Apple should re-enter innovation.

fryke

fryke

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Yes, I think so. It might seem a bit harsh to say Apple has stopped innovating, but if you look at the facts, I think I'm right in my article called just like this thread. You can find the article at http://macintosh.fryke.com/cgi-bin/macnews.cgi/2004/05/11#20040511_applepda on macnews.net.tc.

I think that Apple, although claiming to 'innovate' through the PC misery, has actually stopped innovating. The new PowerBooks are merely better versions of older ones (the TiBook being the last really innovative one, if at all), the PowerMac G5s are merely a MUCH needed catch-up in speed with the PC world (and Apple is again slowly falling behind by not updating their hardware fast enough), the iMac (the original one) was NOT an innovation in the sense I mean it, because a G3 of the time was at least as good, the iMac actually REMOVED a few interfaces and was just (a really, really good!) marketing instrument that told the crowds that Apple was still making the most easy to use computers in the world and that they hadn't forgotten completely about their design department.

I don't want to cause a flame-war. I urge you to - if you want to - send flame-messages my way via E-Mail (see link for commenting options) and discuss constructively in this thread instead.

Btw.: GOOD flame-mails are VERY welcome in my mailbox. I might even publish one or the other argument (the good ones) on macnews.net.tc. (So please state whether you want your name to be published or not.)
 
Read the piece, yes, I'd buy one of those! :D Probably for my Mom, but I'd still be able to say I had one then, wouldn't I?
 
ye you could say that they have... but theres only soooo much you can do,, i mean PC makers a re finaly geting the idea with the look - they dont look as bad as they did so macs no longer look so hip and trendy! I mean they do a bit I supose exposé for exaple but other than that I think it must be pretty hard for them to inovate all the time.
 
I would have to say that I agree with you in terms of the lack of innovation on the hardware level. They really haven't released anything "new". I would say that the implementation of the hardware/software is where Apple is still being innovative. They are also being innovative in the design of their products, such as size and shape. Other than that, Apple does not have much else.

The lan-powered Airport is not new. Granted, there was no consumer lan-powered access points on the market until then, but it still is not a "new" idea.

The G5 is probably one of the bigger dissapointments. Yeah, it is supposed to be fast, but the PC world is still rocking its boat. Instead, we seem to be getting faster G4's, but we don't want G4's, we want G5's.

Joshua
 
I've got (by now) one E-Mail that also mentioned that Apple _did_ indeed innovate in software/hardware integration and in software per se (Exposé is a good example). And I'm willing to agree there.

jhawk: Even if Apple had by now already released faster PowerMac G5s, PowerBook G5, iMac G5 and eMac G5 (the iBook always lagging a bit behind is okay), that still wouldn't solve _my_ problem with Apple's lack of innovation. It'd be faster machines, and that would be great. But just that.

I guess Apple, for example, has not made a videoPod so far, not because they couldn't do it, but because they didn't WANT to. And the reason for them not WANTING to do it is money.

The same goes for the 'iTablet'. I agree with Apple here. There's no real market need. But what Apple has done in the past is CREATE a market need by innovating. And in the killer communications product I envision, there even is an existing need, I think. Not one people didn't even know about before...
 
No innovation since iMac ?

no Exposé
no iPod
no smooth Aqua interface
no integrated Firewall
no suite of "domestic" software (iLife, iCal, Address Book, Spell checker... with sweet integration)
no iTMS
no iSync
no iDisk

no innovation ? really ? innovation maybe more subtle than just extra MHz or GHz... it can also be a better human interface, service integration...
 
Then you've got me completely wrong. As I've mentioned, I admit that Exposé is real innovation (albeit small).

But 'smooth' Aqua interface is not an innovation. It's a bug fix.
'Integrated firewall' is a nice word for adopting open source technology. No innovation.
iDisk is nothing fancy either and _did_ work on Windows and Linux long before Apple made it sexy.

The iPod I already mentioned in the article. Did it make music portable? No. The Walkman did that in the last century. Did it make music digital? Nope. Did it make digital music portable? Nope, even THAT did work before the iPod. As I've said in the article, this doesn't mean it's a bad product - I LOVE the iPod.

But compared to things like the Human Interface on computers (and even that was stolen in parts), Desktop Publishing, Desktop Video (along with FireWire) and a REAL Personal Digital Assistant (Newton), the stuff you mention is very, very, very low-key.
 
I think it is disingenuous to say Apple stopped innovating. They have thrown a lot of stuff out there that now needs to be made workable. Innovation without follow up is pointless. Apple needs to follow up. You may want a new gadget every week, but I think Apple needs to perfect what they already have.

Apple played a community role (larger than most any other computer maker) in the items you listed as other people's innovation. At least give credit where credit is do. I'm sure you are dismissing Firewire and MPEG4 as other people's work also as Apple has taken their parts of those into the same type of community system to help the industry as a whole.

