Apple's Phil Schiller: "We don't use any customer surveys, focus groups, or typical things of that nature"

Philip Schiller, Apple's SVP of Worldwide Marketing, is among the first people on Apple's list of witnesses who will testify at the Apple vs Samsung trial. The key executive began his testimony on Tuesday, but had to pause it after only a few minutes, as it was time for the court to wrap it up. Nevertheless, during his brief appearance, Schiller revealed an interesting fact about how Apple does market research: it doesn't.

Well, that's at least when it comes to the product creation process:

"We don't use any customer surveys, focus groups, or typical things of that nature. That plays no role in the creation of the products."

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was known to be an opponent of market researches in the traditional sense of the word, often alluding to the idea that it isn't the consumer's job to know what they want in a product. As you might guess, Jobs thought this was Apple's job.

Phil Schiller seems to be holding a similar stance, saying "you never ask people 'what features do you want in a new product? You need to accumulate that yourself."

Still, at least two relatively recent researches by Apple have been found, showing that the company does use such techniques from time to time, for one reason or another. Still, it sounds like when it's designing a new product, Apple listens to its own people first, and doesn't tolerate much external input.

Phil Schiller's testimony is set to resume this Friday. Stay tuned for more interesting details about the atmosphere and processes within Apple!

source: AppleInsider