“Facebook is set to release its virtual reality headset, Oculus, next week. It will be big and clunky, expensive, and cause nausea and other problems for its users,” Vivek Wadhwa writes for The Washington Post. “Within a few months, we will declare our disappointment with virtual reality itself while Facebook listens very carefully to its users and develops improvements in its technology. Version 3 of this, most likely in 2018 or 2019, will be amazing.”
“This is the way innovation happens now. You release a basic product and let the market tell you how to make it better. There is no time to get it perfect; it may become obsolete even before it is released,” Wadhwa writes. “Apple hasn’t figured this out yet. It maintains a fortress of secrecy and its leaders dictate product features. When it releases a new technology, it goes to extremes to ensure elegant design and perfection.”
“Steve Jobs was a true visionary who refused to listen to customers — believing that he knew better than they did about what they needed,” Wadhwa writes. “Jobs’s tactics worked very well for him and he created the most valuable company in the world. But without Jobs — and given the dramatic technology changes that are happening, Apple may have peaked. It is headed the way of IBM in the ’90s and Microsoft in the late 2000’s. Consider that its last major innovation — the iPhone — was released in June 2007.”
“Even the announcements that Apple made Monday were uninspiring: smaller iPhones and iPads. All it seems to be doing is playing catch up with Samsung, which offers tablets and phones of many sizes and has better features. It has been also been copying products such as Google Maps and not doing this very well,” Wadhwa writes. “There is nothing earth shattering or compelling about Apple’s new phones — or any of the products it has released since 2007. By now, Apple should have released some of the products that we heard rumors about: TV sets, virtual reality headsets, and cars.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Just getting this myopic pile of crap on record for future reference. We’re not even going to bother listing the litany of innovative products, services, and features Apple has released since 2007 or since Job’s death, for that matter.
Jesus! Yeah yeah yeah, Apple’s future is always looking so freaking bad. I fucking HATE writers like this. STFU and crawl back into your cave, Vivek.
I laughed when I read these comments. I thought, who is this guy? And then I reviewed his credentials and learned the fellow is no slouch, holds a prestigious academic position and really must know his stuff.
So, which is it? The fellow’s comment are laughable and wrong-headed or his views are to be respected and listened to given his credentials?
Given the weight of the evidence, savvy readers can reach only one conclusion: The fellow’s comments are worthy of a good laugh.
Tim Cook’s 5-years of innovation:
The lightning cable
Gimped Mac Pro
Retarded/expensive Macbook
Buggy and stripped down ATV 4
Perpetual 16GB products
Perpetual $100 tax for storage that only costs them pennies
Selling 2012 styled phones in 2016
Pro iPads minus Pro feature sets
Expensive, also ran, buggy, Apple Music
Regularly ignoring Mac product updates
Using Apple as a platform for gay rights
Allowing greedy shareholders to dictate terms to Apple
Mismanaging his executive team
Releasing shoddy software updates
Ruining Apple stock with buybacks and incompetent leadership
Yeah, Apple is in deep sh*t!
I would much rather be in Apple’s deep sh*t than Google’s nirvana.
Until the Gay Rights commend, you were just another trolling Apple hater. With that, you let the world know that you’re a BIGOTED Close-Minded Hater. I dare you to repeat your comments with your real name instead of hiding behind a fake one.
Just a bunch more noobs that don’t understand Apple and never will. This is all repeats of what was being said nearly every year since Apple was first created. Seriously. I have been following Apple since 1994, and every years some “expert” declares the demise of Apple.
Sorry, a lot of truth to the list.
We are not required to worship Apple when there are actually issues.
Steve Jobs made some mistakes, you can only be safe if you produce or do nothing, but the trend is not good, and it matters to me because Apple anythings are working tools for me.
“Nooby” since 1988, well 1982 if you count the Apple IIE.
Here is the Apple Death Knell Counter:
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/death_knell
Exactly !
@Rick Sterner
I’m an Apple hater who owns 2 iPad minis, an Air 2, an iPhone 6S, and a Mac Mini!
I’m a bigot because I point out that Tim Cook uses his title of CEO to not only position Apple as a gay company, but also wrongly use his position as a political platform to promote his own personal causes like gay rights.
That’s not in his job description and it’s not what he is being paid for. After all, he’s just an employee and has no right to brand a company as being “gay”, while indirectly intimidating non-gay employees, making them scared to voice their own opinions to the contrary.
Translation: speaking the absolute truth in 2016 automatically makes one a bigot and a hater solely because it’s not construed as being politically correct… GOT IT!
You seem to be living in some alternate universe, for which what you had said may be true. In this current universe, Apple seems to thoroughly dominate markets, mind share, brand awareness, customer satisfaction, and pretty much all other metrics out there.
