Flexibility vs. Simplicity

Apple and EMI made their big announcement yesterday about DRM-free music and premium downloads. It certainly is a big deal, as those who care a lot about technology and music, have been fighting for a wider range of DRM-free music for a long time.

The announcement is really wonderful and begins the slippery-slope of DRM changes that consumers have been demanding. There are a few things that haven't been discussed in the Q&A session that I found interesting.

First, EMI's CEO, Eric Nicoli, made the statement that EMI had known about Steve Job's feelings about DRM far before his well-known open letter about DRM. It seems that this letter was more of a rebuttal to attacks on Apple's iPod and iTunes in Europe than an attack on the music companies. It was as if Jobs was letting the nay-sayers know that he has been in favor of DRM-free music all along, but it was the music companies holding everyone back. Kind of like saying, "I told the big boys already, but their not listening, so stop blaming me and my company." Passing the buck a bit.

Anyway, the really interesting comment to me was from Steve Jobs on choices (Timestamp 41:02): "Life is a balance between total freedom and simplicity. We try to strike the local maximums… where we can give people what they tell us… and what we think they want… and yet keep it very simple."

I connected to this statement, because it Jobs articulates the struggle of design very well. As designers you want to create something that will satisfy the consumer's problem (i.e. I want to buy music easily and securely form the Internet), be flexible (i.e. I want to buy only one song, or a song at a better quality, or without dirty words), and yet keep it simple (integrate the store within the player, make backing-up the music integrated, and give me album artwork automatically, etc.).

To me companies like Microsoft and Sony have always been scoring really high in the total freedom category. Their products can be "modded" and third-party applications abound for them. They allow a person to do virtually anything related to their products.

Companies like Apple and Google have done well with simplicity. Here's one white page with a dialog box, one image, and two buttons. Apple for years had only a one-button mouse ship with it's computers.

To me the race is now on for that balance that Jobs mentions. Google's front page is actually a bit more complex now, including a personalized home page, and customizable widgets. Apple has embraced a mouse with four buttons and a click-wheel. Microsoft is simplifying it's interface to resemble the more user friendly OS X.

Google's Adwords is a terrific example of the two extremes of simplicity and freedom. There are two ways to use Google's Adwords: a Starter Edition and a Standard Edition. The Starter Edition is on the simplicity side of the extreme and the Standard Edition is all about Freedom. Starter has one campaign, one defined area, one set of keywords, etc. Standard has the ability to create multiple campaigns over many specific areas with various keywords. It includes analytics and reports. You have a virtually infinite array of choices.

Jumping from a Starter Edition to a Standard Edition is overwhelming, and I wish now that I could jump back for my NJ Mac Help campaigns. If you have ever "graduated" from Starter to Standard like me, then you perhaps know what I mean. There is no middle ground for Adwords.

Apple, I think has been doing a great job of opening itself up to more flexibility, while still safeguarding it's simplicity. Boot camp, the Intel switch, iTunes/iPods working with PC's: these were all flexibility moves. So, as we see Apple become more balanced or hit those "local maximums," I wonder how many people will seek to reap their benefits.