Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller’s “segment of Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday took on an interesting, more aggressive tone as he introduced the Mac Pro. ‘Can’t innovate anymore, my ass,’ he said — a line directed not at his audience of sympathetic Apple developers, but at the nattering nabobs of negativism that have accumulated at the base of Apple’s sliding stock price,” Nilay Patel writes for The Verge. “…If the chief criticism of Apple was that it no longer produces stunning, industry-leading computers, the Mac Pro would be the ultimate rebuttal. Schiller should have brought out a mic just to drop it.”
“But that’s not the criticism Apple’s actually facing — the company already makes the best laptop and the best all-in-one PC, and many would argue that it also makes the best phone and tablet as well,” Patel writes. “Apple’s stock hasn’t slid because it’s been putting out uninspired hardware — it’s slid because the company hasn’t been able to enter any major new product categories in years, and major software efforts like Siri and iCloud have faltered in extremely public ways.”
Patel writes, “Under Jobs, Apple did an extraordinary job of changing how entire markets worked: music, movies, smartphones, tablets, laptops, all of it. But it’s been a long time since Apple offered any change on that scale, and a visually refreshed iOS 7 and the new Mac Pro aren’t proof that it still can…”
MacDailyNews Take: iOS 7 is much more than just “visually refreshed.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Winding up for a looong sentence… Okay:
The latter argument about Siri and iCloud is partially true (although the general public’s perception of either isn’t nearly as bad as Patel seems to think), but the major stock-value-cratering fsckups under Cook were allowing Forstall’s wild overselling of Maps at WWDC 2012 combined with the bush league failure to simply tag it as a “beta” upon release and, as Cook has admitted, the stupid launch of the new iMac without having any units to sell for months (shedding some 750,000-1,000,000 holiday Mac sales which affected quarterly results and gave the AAPL shorts a solid toehold to stand on and foment like rabid dogs), but Patel’s former criticism, that “the company hasn’t been able to enter any major new product categories in years,” is just premature: iPhone was released 5 years, 7 months, and 19 days after iPod; iPad was released 2 years, 9 months, and 5 days after iPhone; Tim Cook has been Apple CEO for 1 year, 9 months, and 22 days.
(Phew! Have at it grammarians!)
In case Nilay has forgotten already:
Designing something requires focus. It takes time.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “TheloniousMac” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Schiller’s ‘can’t innovate anymore, my ass’ one-liner: Apple’s rallying cry – June 11, 2013
What kind of innovative does Apple have to be? – June 11, 2013
Jony Ive is the new Steve Jobs: Positively mind-blowing iOS 7 stirs Apple-envy yet again – June 11, 2013
Apple’s real challenges are based around the fact that criminal copy cats like Samsung can free load off their hard work and enablers like judge Koh will allow them to do so without consequences and retarded Droid heads will snap up the stolen merchandise and claim it is better than the earth shattering and paradigm shifting iPhone and drone on about rounded rectangles and walled gardens while completely missing the point.
And don’t forget about the ITC who has gone against the flow vs FRAND. Its hard for Apple to get its non-FRAND patents supported but the ITC wants to fully support the illegal FRAND patent that samsung wants Apple to pay thru the neck for.
Sad to say..
The mob: “Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! …”
Apple introduces revolutionary new Mac Pro. Mob is stunned and, for a few moments, is silent. Then…
Mob: “That’s not quite what we meant. So, Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! Apple can’t innovate! …”
I’m afraid a cylindrical-shaped computer is not what the mob considers innovation. I’m not sure Apple actually needs innovation. Apple really needs to build products that consumers want to buy in quantity and I don’t think that requires innovation. My gut feeling tells me almost no consumers are interested in buying cylindrical-shaped computers. It’s an attractive device but a base price $3000 computer is really a bit too expensive for most consumer’s tastes. I’d buy one in a minute, because it fits my needs perfectly but I’m sure the high-end 12-core will be about $4500 which although affordable, I wouldn’t be willing to spend that much.
If Apple were able to sell a Mac Pro for $500, then that might be the innovation the mob is crying for. Maybe. I’m not precisely sure what passes off for innovation nowadays. Those Haswell processors seem like innovation to me because that’s the sort of thing I’m looking for. Innovation is probably something else for other people. I’d sure like to see a list of things that the tech people would say are innovations and are actually feasible to build at a reasonable price for consumers.