As for the social policies of Apple, Tim Cook isn’t really advancing any personal agendas here; as the CEO of a large company, his duty is to be the voice of the company and that is what he is (and what Jobs was before him). Apple has always been a socially responsible company that never discriminated against anyone and always promoted equal rights for minority groups of all kinds. Well before same-sex marriage became legal in America, Apple has been providing benefits to such partnerships. This only makes sense; regardless of private opinions on this matter of Apple’s senior management (or board of directors), it is very poor business decision to institute, or advocate for, policies that discriminate against any group. Supporting equality for all allows talent of all kinds to come to Apple, knowing the they won’t be discriminated against.
So, whatever people at Apple may personally think about gay rights, black rights, hispanic rights, immigrant rights, or any other minority rights, giving same rights to everyone attracts the highest quality of talent to the company. The results are quite obvious.
Hey, idiot,
I guess you didn’t know that Apple supported gay rights as far back as the early 80s. I bet you didn’t know that Apple provided benefits to same sex partners back in the 80s. I bet you didn’t know that Apple decided to NOT put a facility in an area of Texas several years ago because one condition by that town was that Apple not give same sex couples benefits. All of these and more were done by Apple long before Tim Cook was hired.
But you’re so damn sure it’s a Tim Cook issue. Pull your head out and find out about Apple.
It’s about equal rights for all. It’s not a gay agenda. Apple’s agenda that people should be treated equally and fairly shows up in many forms including the recent encryption issue with the DOJ and FBI and Apple paying more to Foxconn and the rest if and only if they treat their employees better and pay them more.
Yes, Apple has stumbled in some areas in the last few years (I’ve said as much multiple times on this site), but to claim that Apple has produced no innovations since 2007 is just asinine and claiming Tim Cook is using Apple as a platform for his personal, gay agenda is worse. Period.
What’s a ‘gay’ company? Is that the one with a pink logo or something. What a strange deluded vision you have there, what’s the opposite of pink tinted glasses I wonder.
Another lame brain whe who thinks he is smarter than apple. I am sure Apple can do without you. My afvice to you is to buy toue electronic equipment manufactured by Amazon.
you must get some good weed where you live.
You forgot the spectacular announcement by no less than the CEO himself – a new watch strap in an entirely new material – woven Nylon.
any whilst you can buy a woven nylon watch strap in WalMart for $5 this one costs $50.
Rapturous applause from the audience – bewilderment from the streaming audience.
We have a winner. Couldn’t agree more with you!
“This is the way innovation happens now.” Truly laughable. Innovation almost NEVER happens that way. Users drive incremental advancements, but seldom true innovation.
What he is describing is the Microsoft approach and the Google approach to releasing half-assed beta products to try to gain a foothold in an industry while hoping that all of the flaws in architecture and design can be fixed in the future. That is not a modern process for technical innovation, that is an age-old recipe for almost certain disaster!
now i understand his thoery.
he is a colkrge professor. I wonder if his pay check is even remotely close yo Tim Cook’s . How could this lowley ignormmus even presume to give advice to Apple.
…holds a prestigious academic position
Implying? – – How well I remember the day I met with the Chairman of the Biology department of one college and proceeded to watch and learn about the symptoms of the DTs illustrated by his behavior.
IOW: ‘prestigious academic position’ can mask chaos beneath.
Having been a faculty wife I can attest to the human fallibility of Ph.Ds. As a group they are as misguided in social and personal matters as tradesmen. In my life I have met homeless people with better manners, more exemplary morals, and enough decency not to write hit pieces for money.
Let’s see now: who owns the Washington Post…?
the guy that owned the Washington Post sells tablets for &50 each. I wonder if he is doing that to make money or to hurt Apple.
Because he has to. Amazon would sell more expensive devices if anyone would buy them.
It’s a loss leader to provide a convenient portal for Amazon purchasing runs.
Other companies release unfinished products, they fail, then they stop selling them. Apple doesn’t do this, but should for some reason. Paradigm changing products like the iPod and iPhone don’t come along very often. Before them what was there? The laptop? That was essentially just making an existing product smaller, it wasn’t an new interface or anything? You might even go back to the walkman. You could even argue that as more and more features are added to devices and existing products effectively become obsolete it’s going to become harder and harder to make something truly revolutionary purely because there are far fewer markets available to change. I would argue that even though it is essentially just a bigger iPhone in so much as the basic technologies are the same, other companies had been building tablets for years with no success, Apple did it in a way that created the market and in turn perhaps killed off the desktop computer.
The word innovation has become meaningless as people expect some sort of never seen before product every other week. Change for the sake of change is pointless.
