The Simple Stick

Of all of the things that Apple is known for, a major one is simplicity. It seems weird to say it, particularly when talking about complicated, powerful devices like iPhones and Macbooks, but everyone knows that it’s true. When compared to competing devices, Apple’s are almost always simpler to use.

This wasn’t just due to luck — it was due in large part to Steve Jobs and his “simple stick”.

I first heard about this in a recent episode of the Founders podcast, where they said:

“If an idea was not distilled down to its essence, Steve would reject it.

If an idea took a turn when it should have traveled in a straight line.

If you made different versions of anything, Steve would hit you with the simple stick until you simplified it down to one.”

In the case of Jobs, it wasn’t about the quality of the work but simply that it was too complicated. In a post on The Daily Coach a while back, they shared this anecdote:

“The suspense is killing me,” I said. “How’d it go this morning?”

“Well,” he said, “Steve hit us with the Simple Stick.”

Translation: Steve had rejected their work — not because it was bad but because in some way it failed to distill the idea to its essence. It took a turn when it should have travelled a straight line.

In this case, it hadn’t even been the creative effort that bothered Steve — it was the project itself. The person leading the project had directed the team to create packaging for two versions of the same product. Steve had decided this was brain- dead. “Just combine them,” he said. “One product, one box.” There was no need to explore the idea of a second package.

Simple wasn’t the only thing; it’d be impossible to create a device like the iPhone that was “simple” all the way through. That was the magic of Steve Jobs; they could take a wildly powerful and complex device like the iPhone and make it seem simple.

In the unveiling of the iPhone in 2007, Steve took careful steps to make the phone appear as simple and easy to use as anything you could imagine. For example, if you start around the 15:20 mark of his 2007 keynote, watch how slowly and deliberately he shows actions such as sliding to wake the phone, and using the home button to always get back home.

I suspect the “Simple Stick” has been used quite a lot at Apple over the years, and other companies would do well to introduce it in their workflows as well.