Since Apple’s inception, Steve Jobs very intentionally positioned his baby as the underdog, one that builds the ultimate tools for the creative types. These days, Apple is powerfully corporate and anything but the underdog of the pre-2000 era. One thing hasn’t changed: the tools Apple builds nowadays are still aimed at creatives, with a heavy focus on prosumers.
It takes talented engineers to come up with such sticky devices and Apple happens to hire some of the brightest minds in the industry.
And guess what?
Like us regular fans, Apple’s employees rely on company products to create interesting videos, compose music, write electronic books and so forth so Apple though it’d be cool to highlight their work via a private website…
Mark Gurman, writing for 9to5Mac, explains Apple’s SVP of Internet Services, Eddy Cue, today announced a new private website conceived to highlight iTunes media employees have created or contribute to in some manner.
The author explains:
Interestingly, Cue does not mention App Store apps in his email. This is likely because Apple does not allow employees to develop their own apps for sale due to a “do not compete” cause in Apple employee contracts.
The blogger has gotten hold of Cue’s announcement email to troops:
Team,
One of the things that makes Apple special is that every person here, no matter where they are or what they do, shares the same deep passion for creativity and innovation. We see this passion most noticeably in the products we make and in the experiences we create for our customers. But it’s in other places, too.
For instance, in addition to their work here at Apple, many employees have helped create some amazing books, songs, movies and TV shows on iTunes. In celebration of their achievements, as well as the creative pursuits of everybody at Apple, we’re launching a new internal website today.
It’s my pleasure to introduce you to our very own Employees on iTunes.
Eddy
This website is unfortunately accessibly solely to Apple employees.
Apple offers other perks to employees, including product discounts, gift bags and free apps/iTunes content.
In my view, this is a praiseworthy idea – I can’t recall any other company which highlights employee-created content via its own digital content distribution system.
Can you?
And don’t get me started on the “this would have never happened if Steve Jobs were alive” thingie – this is Tim Cook’s Apple so Cue’s initiative is yet another reminder of increased collaboration in the post-Jobs, post-Forstall era.
If anything, this new perk is bound to preserve a sense of pride, unity and exceptionalism company employees have always been famous for.
It’d be really, really cool if Apple opened up employee-created content to the rest of us.
That may be a pipedream for the time being, but a boy can dream, can’t he?