Try and tell that to born doofuses anxious for web bait hits like Mossberg and this guy. Telling the truth about products, innovation and how paradigm busting products are rare indeed would not get them much attention. They prefer yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theater when there is none.
I forget, what is the current generation of MS Surface? That strategy of releasing beta surface has made MS billion, yeah no, lost billions.
We’re up to Surface v4, breaking the old Microsoft rule of requiring three versions before they get it ‘right’.
To be fair it wasn’t 3.0 but 3.1 that took off. 😀
Remember. the real innovators is Google who brought our Google Glass fir Glass holes.
“Facebook is set to release its virtual reality headset, Oculus, next week. It will be big and clunky, expensive, and cause nausea and other problems for its users… Within a few months, we will declare our disappointment with virtual reality itself while Facebook listens very carefully to its users and develops improvements in its technology. Version 3 of this, most likely in 2018 or 2019, will be amazing.”
There are a lot of “ifs” packed into this projection. And there’s no guarantee it will be Facebook/Oculus that owns this market by the end of it all (if, indeed there’s a large market there at all).
I’m not so willing to write off Apple’s “second mover advantage” model just yet. They didn’t make the first PC, the first GUI, the first smartphone, the first tablet, the first retail store, the first smartwatch… but they did make the best and most profitable of each.
It’s not a stretch that amazon is coming out with a VR headset so Bozo wants anti-Apple BS printed in his newspaper. The writer was paid for this drivel and told what to write.
Apparently, Apple isn’t too worried. I’m on their side.
Everyone is entitled to a personal opinion. But the vast majority of those should be kept, well, uh, “personal.”
Perhaps VW is another product of the self esteem movement. If that’s the case, don’t be too angry with him. Blame his parents.
Just like Sony kicked ass amd reigned in the 20th century with iconic products that lingered in iteration for years and years, so will Apple and its classic revolutionary and premium quality products.
Bet on it, count on it and bank it.
So you’re comparing Apple to a has-been company?
That’s pretty much exactly what the article is saying.
Must be before your time sonny boy, that everyone revered Sony’s innovation and products that were unbeatable. Apple’s time is now and long will it reign, because in a dumbed down world of copiers and theives, there’s no one worth Apple’s experience and excellence that can even compete…
In the next 10 years there will be 2 major trends 1) Software – many physical products (and jobs) will be replaced by software 2) Wearables and the miniaturization of physical products . . . If we’re talking #1, and specifically software in the Internet realm, that is not Apple’s strength (however, if you look at the App Store, they are offloading the production of new software to 3rd party developers, and getting a 30% cut) . . .
#2. But if we’re talking about wearables and the miniaturization of physical products, there are only a handful of companies in the world that can do that, and Apple is the best . . . and whatever Apple doesn’t have, then can buy—including buying other companies. So Apple is in a pretty good position.
It is funny I suppose how this kind of reporting/opinionating has become more and more intense as Apple continues to grow. It seems clear to me it is just the mouthpieces of vested interests, fighting for the people in the industry Apple continues defeating. It’s like the FBI recently might as well have been working for Google in an attempt to claim Apple isn’t secure. It’s all around the houses in smoke and mirrors is it not?
I, as one who believe a persons body is reclaimed by the Universe when it ceases to function and that the Essence or Soul of that person lives on, despise the term Death as you referred to in Steve Jobs Passing. The word Death denotes total finality. It is my hope that all people would use the term Passing instead of Died or Death. It is more accurate as to the state of consciousness as the mind transcends from the physical. Unless of course the person is an Atheist and in that case term them Worm Food.
Without physical evidence, your thoughts, however eloquent, are beliefs.
Biologically, there is NO evidence.
Of course no one knows exactly what happens at the time of Death. The physics of matter and energy are proven and therefore not just theory. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that Energy can neither be Created nor Destroyed. Energy is never destroyed but changes from one form to another. Don’t forget the relationship that Einstein proved between Energy and Matter. Energy=Matter x Speed of Light Squared. Energy and Matter are interchangeable. That gave rise to the Cosmic Egg ie. the Big Bang Theory.
That’s a real interesting post here. Can you clarify something about that?
If you as you say “one who believe a persons body is reclaimed by the Universe when it ceases to function and that the Essence or Soul of that person lives on, despise the term Death as you referred to in Steve Jobs Passing.”
In my understanding souls come with an eternity time guarantee, not a life time one so that works, but if a person’s body is reclaimed by the Universe where does the universe have to go to reclaim it? Maybe it’s the other way around if so where does the body have to come from when it goes back to the Universe for reclamation?