Innovation or not, Apple needs to get about selling lots of products, preferably iPhones, to hold up it’s share price. Right now, it’s barely holding its own.
Oh look, We need to hold up the share price! 😎
You should know better. 😉
Where to begin…
Apple does not need to sell millions of $500 computers. Look where joining the race to the bottom got Dell.
The Mac Pro is NOT a consumer product. It’s a “pro” product.
The rest of your argument is similarly flawed.
Yes you are right Zeke,
The Apple math, is to pack new innovations, technologies or improvements into its updates rather than lower its prices.
Hence a 500 buck Mac pro-sumer machine would drive
the consumer Mac mini to an impossible low of 120 bucks. Never gonna happen.
But lay off Laughing_Boy48, as he is merely suggesting The Mob (wallstreet) would rather see lower prices as the innovation… not his personally. Intel processors are his sort of innovation.
First off,
“Apple does not need to sell millions of $500 computers. Look where* joining the race to the bottom got Dell.”
— Look (we’re*) racing against Dell for the bottom line.
is that what you meant?
Secondly, Apple sells a 500 – 700 dollar computer already, in the millions possibly, though uncertain, yet its not a pro machine – its the Mac mini. And its not been a race to the bottom. However its actually forced Dell to reconsider their 500 dollar offering.
Lesson, don’t misinterpret nor judge one’s opinion without reading it five times.
I meant exactly what I said. Apple does not need to try to compete with the cheapest crap on the market for market share. Neither I nor Laughing Boy were talking about the Mac mini. The Mac mini is a niche product, not the premier offering. When Apple tries to compete with Dell on price they will have lost their way and they will go on without me as an investor.
Sorry Zeke, i guess i should have read your post carefully.
Bad I am. My apologizes. i found that awkward.
I get it now. “Look where joining the race to the bottom got Dell” Look where that got Dell, as it raced to lower prices.
A $500 Mac Pro is still without a monitor and hard drive (I think). Innovation would be disrupting a new field. That’s what WS is looking for – potential, disruption, change.
Apple has not revealed it’s plans to enter a new field so WS is bored. AAPL has just become a place to get dividends. BORING. But MDN’s take is good.
Good post and I agree mostly, however on the note of innovation, not to be disrespectful – alright – though maybe only my opinion:
But, combining technologies and using advancements in manufacturing processes to produce a product in a new light, perhaps one that once was only dreamt before, is innovation. It takes the ability to think different.
Other than that, yeah, lower the prices, put this machine in more hands, increase the popularity and strengthen the Apple ecosystem.
Apple doesn’t need to build a $500 desktop computer they need to build desktop computers that are really WORTH $1200-$3000 and have high enough margins to keep improving them.
I no longer need a desktop at home. But I could really use something to replace my dual screen WinXP setup at work.
“…the nattering nabobs of negativism that have accumulated at the base of Apple’s sliding stock price”
Au contrar mon amí, that is a process instigated by Wall Street fund manipulators. They have a modus operandi that should now be familiar to anybody who tracks stocks.
This was the article on the Verge that out me over the edge. In their separation to report anything at all they write hit pieces like this.
In the last year Apple brought out the best all in one desktop. Their Air is still unchallenged in the laptop space and they upped the anty for the assemblers again. They introduced a laptop with the highest resolution ever which PC assemblers can’t match. Sure, a resolution number on a non functioning piece of crap maybe but not a working computer.
Name one other company that has brought a single piece of innovation to the world outside of apple in the last five years. UI tweaks to Android don’t count and neither does a beta set of eyewear that is basically useless.
Well said.
So it begs the question, why is Apple held to such ridiculously high standards for innovation while the rest of the copycat pack gets a pass?
Because they are the big dog and corporate envy, media cluelessness, analysts self interests and Wall Street money madness miss the mark.
Personally I feel that Phil’s comment made him look like an ass.
It was undignified and petty. They should all be acting like Steve can come in at any minute and tell them their crap SUCKS. They should feel real pressure and start performing. OSX 10.8.4 breaking LLDB compiler, while XCODE 4.6.2 claiming it was improved is the kind of attention deficit that has been plaguing Apple since Steve got ill. It is time to start asking “what would Steve do?”. He would not settle for the “less” that has been Apple lately. PERIOD.
