit,” he said, when contacted by TechCrunch to ask about the acquisition rumor. “I haven’t had any acquisition talks or meetings with Google. I am acquainted to Google people and Sundar of course, but acquisition, 1 billion — all of that is false.”
Google has of course long had its own messaging offering, Hangouts, but it’s also had a tough time trying to drive usage of the platform — losing out in the popularity stakes to other messaging giants, such as Facebook-owned WhatsApp.
That platform, which was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion back in 2014, passed the one billion MAUs mark earlier this year. While the younger Telegram, which only launched in fall 2013, has a more modest user-base but has been building momentum — passing 100 million active monthly users this February.
Google declined to comment on the Telegram acquisition rumors when contacted today, with a spokeswoman saying only that: “Google does not comment on rumor and speculation.”
The company has been making some moves to support the adoption of the RCS interoperable messaging standard, perhaps with a view to building its own Android to Android iMessage alternative.
The batteries developed for the high demands of all-electric Mercedes-Benz cars are finding a new application as in-home energy storage units. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s a lot like the Tesla Powerwall.
Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG announced that the storage units are being manufactured by its subsidiary Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE (Daimler has a real love of all caps). The batteries are being sold, installed and supported by partners like utility and solar tech companies. That makes sense, because the storage units are usually installed along with solar panels. The units are already available in Germany, and Mercedes says it will be expanding the program internationally.
Up to eight of the columnar 2.5 kWh lithium-ion battery modules can be combined, with a maximum capacity of 20 kWh all together. According to Mercedes, this is enough to capture surplus solar power for later use with “virtually no losses.” The price of the units hasn’t been disclosed, since it can include several components: the unit itself (or two or three), maybe some photovoltaic panels and the installation.
Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE has been making units like this since 2015 for industrial uses. The systems were designed to be scalable; thus the quick entry into the private home market. Daimler is banking on its energy storage subsidiary in a big way — it’s invested more than $500 million in a second battery factory at the Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE site that will begin operating in the summer of 2017.
As a comparison, the Tesla Energy Powerwall serves the same purpose, with arguably more style. The Powerwall has 6.4 kWh of energy storage “for daily cycle applications,” according to the website. Like the Mercedes units, these can be installed in multiples for solar systems that need to store more energy. We do know how much the Powerwall costs — $3,500. We also know that demand was high, with a reported 38,000 reservations when the Powerwall was announced last year. That level of demand seems to leave plenty of room for a competitor like Daimler AG to jump in with its road-tested battery technology this year.
A Dyson engineer explains why the company spent $71 million and four years developing a high-tech hair dryer
Hair dryers are everywhere. Bathrooms. Gym locker rooms. Open a drawer in your hotel room — boom, free hair dryer. It usually requires a lot to get me to really notice a hair dryer. But Dyson has succeeded, and all it took was $71 million and four years of development.
It’s a logical progression, really. Between its vacuum cleaners, bladeless fans and the hand dryer ominously known as the “Airblade,” which makes moisture wish it had never been condensated, the British company has really made a name for itself moving air around.
The new Dyson Supersonic applies that knowledge to the beauty category, filtered through the company’s strict quality control. That sort of focus on high-end engineering doesn’t come cheap — to Dyson or the consumer. When the Supersonic launches in September, it’ll run a cool (read: hot) $400.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the target audience. I get a pretty good dry from a towel or a brisk walk. I solicited a response from a long-haired colleague who was somewhat skeptical about the product’s ability to fully deliver on its pricey promise, but added that if it is indeed as silent as the company claims, there’s potential appeal for saloons and mothers of small children. Librarians with damp hair might get on-board, as well.
Dyson’s long search for the hair-drying Holy Grail goes a ways toward explaining the premium price tag. As Tom Crawford, the Head of Product Development for New Categories told TechCrunch, “When Dyson goes into a new category, we always think about how we can make it better. Part of that challenge is making sure we invest in the right technology and testing to do so. The first part of this was to learn the science of hair. How to test it, how to make it repeatable, and then how to measure it. We built our own state of the art laboratory dedicated to investigating the science of hair.”
Dyson’s not messing around
hair
here. According to Crawford, the company spent a staggering £40,000 ($58,000) on hair tresses alone. “We carried out tests on a variety of real hair types in order to get a full understanding of its performance,” he explains. “A single hair tress costs between £12 and £20, depending on the length of hair we are using. On average, Dyson engineers used 40 hair tresses for every test — so that’s up to £780 a test and 640 inches of hair.”That’s a lot of money for a lot of hair. But he insists that the space was long overdue for an overhaul.
“The traditional hair dryer design hasn’t changed in more than 60 years,” says Crawford. “Conventional hair dryers often have large motors, and because of their size they have to be put in the head of the machine. As a result, they can be bulky, and they can blast air at extreme temperatures, all with the risk of hair being sucked into the filter and being trapped. We created a Dyson digital motor V9 just for this machine.”
And sometimes a hair dryer isn’t a hair dryer. Hey, we wouldn’t have memory foam or freeze-dried ice cream if NASA weren’t so obsessed with going to the boring old moon.
“Dyson will always invest in new technologies, even when we aren’t sure of their application yet. Sometimes we see a bit of technology working in one application and wonder whether that might solve a problem in another,” explains Crawford.
“That’s exactly how our Airblade technology was born. Dyson engineers were exploring new ways to use our digital motor with an air knife — forcing high-speed air through minuscule apertures. It wasn’t working. But then one day, someone’s hands happened to be wet and the air knife dried them brilliantly. Our motor technology paired with other breakthrough technology has helped us create our very first hair dryer. Just imagine what it could create in five years.”
Whatever it is, wetness clearly doesn’t stand a chance.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Carl Icahn said on CNBC that’s he’s entirely out of Apple (AAPL), voicing concern about potential for China to potentially impede Apple from selling its products there in the future. Barron’s Tiernan Ray has the details.
But Icahn went on to say that he’s mightily skeptical of the broader stock market; in fact, he said that he’s been shorting. Still, Icahn said that recently beaten down commodity stocks could have farther to run. He admitted that the “huge” short position hasn’t been working well, of course, since the S&P 500 is up nearly 10% over the past three months. Icahn told CNBC’s Scott Wapner that he still owns Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) and CVR Energy (CVI).
“I still am extremely cautious about the market,” he said. The reason is the “experiment” of easy-money at the Federal Reserve and overseas’ central bankers embarkation into negative interest rates. He warned of “tremendous bubbles.” He also called for unity in Congress to support fiscal stimulus, that is some combination of government spending or tax cuts: “There will be a day of reckoning unless we get fiscal stimulus.” He went on: “Congress has been in this massive gridlock, obsessed with this deficit [even though] you’re don’t have inflation and you are the reserve currency in the world.”
Hard to peg the market’s move to Icahn in particular, but the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) plunged to session lows immediately afterward. It’s currently down 0.9%.