Is not everything in the Universe born from the remnants of Stars going Nova. Isn’t all organic matter broken down to it’s simplest form over time and this Earth and this Solar System will one day be consumed and broken down to it’s simplest elements to be rearranged into new life giving forms. As for the soul @24january1984, Energy is neither Created nor Destroyed it just changes form. Thermodynamics & Energy=Matter x Speed of Light Squared. Energy and Matter are interchangeable.
What you just wrote makes sense but it doesn’t answer my question, or it does and if it does then your first comment doesn’t make sense.
Again you say “one who believe a persons body is reclaimed by the Universe when it ceases to function”
Your comment insinuates that there is “somewhere” that is not part of the universe where people’s body are and when they cease to function then the are sent back to the universe to be reclaimed. I hear a lot of this stuff all the time and never get a good answer.
I often get an attempt at an answer like what you said “the universe is everything and it’s transformed and yada yada” but then I ask why did you do that in the first place then? Why did you try to insinuate that there is something other than the Universe, separate from the universe that has to be reclaimed by the Universe?
So if “Is not everything in the Universe born from the remnants of Stars going Nova.” then everything is of the Universe and there is no reclaiming requiring as pointed out in your first post.
Just the way you said it, to me insinuates that humans are some beyond the Universe super deity that the universe has to beg to reclaim once the body no longer functions.
Which could another issue in itself, cause if the function is to be then the body is performing its function.
Personally I just don’t like to see Universal fragmentation, you know this is the Universe, it will be coming to reclaim non-functioning bodies soon, but from where shhhhhh it’s a secret.
What a totally whacked article.
“This is the way innovation happens now. You release a basic product and let the market tell you how to make it better. There is no time to get it perfect; it may become obsolete even before it is released.”
It was the way innovation was happening with mobile “I got lotsa button” phones and it was the perfect product that made the others obsolete.
In fact it still is. Some companies do release a basic product and take incremental steps. Others take quantum leaps. That’s called diversity, it’s no secret.
Hang to your depression, Vivek, it suits you well…
While this story is over the top and easily rejected because it’s so extreme, the underlying truth that supports it can’t be denied. The problem is not the analysis of the details but the certainty that Tim Cook is a poor excuse for a leader, he’s completely incapable of any sort of innovation (the watch isn’t innovative, it’s just a clunky competitor to all kinds of wrist wear technology. That’s not innovation, that’s just joining the trend instead of leading trends like used to characterize the once great company. Until Tim Cook is gone, the predictions of this article will be reality soon if not today.
Troll on troll boy.
Hey it’s the one post wonder troll.
Happy Easter.
Apple does have a problem, well hidden at the moment though. I own a Mac, up to date in every respect and therein lies the problem – I can’t use it because the Mac as of 10.11.4 has been locked out of my Apple account even though all of our other devices do have access to the account. I can’t access Mac App Store, I can’t use apps bought via the App Store, I have lost access to all network services tied to the account. It’s been 24 hours since I opened a case with Apple without any sign of progress.
I wonder if this sort of lockout could effect a larger business using Macs.
FUD as journalism. Mere CLICK BAIT…
This is the way innovation happens now…
… Says an experienced expert who thinks innovations are supposed to be ‘Earth shattering’. Yeah right.
By now, Apple should have released some of the products that we heard rumors about: TV sets, virtual reality headsets, and cars.
… And armchair management.
All it seems to be doing is playing catch up with Samsung
Hilarious. I wonder if ScamScum slipped something into his back pocket for that morsel of marketing mendacity.
Vivek Wadhwa, who writes for The Washington Post, makes me…
He seems to assume the rumours are true. But more often than not, Apple rumours have turned out false. And sometimes even when they do come true the company releases products on its own schedule, not when pressured by built-up expectations manufactured by others. Heck, they are just as likely to abandon a project, because they can’t make something better than what’s already out there, rather than throw in with all the rest. The only reason analysts think Apple doesn’t know what it’s doing is because it doesn’t play nice, doesn’t play by the rules, and follows its own star, not any management textbook.
I believe the relentless, perennial Apple doom saying is most specifically because Apple refuses outright to be like the usual biznizz. All the little fecal mounds 💩 hate that and do their best to FUD and flout them. IOW: It’s a GOOD thing! 👍
I have been reading “Apple is doomed” articles since Steve Jobs first got his old job back in the late 90’s. One day in the future they may be right Apple may come to an end. This guy will probably write a column saying he predicted this back 2016. These kinds of article are stupid. MDN should not give them any bandwidth.
hey,
my android loving friend told me : “MY HOUSE BURNT DOWN….
cause I couldn’t get a connection on my Palm phone, my Motorola was dead with Malware. In the end though I blame the malfunctioning Nest Smoke Alarm, (it must one of those out of 440,000 recalled)…. I couldn’t even photographed the episode as My Google Glass didn’t have any power — it had run out of juice after an hour use earlier… “