As for your complains about speed, Apple has no more control over the speed of their systems than Dell or Gateway. Apple has to wait for IBM/Motorola to make faster processors just like PC makers have to wait for Intel/AMD to do the same.

To my mind, I am still waiting for long time Apple developers to start using the innovations Mac OS X has. What is the point of Apple adding to there software/hardware if people aren't even using it? To date many of the old time Mac developers have done little to take advantage of Mac OS X's new abilities. In fact most of the new Mac OS X apps look (unremarkably) like their Mac OS versions. Granted stability is nice, but that is not the only thing Mac OS X has to offer.

You may not see it, but there are a ton of things in Mac OS X that are so far ahead of any other platform that it'll take years for the competition to catch up. Apple needs to perfect those innovations and get developers to write to them.

As it stands right now, the three developers that write to Apple's innovations in the software area that I can think of are the Omni Group, Stone Design and Karelia Software. It is odd that these small developers are doing what Adobe, Macromedia and Microsoft are not.

A number of weeks ago the press went nuts over the fact that Opera was going to include voice command abilities in some future version of their browser. That would have been amazing... if it wasn't already a part of OmniWeb via Apple's Mac OS X APIs. You of all people should have seen that! Did you write about it? I don't see any thing on your site.

AbiWord came to Mac OS X, does it use any of Mac OS X's features? No. It just runs as a stand alone carbon app ignoring all that the Mac OS X environment has to offer (pretty much the same way Office does).

It is even more odd that you have missed this type of stuff. I generally think of you as being on top of these types of things. I'm sad to say I'm a little disappointed.

We are a long way from major any leaps forward in the computing world, but the best way to make sure Apple stops innovation is to ignore the steps they are taking now.... and that is exactly what you have done.
 
I must admit that I've intentionally (yep!) overlooked a lot of things - and you have found most of them. Yet, I did so to make a point, and I think that this point is still a valid one: Namely that Apple is - nowadays - more about 'words' than about 'deeds' when it comes to hardware (hardware!).

Don't get me wrong: I _do_ agree that Mac OS X (and also OpenStep, NeXT-Step before that) has a lot of unused (or rarely used) potential that must be developed before pushing even more of those innovations in developers' ways. But I wasn't looking at these things from a developer's view but rather a user's and also the market's.

Apple called the year 2003 the year of the notebook. Introduced the 12" and 17". And then took nine months to post a follow-up. And the follow-up was for one the 15", which actually took a year since the last TiBook's introduction and a little speed-bump. I don't know about you, but it seems to me that 2003 was as much a 'year of the notebook' as 2002 or 2001 was. Ah, no: 2001 was a much BIGGER year for notebooks, as the original TiBook was introduced and had a sooner and bigger follow-up!

And OmniGroup's achievements with Apple's APIs: They're GREAT. But I was talking about Apple, and mainly Apple's hardware.

And: It's simply not true that Apple is only waiting for IBM/Motorola. We all know that the IBM PPC 970FX was introduced quite some time ago. Apple could've used it. And Apple could have _also_ urged IBM to first introduce something like a 2.2 or 2.4 GHz PPC 970 half a year after the 2.0 GHz part. But anyway, that's a wholly different thread's worth, as it's not about innovation at all. My argument was that the newer PowerBooks are merely faster and better PowerBooks but still PowerBooks. If I compare my brandnew PowerBook to the one I've bought more than three years ago, I have to say that I don't see much innovative about it (hardware, I'm talking hardware...).

But you're right. I _did_ ignore many of the 'smaller' (I say smaller because they're not very in-the-eye for the user or the market, mostly because of the other developers not using them, like you stated) innovations in Mac OS X.

I did so to make a point. And I hope that you can see that I didn't ignore the things you've said to badmouth Apple (or OmniGroup, Stone Design etc.) but to take a look at what Apple once was and what it has become.
 
I like the small innovations that makes my Mac behave so much better than a Dell under XP.

I agree, iPod is probably not technically a breakthrough. But if it's not a breakthrough, why is it so much better than any other player ? Because it is well finished ! May little things may create a big difference. It's just quality. BTW there were portable recodrers long before the Walkman, do you remember the Nagra ?

Same thing applies for all the iApps (and not only iLife).

Same thing applies for the smooth scroll of Aqua (try to select cells while scrolling a long Excel document on XP... it's either too slow or so fast you cannot stop your selection where you want to stop it).

iTMS (even if not available here in Europe) is so "normal" that it took most of the market.

Same for iDisk. The background thechnology is not new, but it's integration in the system (indeed in the Finder) is sooo well done. (Mail could be as good if it would have a better editor and a better GUI for settings - yes one part of Apple's HI is bad: the "preferences": too complicated, too slow to browse, too bulky).
 