I’m so glad you’re not running Apple. What was the one thing Steve Jobs wanted people not to do when he was gone? Ask “what would Steve do?”, that’s what.
Phil is known to have this type of attitude, and honestly its very well needed. It evokes real energy and expresses true passion – and it is in the spirit (though a different flavour) “rebellious” like Steve.
Apple produced a Mac Pro (it took a while) but its completely radical, a mini tower (with engineering reminiscent of Mac mini) packed with extreme potential ‘kick-ass” power (making Phil comment far more suitable), that combined with power user joyful additions to Maverick; i hope the pro-level Apple users will embrace the Jet Engine to the exponential power of 4. Price will be the factor, yet, if set right, many might flock to the Black Tubular Beauty. Finally Tim does show use some mind blow-away product.
Steve asked his company NOT to think like him…
not to wonder, “hey, what would Steve do”, yet you mention you are glad hgeil isn’t running Apple.
Moronic post because Phils comment, ‘Can’t innovate anymore, my ass,’ was a youthful, cocky, arrogant statement not out of character of himself… and not out of character of Steve either. I don’t think, Phil, for one second even though ‘what Steve would have done’ – he just was acted like Phil.
No you are wrong. Phil was just the right guy in the org to say that and it SHOULD have been said. It let everyone know they are sensitive to the criticisms and are aware of it and are most actively working on changing that perception, made by the disingenuous and clueless. But something harmful to let slide and not react to.
Right you are peterblood71 – great post
You mean like this?
Didn’t mean to ruffle feathers… wow.
Phil does not need to stoop to address the pundits claiming Apple cannot innovate. Cocky? Sure, but I happen to agree with Han Solo on not being cocky. It is truly bad form. If the Mac Pro, and Mavericks are truly great, they will stand on their own, if not, then Phil’s comment will be bad for him methinks. That is all I was saying.
ofc you are forgiven – its your opinion
and you dont need to be a lemming Apple Fan
also – you make a good defence, no need for Phil to be rude.
after all, he was amongst loyal Apple people
Because the competition has been innovating circles around Apple by copying their touch-based smartphones and tablets.
Amazing isn’t it Apple is producing (or not if you prefer) new product sectors at the same rate as ever but liars are intent on claiming otherwise. Secondly you can’t just invent new product opportunities out of the air they have to be perceived or present themselves and then you have to work hard to make that opportunity work. Such opportunities can be few and far between and become more difficult the more you enter. Also after 3 such (ridiculed at the time remember) entrances the opposition is more intent on spying out and /or guessing their moves so it is more difficult to do what they have done before. What great product/sector changing products have the opposition produced in the meantime, yet they get no such expectation. What Apple cant do is what they tend to do and take a scatter gun approach hoping that something sticks. Apple would unlike those others be slaughtered for doing that too, best to wait manage expectations keep producing those best in class products and as and when an opportunity arises and hopefully unexpectedly (if only the timing) launch the next big thing. Doing so for the sake of hacks and analysts would be the worst approach and something Apple has never done.
That’s simply not true. Apple competes in very few niches of the computing market. And hasn’t been first to market with any breakthrough in a long, long time. That doesn’t mean Apple doesn’t produce some of the finest devices available, but the alternatives are many, and Apple has NOT been fending them all off.
Apple is MIA on the enterprise front. There is no family of iPhones — Samsung and others offer dozens of models to suit all tastes and budgets around the world. Apple has only a few lines of computers, including HUGE gaps between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. It dropped 17″ laptops for some unknown reason. Apple TV remains “a hobby” and therefore offers surprisingly limited functionality compared to the diverse array of accessory boxes and consoles available and recently announced by the competition.
The criticism that Apple doesn’t innovate has nothing to do with the many small innovations that Apple releases all the time — it is an overblown complaint that Apple has been expected to break new ground regularly, and those expectations have not been met. Can you name a truly market-creating Apple device since the revolutionary iPhone? Apple has been offering incremental innovation since then.
