About apple mission statement

Question: Q: Vision and Mission of Apple Inc.

Hi! As a part of my research, I have to study the vision and mission statement of Apple. I cannot find accurate information neither on the web nor on the corporate website. Can some help me? Some one working inside the Apple can help me the most.

Posted on Apr 23, 2020 3:45 PM

Helpful answers

Tim Cook, then Chief Operating Officer, during a conference call with investors in 2009:

«We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.»

«Apple strives to bring the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals, and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software, and internet offerings.»

«There are lots of ways to be as a person. And some people express their deep appreciation in different ways. But one of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful, and put it out there. And you never meet the people, you never shake their hands, you never hear their story or tell yours. But somehow in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something’s transmitted there. And it’s a way of expressing to the rest of our species, our deep appreciation. So we need to be true to who we are. And remember what’s really important to us. That’s what’s going to keep Apple, Apple — is if we keep us, us.»

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Apple’s Mission Statement and Vision Statement Explained

Apple is one of the largest and most popular companies in modern history. It became one of the leading names in personal computing and has dominated the market for mobile devices as the original innovator of the smartphone, digital music player, and tablet computer (better known under their proprietary monikers, the iPhone, iPod, and iPad).

Apple’s mission and vision statements have changed over time as the company has grown. What started out as a business completely focused on personal computers has evolved into an enterprise that serves technology needs for many types of consumer technology goods. Today, its most recent mission and vision statement speak to far-reaching goals and Apple’s critical strategy of innovation.

Mission Statement

The company’s most recent mission statement is “to bring the best user experience to its customers through its innovative computer hardware, computer software, and services.” Let’s explore what this means in practical terms.

1. What Apple Does: Delivers the Best User Experience
A mission statement should first describe what the company does. In Apple’s case, it seeks to provide an outstanding user experience. From computers to media players, Apple offers a seamless user interface that has long been recognized for its ease of use, clean design, and sleek aesthetics.

Apple’s product design is itself aspirational, becoming the envy of competitors and the desire of its customers. Each new product release or upgrade attracts buyers in droves who are seeking the latest features and designs. The company became a trendsetter with each product’s clean, polished appearance. Its website also reflects the simplicity of a graceful design, and the overall brand feel is polished and refined.

2. Who Apple Serves: Focuses on the Average Person
The next part of its mission statement reveals Apple’s target market. Every company exists for a particular user base. Apple’s customers are typically average users, though businesses make up a large portion of its user base. Apple’s products and the accompanying user experience have broken the mold numerous times and have set the standard for other companies to follow.

3. How Apple Does It: Dominates with Innovation
The final piece of its mission statement outlines how the company delivers on its promised goals. Apple’s “how” is innovation.

In Apple’s most recent annual report, dated September 26, 2020, right after the risks associated with COVID-19 and the economy, Apple’s report delves directly into its competition and its challenges from rapid technological change. It went so far as to say that to remain competitive and stimulate customer demand, it must frequently introduce new products, services and technologies. (Pretty interesting that it focuses on actually creating demand, instead of fulfilling an existing demand or need.)

Apple innovates in the areas of hardware, computer software, and services. It focuses on providing something no one else can. Compare this to Microsoft, for example, which dominates the personal computing market with sheer volume. Apple has proprietary features and a uniform product design, plus it is the only company that produces Apple computers (whereas Microsoft’s Windows-based machines can be manufactured and sold by nearly anyone). If you want a Mac, you have to go through Apple.

Apple was also the original innovator behind the iPod, iPad, and iPhone. Today’s massive market for smartphones, digital music, and tablet computing owes much of its very existence to Apple. Here is a summary of the impact of these “i” innovations:

• The iPod changed the way we purchase and listen to music, moving away from physical media, and making music digital.
• iTunes, a closely related piece of software, helped users manage their digital music libraries and also brought about new ways that users could consume that media. It made digital purchases of music, movies, and TV shows much more accessible and spawned the explosion of podcasts that provided a totally new channel for sharing and consuming content.
• The iPad was the first consumer tablet product, and Apple continued to define what the product could do.
• The iPhone is still the most popular mobile device on the market, completely revolutionizing how people use “computers.” Where people mostly used larger desktop or laptop computers even as little as ten years ago, now many only use a smartphone – all thanks to the iPhone.

Other accessory products, like earbuds (which largely replaced headphones), wireless technology, the widespread use of touchscreen interfaces, the application-based approach to software delivery, and much more were either created or made commonplace by Apple. Furthermore, consolidating the functions of several devices into one powerful and compact machine is a massive advantage for Apple. Consumers can use Apple’s products to perform the functions of a telephone, music player, camera, personal computer, and much more.

Other things like apps (applications), mobile payments, and more owe much of their expansive growth to Apple leading the way. Many processes that we take for granted trace their genesis back to Apple. If we were to suddenly remove all the things we take for granted due to Apple’s far-reaching influence, we would be surprised at how different the world would look. In this way, it has more than delivered on its mission statement.

Vision Statement

Where a mission statement tends to deal with the tangible ways a company conducts business, the vision statement is more aspirational and forward-facing. It goes to the heart of a company’s goals. Apple’s vision statement is as follows:

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are here to make the best products on earth, and to leave the world better than we found it.”

