“In search of growth opportunities beyond just smartphones and tablets, it now appears that Apple is willing to venture far beyond the latest wearable consumer device — such as the iWatch — and experiment with opportunities in everything from medical devices to automobiles,” Dominic Basulto writes for The Washington Post. “The latest rumor making the rounds is that Apple has considered a hookup with Elon Musk and Tesla, which would give Apple immediate access to the market for electric vehicles and pave the way for renewed growth going forward.”
“That’s undoubtedly good news for Apple’s shareholders, but what about for Apple’s consumers? What this means for Apple’s legions of fans – the same fans that are willing to wait in line for hours for the chance to be the first to use a new Apple product — is that the company is increasingly going to look less like a Silicon Valley start-up and more like GE: a mature, entrenched company completely dedicated to improvement and incremental innovation on a global basis,” Basulto writes. “Not that there’s anything wrong with Apple turning into a company like GE. You could make the case that GE, with its market capitalization of just over $250 billion (about half of what Apple is worth these days), is one of the most innovative companies in the world, with a track record of innovation in everything from big data to the industrial Internet. ”
“Yet, GE doesn’t inspire the same rabid fan boy base as Apple,” Basulto writes. “Quite simply, it’s the difference between incremental innovation and disruptive innovative… You can already see signs of how Apple has become more of a incrementally innovative company than a disruptive innovation company with each new product iteration of the past two years. Each new iPhone, each new iPad, is clearly better than anything that came before – yet it’s not clear if Apple holds the same appeal for consumers as it once did when Steve Jobs was running the show.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Dominic Basulto does not understand Apple and is simply not familiar with Apple’s history.
Apple is operating exactly as it did under Steve Jobs: Disruptive innovation happens sporadically and then each product is refined in quest of perfection.
• 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 2 years, 5 months, and 26 days.
Wow. Does that mean the Federal Reserve is going to give Apple $400 billion so they don’t go poof?
It doesn’t matter where you are on the political spectrum. Massive bailouts to failing companies is an absolute travesty.
I agree. Might be interesting to see the United States go back to Capitalism.
Really? You hold out hope that the US will end Corporate Socialism?
Didn’t realise that GE was a failing company, what you learn eh.
GE, who owned CNBC at the time (Champion of Ayn Rand and the Free Market) was reclassified as a bank so it could get TARP money and get bailed out. This happened even as Conservative NutBall Channel kept pimping Reich Wing ideology which they do under current owner CONcast.
• 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 2 years, 5 months, and 26 days.
And how huge of an innovation was the iPad? Technology wise it was broadly the same as an iPhone but bigger. They were still the first to do it, but it was hardly as unforeseeable as the iPhone. Big revolutions like the iPhone don’t grow on trees. There has basically been the Mac (desktop), the MacBook (laptop), the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad in 30 years if you really boil it down. Innovation has basically lost all meaning.
Remember when EVERYONE was piling on, saying nobody needed a giant iPhone? That the tablet was going to be a flop? Remember that? Then literally seconds after it hit the street, imitators started spewing ill-conceived slapped together knockoffs to get a piece of the action.
A lot of innovation is just staying the course over a long period of time. It may start as an epiphany, but it continues as a duty until it’s done.
You sound like you expect the world to revolutionize itself while standing on one leg.
Not at all. I’m saying that the tech media has somehow convinced themselves that iPhone levels of innovation happen every other week and that by not releasing ground breaking products left and right, Apple are somehow failing and not what they were.
Innovation is a combination of things, it can be some radical departure, some new product, a new way of doing an old thing, or constant demonstrable improvement. Apple do all of those things in ways that far exceed what others do, but because of this skewed perception of the word innovation it barely matters what they do or don’t do because they can no longer meet expectations because the word has almost become meaningless.
IMHO we have a different drug involved, regarding Wall-Nut Street. They’re all strung out on Coke, which means their perception of time is crushed, their demeanor is maniacal, and their brains are rotting into a state of psychosis. Their perception of and expectations of reality are not those of healthy, normal human beings.
Hmm. Should I add /s after that post or not? I can’t decide.
Thanks for the reply. I stand corrected. On one foot. 🙂
Yes ironic isn’t it that upon launch all the critics were claiming it was far too big and lack of keyboard is a ono no for almost any and everyone in the market for a phone. And the iPad is just a bigger iPhone, well a bit odd considering it was visualised first and simply put on hold as a minimised version as a phone was seen as more urgent.