We can fairly say that the Mac Pro performance will be worth the wait, and perhaps some will consider the re-packaging to be innovative, however, it does piss off many users that once again they will have to buy all new adapters and docks to tap into the power of the new machine. We’re not going to throw away our peripherals — none of which are Thunderbolt — in order to hook up to a machine that has practically no legacy connectivity in common with the prior model. Call that innovation if you want, i call it a questionable marketing move that hinders potential sales. Apple desperately needs a mid-size expandable tower with some “old tech” — that would be the kind of “innovation” that would attract whole new markets of customers.
As for anything else offered in WWDC 2013: strong evolutionary steps; nothing truly revolutionary.
All that said, it is shallow investors who listen to whiners instead of analyzing the fundamentals that are to blame for lagging AAPL value. Revolutionary products aren’t necessarily good or profitable. Apple’s relative slowdown on new market innovation has not been accompanied by a slide in hardware quality or lagging sales. Punishment of AAPL stock seems to be a reflection that Samsung’s growth is much faster and Apple doesn’t serve much of the planet where future economic growth is anticipated to be. As always, Wall Street doesn’t care how good or profitable you are today, they want to take as much money from your future growth as possible. To those greedy bastards, Apple isn’t growing its product lines and global presence fast enough.
“since the revolutionary iPhone? Apple has been offering incremental innovation since then”
I like to call that type of work, REFINEMENTS, ADJUSTMENTS or IMPROVEMENTS to products already existing rather than innovations.
But what do we call it when… iOS 7 becomes Android.
First, iOS7 is generally a refreshed skin, to play catch up to the competition. And many of the new IMPROVEMENTS remind the other side, of Android. Its good to see iOS 7 evolve. Competition is good, after all, that’s how industry boundaries are pushed further. Cough, coined or copied. So is it’s Apples turn?
Apple finally adds this ‘gesture up’ – a flick, from any app to access settings. Called ‘Control Centre’, Android had this for quite some time.
Apple just introduced this ‘gesture down’ – a flick down to access notifications from the lock screen. Tabbed info sectioned into today, all and missed. Yet another first seen from Android though Android can provide a complete summary in one window.
Apple improves Safari with tab views of opened webpages. The new 3D view and tabs has long been part of Chrome.
Apple improves on its mutli-tasking, showing full previews in a horizontal scroll with each app running. Very much like the disliked HTC sense 4. Not to forget, the innovating portion is Apples multi-tasking learns the behaviours of it user.
Apple exposes a Pandora like iTunes Radio. Not a game changer, but direct response to Googles Music, and noticeability both interfaces are similar UIs – white though Apples is full of advertising and purchase buttons.
Mail, Apples’ clone to the popular Maibox app. New features have been added which further absorb the complete gestures from Mailbox. Yet, what to expect, Apple does that to its 3rd party developers a lot. Besides, Gmail had swipe to archive or delete a few years ago.
Calendars from Apple in iOS7 gets updated, funny only a couple of weeks ago Googles calendar was updated before Apple. Similarities, are not too unalike, white simplicity, goes beyond with similar circular colour picker and date chooser.
Now also, iOS7 adds plenty of Navigation drawers, sliding panels in apps like Mail and iMessenger, that Apple made note its new to app development. Uhmmm, no, Android had it before you and Blackberry too.
Parallax motion to wallpapers is new to iOS7, however this somewhat equals live wallpaper in Android. Yet another inspiration.
Auto-app update bring relief to iOS users, it just works – finally lol, something taken for granted on Android.
iOS7 gears up for the auto industry, Bing becomes the new search default, and Siri too accesses Bing too. Alright, well, point taken Android still prefers Google search.
Apparently iOS will gain Notifications syncing across devices, Hangouts was only introduced the other day and this type of sync will occur on other apps in Android soon.
Send to phone, cool iOS7 lets you send information from Maps or Calendar on to your phone. Android requires no press or send, all things are automatically available across devices as it should.
Apple brings Maps from iOS6, the big goof up, now Maps arrives in OSX – oh darn, Android was the topic, well again, let me just say, http://www.google.com/maps 🙂
AirDrop is truly one interesting addition to iOS7. Send practically anything to any other iOS7 device near by. Very cool. And no need to bump devices like Android users – go figure? Still, Samsung had WiFi Direct years ago and no need for bumping.
And last, the lock screen. Scary how the choice of the slim font, the use of circular tones of purples and blues decorated in bubbles, white text showing the date and time and the new minimalistic slide to unlock looks so so so much like Android.
