First doesn’t matter

As predictable as rainbows in the rain, the reaction from PC makers to a brand new MacBook design has been to point out how they’ve done it all already. High-res displays? Asus and Dell have you covered. Thinness? Lenovo’s Yoga already limbos under the 13mm bar. And the new MacBook’s ultra-efficient CPU has been in use by Lenovo since last year. So take that, Apple! Your innovation is nothing new.

All these counter-hype tweets from major PC companies betray an obvious insecurity about their trendier competitor. It’s fine to seek to undermine Apple’s bandwagon by pointing out the limitations of its new product, but comparing minuscule numbers is really not the way to do it. Do you really think zero-point-whatever millimeters of extra thinness will convince people to put up with the worse trackpads and battery life of most MacBook competitors?

It’s a lesson that tech companies should have learned by now. Being first to do something is unimportant. Being best is what counts.

Back in 2010, Dell introduced the first 5-inch smartphone with the Streak. That screen size has since become the de facto standard for flagship Android devices, but Dell doesn’t even have a smartphone on sale anymore. The Streak flopped for a number of reasons, both big and small, and its primacy didn’t save it. The same is true of Intel and its Mobile Internet Devices from around the turn of the century: they were the precursor to slim and versatile tablets like the iPad mini, but had woeful battery life and a worse UI. We’re living in the MID age today, only without the original MIDs. We’re also entering the smartwatch age, a good decade after Microsoft got the ball rolling with its SPOT watches.

The problem stems from the need to be first in order to stand out. It’s a necessary but not sufficient precondition for a great product. To be the only one doing something, you also have to be the first one. This is why laptop makers are tripping over themselves in the pursuit of ever-thinner machines with ever-denser displays. Both are desirable things, so obviously more of the same must make for yet more desirable computers. It’s a sad, unthinking competition to be the next first thing. I’m including Apple in that number too, having witnessed its first Retina display MacBook Pro struggling to handle all the extra new pixels.

The emphasis on beating others to the market just seems silly and misguided. When you’re shopping for a new mouse, do you search for the first laser mouse or the best one? Do you care who built and sold the first set of Bluetooth headphones? When it comes to personal electronics, no good idea is left uncopied and, before long, everything good that might once have been unique becomes a matter of choice for the consumer. So even if you’re first to reach a new technological breakthrough, your window for enjoying that lead will be brief.

When Apple cites numbers, one of its favorite data points to bring up is user satisfaction, which is close to 100 percent for all of its products. That’s in spite of the company rarely being the first to do anything. Just take HTC as an example: it had an aluminum unibody phone, a 7-inch aluminum tablet, a plus-sized smartphone, and the Beats brand all before Apple did. Apple’s just doing all these things a little bit better and profiting from it.

Quality matters more than speed. That is especially true in a tech industry where speed advantages perish almost as soon as they appear. I’d love to see the new MacBook legitimately overshadowed by a better competitor. With Windows 10 on the horizon, that’s a real possibility. But as of today, Apple’s best competitors seem lost chasing their spec tails and neglecting what matters. Beat the Mac’s experience, not its numbers.

Verge Video: What really matters about Apple’s new McBook