Everything You Need to Know About Apple's New Inaccessibility Features

In case you missed it, Apple last week launched what is perhaps their biggest new product strategy since the iPhone.  It’s called “inaccessibility”, and it’s soon going to be integrated into every piece of hardware and software the company sells. 

What is it?

Inaccessibility is the umbrella term for Apple’s new products and services designed specifically to appeal to less than 1% of its wealthiest users, while being unobtainable by the rest.  The program was launched alongside the new Apple Watch last Monday, and includes as one of its first components a $17,000 gold version of that watch, which, while functionally identical to other versions, has a price designed to put it out of reach of virtually all of the company's usual customers.  

One configuration of Apple's new luxury watch, with an 18 karat rose gold case and leather straps.

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, has spoken to the need for inaccessibility, which very wealthy people use a sort of yardstick for how successful they are and how much they’ve surpassed other members of society.  In general, the appeal of products to this 1% of people is closely tied to the them being very very expensive and unaffordable to the other 99% of the population.  Cook cited internal research done by Apple which found that without the ability to buy extremely overpriced and extravagant objects, wealthy people can suffer from lowered self-esteem, and in some cases, moderate to severe malaise.  Thus, inaccessibility is a program designed to limit certain Apple products and services to fewer and fewer people, and make them completely out of reach for the rest.  As part of this initiative, Cook says the company will start integrating new inaccessibility features across all of Apple's products and businesses in 2015 starting with:

• The $17,000 gold Apple Watch, crafted out of a special “extra dense” 18k gold alloy.
   
• The upcoming MacBook Platinum, which is the largest fashion or technology product ever to be crafted out of a single piece of platinum.  Cook has not announced a price for the MacBook Platinum yet, but did say that they would be charging the standard 1,500% luxury premium on top of the cost of materials and manufacturing.  It was also confirmed that the internal components will match those of the new standard MacBook that was just released.  
   
• Retail Apple Stores will be integrating a luxurious, carpeted and velvet-roped exclusive shopping and genius bar area, which for now will only be available to patrons wearing the gold Apple Watch on their wrist or carrying in a MacBook Platinum.  More qualifying products will be released over time.
   
• A line of luxury cases for phones and tablets, and laptop bags, all made out of exotic animal leathers (ostrich, crocodile, rhino) and precious stones and metals.  These accessories will start at $8,000 and run as high as $500,000.  Cook has stated, however, that future accessories will likely be priced even higher than that range, and there is theoretically “no limit” on what can be charged for these products.
   
• Special inaccessibility features built in to both iOS and OS X. Referencing Apple’s control over hardware, software, and services, Tim Cook pointed out that no other company has the ability to create seamless inaccessibility throughout their entire product lineup.  As a next step, starting this fall with iOS 9 and OS X Beverly Hills, both operating systems will gain inaccessibility settings options.  Wealthy users will be able to unlock these these features with the purchase of a $10,000 / month subscription which can be obtained directly within the the settings or preferences section of the respective operating systems.  When unlocked, these special inaccessibility features will include:
   
  • An entirely new user interface designed personally by Apple superstar designers Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson.  The pair say they collaborated on the the brand new interface to make sure it would "embody the essence of personal luxury”.  Users must sign a non-disclosure agreement when enabling the interface promising not to show it to other people, or take screenshots or photos of the exclusive design.  Jony Ive points out that letting the general public glimpse the user interface would violate the entire premise of inaccessibility and exclusivity, but did hint in a recent interview that the design is unlike anything people had ever seen before or would likely ever have an opportunity to see.
     
  • An upgraded version of Siri called “Siri Direct”.  Rather than being processed by one of Apple’s computer data centers, requests made to Siri Direct are routed directly to a staff of 24/7 concierges located in or around wealthy cities (US only at launch, but extending to the UK and EU shortly afterwards).  Siri Direct concierges will manually handle all normal Siri tasks such as sending messages, or creating reminders or calendar events.  But beyond those functions, they will also accept personal shopping requests and arrange things like limo or helicopter transportation.
     