So, iOS7 has truly raised its bar to a new level where most Android users have grown to be accustomed to. And Jony Ives, designer extraordinary claims iOS7 is a new beginning… the beginning of Apple to copy and follow.
Just curious how many posters here have a Samsung tv in their home.
I am looking for a TV. It looks like the samsung is one of the best. But I will endeavor to never buy any samsung products because they are out and out thieves. Since our government won’t do anything about it, I will just do what little I can.
ACtually VIZIO Is less then half the price of most samsung tvs. I have had 2 vizios now and love them. Samsung makes a few relaly nice looking tvs. The ones with little edge to them and thats cool but im not paying 2000 more just to have that when my VIZIO works just fine.
They are an American company too. However almost nothing they make is actually made here. FOr that i Applaud Apple for making the Mac Pro here.
IF we would make all our products here just think of the economic boost it would have on the US. So many new jobs. If we would quit giving all our money to the Chinese.
Vizio sucks. They are cheap for a reason.
Get a Panasonic plasma and you will not be disappointed.
No Samsung here, nor will there be. I work in the CE industry, and there are plenty of excellent alternatives, including Panasonic and Sharp. No need to support Samsung.
No Samsung here. Bought beautiful 60″ Sharp. Great TV, Great Screen. BTW was better priced than Samdung.
I’m done with Korean products period. I can’t control what’s inside products I buy, (chips in cars for example), but will not consider large Korean company products, Hyundai / Kia. Fact is, I don’t give people who support those conglomerate beheamoths any breaks either.
I do not own any Samsung TVs. I spit on them. The guy who cuts my hair was afraid to mention to me that he got one for his birthday. I let everyone I know know how I feel about Samsung’s thievery in the hopes that it may help to dissuade one other consumer from buying a Samsung product, or at least consider something from a competitor. I currently have only Sony TVs. When I buy anything I am not looking for the cheapest, I am looking for the best value.
I have two Sony TVs. I had a Samsung BluRay player but I gave it away to an Android phone user I didn’t like.
I wouldn’t have a samsung labelled product in my house if it was given to me. Sadly I can’t control what’s inside my Apple products.
I have two.
I have two as well. They are fine but their media center option is great. put any movie in any format on any USB flash drive and plug it in. Very simple menus have you watching the movie you downloaded or video you shot or pictures or music in seconds.. It made my Apple TV obsolete in one try. You can surf the web YouTube etc as well. I only wish I could do the same with an iPad. But no USB. And only frustrating iTunes to play does ios7 have cursor control or am I still using the stupid magnifying glass thing ? Ohhh
To be fair, several billions of dollars in damages ARE “consequences” The legal system is focused on trying to make victims financially whole, not on expressing moral outrage, no matter how justified. It isn’t the trial judge’s fault that the pretrial and appeals processes take so long. That would be down to the President and Congress for not creating, appointing, and confirming enough Federal judgeships.
300 iCloud accounts in just a couple of years is hardly faltering. Granted it’s far from perfected, but what it does do is to provide the glue that binds the eco system together. This gives Apple a competitive edge, also iWorks in iCloud (which has been largely overlooked) could potentially draw more and more Windows users into the Apple eco system and as a consequence drive more sales of iPhones and iPads.
Holy hell you mean to tell me Apple isn’t *perfect*??!?!!? They make mistakes!?? OMG!!!! Continue to tell us what you — pundit (the perfect human being) — think Apple *needs* to do. Tell us, great infallible one, of Apple’s perilous mistakes, and what they *should* have done, and what they *should* be doing now!! After all, your brain is clearly too big for you to start your own company, clearly too big for you to actually risk anything and much better at looking from afar and pissing on what people with balls actually DO.
This is so dumb. Steve himself, when introducing the iPhone, talked about how rare it is for a company to be part of *one* revolution, let alone several in a person’s lifetime.
What sets Apple apart and makes them brilliant is timing: PCs existed before Macs, MP3 players before iPods, cell phones and PDAs before iPhone, tablets before iPads, etc. Apple waits until both the product *and* the market is ready before releasing anything. They learned their lessons with failures like the Newton.
Yes, only so many “revolutions” can be milked out of an area, and after that it is just perfecting what you have for awhile.