As for the company the fact is that it has been a perfecter of its ongoing revolutionary products for longer than it has been a creator of those revolutionary products, its just the nature of the process I mean how long was it between the Mac and the Newton. In fact it all perception anyway all these analysts seem to think innovation is flowing out of Google’s ass these days despite there actually being no sign of the reality of that apparent ‘fact’.
Forget about Tim Cook’s two year, 5 month reign, how long has it been since the iPad release? Apple releases things, not the CEO.
That is quoting MDN, and they typically put that in response to people stating that Apple is no longer releasing innovative products under Tim Cook, when in fact they are but not at the imaginary rate that they have convinced themselves that Apple did under Steve Job. Essentially the media seem to have somehow condensed nearly 3 decades of history into 3 years.
We shall see…we shall see. I sure hope Apple proves everyone wrong, but then again, they made covers for the iPhone c that ignored the appearance if the Apple logo on the phone. I mean…wow, that never woulda got by Steve Jobs.
Agreed. Who’s going to deny that Apple’s chief catalyst of change, not always positive, has died. Who hasn’t noticed that Apple has gone through the mourning process?
On the other hand, Apple has thrived through ALL of the good press and the Apple Bear Bullshit press. It still thrives. It does most things brilliantly well. What company ISN’T envious of Apple just as it is right now, Tim Cook and all?
Just this morning I was bashing away at the latest beta of OS X 10.9.2. I’ve said it before and I’ll verify it now: 10.9.2 has polish. They listened to the big fat problem reports the likes of me have sent them about 10.9.0 and 10.9.1 and have worked hard to end those problems. It shows.
IOW: Anyone thinking Apple is sitting on the butts or degenerating into the likes of General Electric (*GAG* ME!) is delusional in the extreme. Never perfect, always better than the alternatives, Apple.
These idiots expect Apple to release a paradigm changing product every year!
THIS is an hallucination:
You could make the case that GE, with its market capitalization of just over $250 billion (about half of what Apple is worth these days), is one of the most innovative companies in the world, with a track record of innovation in everything from big data to the industrial Internet.
Designer hallucinogen? Or plain old LSD?
Thank you Apple for NEVER being GE.
The day Apple makes a toaster-oven is the day one can start comparing them to GE.
Better yet, the day Apple makes a toaster oven that’s a ripoff of another company’s actually innovative toaster oven, one can start comparing them to GE, the US equivalent of Samsung IMHO.
The day that Apple makes a toaster oven is the day that we all learn to eat differently.
Maybe Apple was talking to Musk to arrange the first Apple stores in orbit and on Mars… Automobiles! How terrestrial.
It was a major shock to read the way this was written as if General Electric was leading the charge.
How about alternating the current position and saying: “There would be something great with GE turning into a company like Apple. With a market capitalization (as if that had anything to do with innovation) of about double of what GE is worth these day Apple is one of the most innovative companies on the planet today.”
Believe me if that “it now appears that Apple is willing to venture far” is just the tip of the iceberg and Apple’s those project that are just appearing now (to those in the dark) have been worked on by Apple for years. It’s not an instant gratification knee jerk reactive company like the Whore Street pimps pumping up the rumor mill.
Dominic Basulto, if you are not “clear” on Apple holding the same appeal to customers then you are either blind, stupid, 3l3c7roish, moronic, a FUDSTER or a journanalyst as those types tend not to be clear on the obvious.
GE and do have one thing in common: they were both founded by two American geniuses
What? There were two American Geniuses? No way!
Now that they’re both dead WTF are the American people going to do until a third American Genius comes along?
relax, I’m the Third American Genius.
How can we compare Apple to GE? GE makes a lot of cheap low end shit.
They also make outstanding medical equipment and aircraft engines.
No argument there. They do indeed make some outstanding stuff. That being said they still make a lot of low end crap.
IIRC, GE sold off the small appliance division to Black & Decker quite a few years ago.
Apple is doing just fine analyzing trends and needs and finding products to fit.
Journalists have to dream up versions of their peers stories every week to stay employed, thus journalistic overload.
Apple only needs to come up with major innovation every few years, so that doesn’t keep journalists employed without repeating themselves. Sigh.
I think all these articles from bloggers and so called journalist should have a BOLD disclaimer at the top and bottom page. It should say exactly this for all of them: ” Please don’t believe everything I write, I’m full of SH@T and talking out of my a** second guessing Apple. “
Dominic Bastard and Windows 8 were clearly made for each other.
“Yet, GE doesn’t inspire the same rabid fan boy base as Apple,”
Duh, no one does. Does that make every other company a failure?
In medial imaging -my profession- they have a saying about GE:
“You can buy better, but you can’t pay more.”
Enough said.