The problem I'm having with this whole argument is that it seems like Fryke is expecting an innovation like the Notebook computer (which by the way came around a long time before any of the TiBooks). The problem is that "innovations" like that only come 2 or 3 per decade and then take a decade to hit mass market. Cell phones, notebook computers, personal audio devices (walkmen).

The _true_ innovation comes at the point that these inventions are ready to hit mass market. Something has to happen at that point. The public is ready for the product, and some innovation has to occur to make the product ready for (and accessible to) the public. The iPod is a perfect example of this.

The iPod is merely a super duper walkman. When the iPod hit, there were people listening to all forms of personal audio devices, but the ones that were full-featured weren't easy to use, and the ones that were easy to use weren't full-featured. Then the iPod and iTunes came in. iTunes is damn easy to use and the iPod is just about as simple. Suddenly, you don't have to be stuck to burning cds from your mp3 playlists. You don't have to be stuck to a selection of 20 songs per sync. You can have your entire music library in the palm of your hand and it's as easy as playing a cd. Now, this is something the average music listener can handle. Follow that up with a seamless integration into the largest for-purchase music library in the world and all of a sudden, people are starting to pay for the mp3s they listen to. It's one seamless process: download, sync, play - one click on the mouse, hook up the iPod, take it off and play music. THAT is the innovation.
 
Okay, macgeek.

But if you've read my original article, you'd see that what I'm leading to is that this very CHANCE that you're describing so incredibly well is actually HERE. And that it's the right time NOW for Apple to re-enter this innovation thing.
 
We're in complete agreement there. I can't wait to see what Apple has in mind for consolidating the various forms of media into one place for sale, storage, and transport!
 
I'm not sure we shall recognize the innovation when it comes... we'll recognize it when it will have won the crowd.

What is an innovation ?

Isn't an innovation per definition unpredictable ?

I think that Apple (and other companies) have a culture that makes innovation possible. Therefore it will come again.

(I have a few patents under my name... so I have some ideas about innovation, others have other ideas that are probably at least as legitimate as mines).
 
We were discussing the very same topic today at uni, not specifically Apple, but the industry in general. The conclusion was that rather than inventing new ideas current ones were just being refined.

Consider this; the Lisa was most defiantly innovative, but was $10,000, most of the innovation over recent years has been refining the Lisa in to the iMac and reducing its price to $1,299
 
That'd be an oversimplification then. A bit like saying that a Lisa was merely a refined TV monitor and a typewriter melted into one.
 
Just for fun, I'll muddy the waters by suggesting that Apple and others need to STOP innovating. Yes, I actually just said that.

I, for one, would like to see a hardware freeze, followed by three to five years of nothing but code optimzations on all software across the board. The best example I can think of for this is the Xbox, which is unchanged since its introduction. Yet Halo 2 (due sometime reasonably soon-ish) will absolutely destroy the original version, which was impressive in its own right.

I'm really tired of my $3,000 computer still taking so long to boot (not that booting is really something happens much these days thanks to OS X), apps take too long to launch, most apps are total bloat (though Apple's apps are actually fairly slim, which is great). Apple's own DVDSP...could there possibly be a more sluggish app?

I want to see more refinement. Uber-refinement. I want every app to launch in under a second. It's doable. Lightwave launches instantly on my machines. That's a pretty intense program. I see no reason other apps can't do the same.

Look at Final Cut. I've been through three versions of FCP on the same hardware and the latest version of FCP is utterly amazing. It's like a new machine. Kudos to Apple for continued refinement.

So, I say STOP the innovations and bring on the polishing!
 
Innovation can backfire, just look at the Cube. That said, it seems that the current trend at Apple is to seemlessly integrate a digital lifestyle and, for the most part, the company has been successful in accomplishing this.
 
I totally agree I was about to write a post about what has Apple done in the last 2 years. Since the ipod came out nothing just tweaks of certain things. Then of course innovation of products sometimes do stop or slow down. Look at the spoon, fork, toilet paper(though we are seeing a huge technological breakthrough coming soon), even the car still does not fly. Apple probably has some products in storage that may be a bit ahead of its time, like the newton. They have come out with some great things in the past 5 years nothing that aliens would visit to see but great. Then again even if a company has a one hit wonder they are still successful. Like ford motor company and it's assembly line. Microsoft and it's art of borrowing, Gateway and it's ability to bleed forever. Apple has brought great new twists on ideas. But is innovation something completely new or improvement over yesterday. Slow and steady my friend as long as you know where your foes as well as friends are, and you shall always be a step ahead. But then Apple would probably prefer a product that everyone would want and dying to have even if it was an old bone dug up in the parking lot to the most innovative idea... timing is everything and great ideas are born precisely at the right moment.
 
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