I would think there will be a stall for new categories within a major category at least for a stretch if time. There are only so many things you can make a revolutionary product out of (unless you branch out to cars, toaster oven and things outside of your main product zone). And sometimes to come up with something that is way ahead of it’s time within the established product zone you have to wait years for technology capabilities to catch up with your wild idea before you can mass produce it. After a watch, ring and/or TV, not sure what would be new “next revolutionary product” that current technology is capable of supporting.
Don’t know if I explained that well, but tried.
I think it’s great that pundits like this guy think it’s Apple’s responsibility to change the world and if they don’t according to him every couple of years, their a faltering company!? Way to go Apple, mission accomplished.
Doesn’t matter what Apple do, it is never good enough for Wall Street. Apple needs a good marketers. incredible advertising saturated its products like Samsung.
It’s funny how in the eyes of the media, if Apple goes 2 years without completely changing the world and revolutionising an industry, they’re a failure… The world was spoiled with the iPhone and iPad so closely released. NO other company is held to the same expectation, which is good in one sense but also provides fodder for fools to chew and spew FUD!!
“…the company hasn’t been able to enter any major new product categories in years…”
Exactly three years since they invented an entirely new product category. And before that it was an entire 4 whole years since they completely reinvented the telephone.
Which as far as I’m concerned is just fine. If you’re going to create an entirely new $100 billion business, you don’t have to do that every single year.
Brilliant designed by apple in California animation. Really beautiful
Good job jony and tim ,could this animation not be used as a tv advertisement , would be nice!
Visually, iOS7 really hasn’t inspired or changed much.
Sure we got some controversy on design, with the flattening of graphics. Bye bye, fake materials, chrome effects, 3D shadows. Introducing the thin The choice of font, a think semi Specifically on a good handful of standard app icons. Removing highlights, patterns and shadows and injecting lively pastel colours. All to achieve simplifying and unity to the OS.
But not necessarily achieved. As design is very subjective. The Resulting effort provides a comic book like, flowery, unintuitive, poorly balanced, uninspiring, non-uniformed, abstract, set of standard pre-installed apps. The changes do not really offer any beneficial use to users at all. However, the general look and feel of the OS, though said to be completely new (remain constant and true to the original – as it should) basically is no astonishing different. We still have a grid of apps, folders and wallpaper. The interface is used by pressing, swiping, pinching and flicking. Yet, we do have in addition, these wonderful new features and functionalities that are well needed.
Apple, really does innovate and improve the USE and USER methods of iOS by adding, well thought out features that do help improve on exactly how we actual use our devices. However, (thought unnecessary) these improvements lack eye candy or wow appeal. Nothing is radical or mind blowing about the revisions to iOS7 other then features added.
Layered graphics (cant see this being new to iOS), combined with a movement by the user, (parallax viewing) plus translucency (oppsed to the blue boxed pop-ups) are the real visual changes in iOS. Thats about all the eye candy we get.
The popups like “Notifications” and “Alerts” are larger full screen, screened back translucent BLACK integrated messages or information SET with white text. This reads well and the translucent provides as “slight feel of customization” (lol) due to your choice of wall paper (somewhat lame). While, “Settings” and featured “Functions” like Stocks and Weather and quick access to well needed “Controls” are SET on WHITE translucent areas with usually Knockout text, again, full screen too – to better integrate and feel harmonious or organized, one might guess. Yet the promising part of iOS7 upgrade is the features:
(Airdrop) and Airplay – sharing made easy, amongst other devices and people.
(Control Centre) – quick access to most needed functions.
(Multi-tasking) – a new way to see whats running and an intelligent efficient way to manage those running apps. Camera – one area for all types of capture, video and stills plus filters.
(Photos) – brings iPhoto organization to your device.
(Safari) – cleaner interface, some great features to share links and make reading lists, a modern tab view, password generator and iCloud keychain.
(iRadio) – a simple radio player and subset of iTunes store.
(Siri) – handles more tasks, faster, clearer, plus new look.
But overall, iOS7 pretty much remains true to the look and feel of iOS old. Feel as multi-touch, as in what the user does to use it. Feel as in emotional satisfaction also will remain. Feel as in mood to change of pastels, well mixed. And feel for the features – well needed and will be feel as Apple needed in keeping up to the competition.
Develop something totally new. Okay, and who has done this? Google, NOT!! Samsung, NOT!!! Microsoft, NOT!! Dell, hell NO!!!