  • Bug fixes 6 - 12 months before they are released to 99% of users.  Tim Cook cited as an example the WiFi issues that have plagued both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite since their release last fall.  These issues have been solved for some time, but will be rolled out first through the inaccessibility program, allowing only the wealthiest of users to enjoy those improvements to start with.  

Leaked screenshot of iOS 9 settings screen.  NotE the new inaccessibility menu item.

 

The Big Picture

Cook was excited to elaborate on the vision behind the new inaccessibility program:

“Experts are saying that by some time later this year, 50% of the world’s wealth will be controlled by 1% of the population.  When you take a close look at that, it becomes very clear that the most efficient business model is one that targets the most revenue from the smallest pool of customers.  And that’s exactly what inaccessibility helps us to do.”

Apple’s CEO further pointed out that inaccessibility, rather than decreasing demand from the remaining 99% of the population could in fact increase that demand.  “We know that the existence of unattainable high-end products and services does not discourage low-end users from wanting them.  This has a dual effect for us. First, low-end users will spend even more money on the ‘entry level' versions of our products, which they will believe to be more valuable due to their very close similarity to the expensive premium products. Second, as more and more people want and can’t have something, that something becomes even more valuable to wealthy and status sensitive buyers, allowing us down the road to charge, for example, up to $100,000 for a product like the gold Apple Watch.  It's the exact opposite of the race-to-the-bottom pricing strategy employed by other companies.”

The company’s press release also included a statement from Jony Ive, who recently took over responsibility for human interface as well as industrial design: “Serving hundreds of millions of users inherently dilutes focus, and requires continuous effort to address bugs and complaints from the multitudes. On the other hand, we have found that our wealthiest users care very little about the functionality of our products, but instead let us focus on fewer challenges such as making them shinier or out of new precious metals. In fact, a majority of the wealthy users we asked to test the gold Apple Watch did not even notice when the battery was depleted and the watch was no longer functioning for 2, 3 and in one case up to 17 days.  That’s the beauty and simplicity of turning technology into a jewelry product.  Fortunately, there is a natural affinity between the new inaccessibility strategy and my goal of changing Apple’s focus from technology to jewelry.”

The Rollout

The first product to be launched with inaccessibility built-in is the Apple Watch, which goes on sale April 24th.  In order to test the market for inaccessibility, there is also a stainless steel version of the Watch, priced to be around 1000% more expensive than the vast majority of stainless steel watches on the market.  The thinking behind this, says Luca Maestri, CFO of Apple, is that inaccessibility can be created both within categories as well as by categories.  “By making the stainless steel Apple Watch with a non-plastic strap cost between $750 and $1100, we are actually making the product inaccessible to people who would normally consider themselves able to afford a stainless steel watch.  We will be watching closely to see how this translates to efficiency and higher product margins. If we can sell 500,000 steel watches with profit margins around 400% (or $800 per watch) instead of 5 million with profit margins around 50% (or $100 watch), we will consider this a successful experiment.”

To help reach out to their newly focused target market, Apple is also launching a TV and print ad campaign, which uses a slogan adapted from the famous motto for the original Macintosh computer in 1984.  Tim Cook describes this as “The natural evolution of Apple’s brand.  The ‘computer for the rest of us’ campaign propelled the Macintosh out of a niche market of technology geeks and into the much more lucrative market of mainstream consumers.  Our new campaign takes that a step further by moving the Apple Watch out of the reach of the mainstream consumer, and targeting the most lucrative market in the world: wealthy elitists.”  Leading this charge will be the new slogan “Technology for the other 1% of us."

The first print ad for the Apple Watch highlights inaccessibility as the primary feature.

For the long-term, Cook sees huge potential in this new direction for Apple.  “You can expect to see more and more of our ecosystem updated with inaccessibility features going forward, and more attention and focus on catering to our wealthiest markets.  What’s really exciting about this is that only Apple controls the hardware, software and services needed to implement this sort of strategy, and demand these kinds of prices. To frame it in even more inaccessible terms, we are doing what everyone else in the world wishes they could do, but simply can't.”