1. Why Apple Does What It Does: To Deliver the Best Products on Earth
The vision statement answers the question of why. The “why” behind Apple’s mission of innovating in computer hardware and software is that it believes that it is on the face of the earth to make great products.

Apple does not settle for anything less than excellence. If a product or service is not up to its high standards, it will delay (and has delayed) its release until it is fully ready. Its reputation for high-quality and cutting-edge concepts has been well-known for decades, and with every new product, it further cements that reputation in the eyes of its consumers and the wider industry.

Furthermore, it has committed to staying at the top, maintaining its sterling reputation for excellence. Not only does it seek to make great products, but that goal is not changing. This tells its customers, staff, and investors that the company will stay focused on its goals and not change or cut corners. This perception of stability and faithful execution of its mission inspires great confidence.

2. Why Apple Exists: To Leave the World Better Than It Found It
The vision statement then restates the overall goals to make the best products on earth. Once again, the commitment to excellence and innovation is clear. Apple uses its vision statement to recognize the impact it has on the world: it commits to leaving the world better than it found it.

So often, companies can come and go without leaving any lasting impact. A brand may be the favorite of the day or the season, but when the business folds, there is rarely any lasting impact on its consumers. Competitors, copycats, or substitutions usually slide right in, erasing virtually all memories of the company’s presence. Such is not the case with Apple.

a. Apple Has Changed How, When and Where We Use “Computers”
Apple has revolutionized the use of and access to personal computing. It has changed the way that billions of people work, live, and communicate. It has created entirely new segments of the technology market and has gone on to dominate those markets over time.

b. Apple Has Created a More Connected Globe
One of the major results is that the global society Apple has helped to create is much more connected than it previously was. Innovations created by market leaders like Apple and others have helped to bring together people from all corners of the globe. Many of us use the same hardware and software, making us feel even more closely connected through that shared experience. Our access to information and services has never been more open, and it will only continue to grow.

c. Apple Has Given Access to People Who Had None
Beyond these specific aspects of interconnectedness is Apple’s additional commitment to increasing that access to those that previously did not have it. Apple has joined with other companies to provide access through devices and technology to growing economies and countries that did not already have a strong technical infrastructure.

In this way, it not only creates new markets for itself (again, creating demand), but it changes the ways those people live their lives and connects them with others around the world.

Conclusion

Apple’s mission and vision statements guide its corporate goals and the products and services it releases to the public. But beyond sales figures and revenue, these statements help Apple stand out not only apart from its competitors, but as a leader in changing lives and lifestyles the world over.

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What Is Apple’s Mission Statement?

Barbara Farfan is a retail industry expert with more than 20 years as a business consultant for the retail and publishing industries.

Technology company Apple Inc. has evolved over the years from a relatively niche producer of personal computers into a diversified maker of electronic devices and provider of services that is one of the most highly valued publicly traded companies in the world. The company’s mission statement and other statements of values and visions have also changed since the company’s incorporation—as Apple Computer Inc.—by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak on January 3, 1977.

Apple is dedicated to the empowerment of man—to making personal computing accessible to each and every individual so as to help change the way we think, work, learn, and communicate.

That was Apple’s original mission statement, according to marketing guru and Interbrand Pacific founder David Andrew. In «Brand Revitalisation and Extension,» a chapter in the book «Brands: The New Wealth Creators,» Andrew wrote that the mission statement sprang from the company’s brand vision statement:

Man is the true creator of change in this world. As such, he should be above systems and structures, and not subordinate to them.

Steve Jobs’ Application of the Mission Statement

You can see in those lines the origins of Jobs’ simpler guiding principle, or brand vision, for the company during the 1980s:

To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.

Jobs again spoke of computers as being tools for our minds in the 1990 documentary film «Memory and Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress»:

I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So that didn’t look so good. But then somebody at «Scientific American» had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts. And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

In 1998, Jobs talked about his mantra of simplicity during an interview with «Businessweek»:

That’s been one of my mantras—focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

Tim Cook’s Vision for Apple

Tim Cook, Jobs’ chosen successor and current Apple CEO, touched on simplicity as well as many other aspects of his vision for the company right after he was named acting CEO in 2009 while Jobs went on medical leave.

We believe that we’re on the face of the Earth to make great products, and that’s not changing. We’re constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple, not the complex.
We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us.
We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.
And I think, regardless of who is in what job, those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.

(Jobs had spoken of the importance of saying no to projects at the 1997 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference: «I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying ‘no’ to 1,000 things.»)

In 2016, Cook brought up the common Apple theme of providing tools for empowerment during an interview with «The Indian Express»:

For us, the most important thing we can do is raise people up, that is either by giving the ability to do things they could not otherwise do, allow them to create things they couldn’t otherwise create. It’s about giving them tools, it is about empowering people. I think to me that is the primary objective of technology—for you to live better, longer.

Apple doesn’t currently have an official mission statement on its website, but company press releases end with the following statement that mentions empowerment. And its last sentence could serve as a mission statement:

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms—iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS—provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

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