So what you are saying is that in order for a company to have a great stock price something new has to be developed. Well then you and the rest better start hammering Google”s way over priced stock along with Samsung and company. This story is a bunch of FUD through and through.
“and many would argue that it also makes the best phone and tablet as well”
Duhhh – yah think?
“the company hasn’t been able to enter any major new product categories in years”
Apple has innovated more than the rest of the computer, phone and music industries COMBINED! When was the last time Dell, IBM, Samcopier or Nokia revolutionized an industry?
Seamus, you are clearly not paying attention to the rest of the computing industry. There are many other companies pushing the envelope on all fronts: high definition audio and video, immersive user interfaces, and so forth. Apple doesn’t even play in many of these arenas. And just because you love Apple best doesn’t mean that technologies like Microsoft’s Kinect aren’t ushering in breakthroughs in how we compute.
Moreover, even in areas where Apple used to be cutting edge, it is now playing catch-up. 4k video is on the horizon and Apple doesn’t even distribute 1080p video, nor offer a 4k display. iWork ’09 is still being sold, presumably to casual users with very light publishing needs. Apple TV remains a highly restricted hobby. and the list goes on.
Apple has many things well, but the competition is fierce and Apple isn’t on the cutting edge in many areas. Some of us don’t expect it to be, but it is disingenuous to claim Apple is superior to all others.
Innovate – yes. But innovate in a way that transforms industries or even just makes a big impact?
It’s great to look at those graphics of cell phones and tablets before Apple and after Apple.
– ALL smartphones, except Microsoft, are utterly derivative iPhone wannabes.
– Same for tablets.
– App stores?
– Music delivery?
– After their netbooks were obliterated by the Air, what was the computer industry’s answer? Forget about netbooks and make computers that look like the Air.
Kinect? I dunno. Doesn’t impress me. The micro-gesture stuff used while sitting at you desk — now that could be great. But it hasn’t had an impact yet. So let’s not postulate.
So sure – lots of little bits of innovation here and there, done by various companies. That adds up to a lot. But I see whole industries transformed by Apple and then following Apple. I don’t see anyone else doing that.
But my point wasn’t to try and declare, “Apple is the one and only king of innovation”. It was to highlight how profoundly stupid this “Apple doesn’t innovate” mantra is. Apple doesn’t have to be the ONLY innovator to contradict that stupid idea. They just need to be a very high-level innovator — which they are.
Patel writes, “Under Jobs…
So go dig up Jobs and reanimate his corpse.
Stupid tech journalism. Another expert at running Apple. Another apologist for Apple Bear bullshit. 😛
Warren Buffet always said to invest you need to look for where others have missed signs of opportunity.
Self-Regurgitating journalists cite no “new” devices, but even Apple can not pile on more “new” devices than are actually usable, so a plateau is reached until miniaturization reaches a new level. Next generation cpus & RAM/Flash combo memory might be it, but it is not coming any time soon. So…what now?
Apple’s growth is not so much tied to “new devices” anymore as it is to integration of devices with innumerable pieces of interacting software that work across devices. The innovation is in now making software work better and easier and more interactively than ever before.
No other company is tackling this task across ‘all devices’ like Apple and therein lies early investment opportunity.
The real revolution takes place between a person’s ears. Apple’s been setting off all sorts of new explosions there. It’s subversive and it’s a wonder.
Get your Desktop here! More colors coming soon…
http://www.jamesrhodes.info/downloads/graphics/apple/innovate/
Go one level up to see the “Think Different” folder too. Again, more colors coming soon… 🙂
Wrong, Apple’s stock price has slid because it’s been under profitable attack from what is likely a loose consortium of corrupt press outlets paid off by a competitor with deep pockets, allied to a group of high frequency trading hedge funds, who can use harvested headlines as the means to coordinate systematic short attacks. The transnational nature (“supply chain drop shows iphone 5 production to be cut by 30%!” shrieking headlines in Taiwan fueling selling on Nasdaq) of these attacks and the seeming total inability of the SEC to regulate hedge funds generally and especially HFT one, meant free money until Tim Cook stopped their game by stock buybacks. But you’ll never read this account in any of the financial media. Rather it’s “investors continued to show disappointment in Apple’s future growth prospects” etc. etc.