> ...this is a time when Amazon is pushing innovations that don’t solve any real-world problems but may create some: like smart speakers, with their threat of big brother-style surveillance in exchange for a minimal increase in convenience, or complex and expensive cashierless stores that won’t deliver much of an improvement to our shopping experience but may cost underprivileged people their jobs. This is a time when an entire driverless car industry is trying to convince the world that its products are safe before it can even come up with convincing stats – or prevent deadly accidents like the one in Tempe, Arizona earlier this year. This is a time when Google is trying to subvert new privacy regulations to turn them against content producers. A time when Facebook, blasted by media and regulators for ignoring people’s privacy concerns, starts a dating service which will collect people’s most intimate data.
That is a really pointed indictment of our current industry. Wow.
I don't agree with some of the assumptions, but it really points to how rarely an innovation like the iPhone really occurs.
I occasionally loose sleep, wondering what products were lost due to Jobs' early death.
Edit: Ok, fine. I loose sleep wondering what ideas were out there that languished because Jobs wasn't around to see their potential and capitalize on them. The argument "he wasn't that important because he didn't actually invent X" is played out, and it fundamentally misses the point.
> expensive cashierless stores that won’t deliver much of an improvement to our shopping experience
Having to lineup to checkout is definitely the most time-consuming and unpleasant part of shopping. It's why I way prefer online shopping.
At a busy time at the grocer, I take 3 minutes to pick up the 3 things I want. Then all of the checkout lanes are backed up for >10 minutes. Even self check-out.
> That is a really pointed indictment of our current industry. Wow.
Is it? I read it as a series of attacks from someone who thought the status quo was just fine, and doesn't actually understand the value being delivered. Since they don't understand it, there must not be any. Since there isn't any value and it just hurts vulnerable people, it must just be callous evil.
For example, Amazon's cashierless store sounds great to me! I absolutely loathe the forced smalltalk of dealing with cashiers. I adore automated checkouts.
And Amazon has been amazing for driving down prices on daily goods. I'm happy to see them expand into something like grocery stores where high prices are a problem for everyone.
Grocery store checkout jobs are not a basic human right that should be immune to attack. Neither are content producer business models.
This isn't an indictment. It's an expression of incomprehension.
I probably now fall into this camp as well. I made fun of Apple for years, but while I still hold an emotional and likely completely irrational dislike for their products, if someone were to ask me for a recommendation on a phone today, the only phone I could recommend in good conscience is an iPhone, because it's the only option that takes privacy and security seriously right now.
Yeah. I love their commitment to privacy and security, but I only wish their platform wasn't so locked down. The only reason I went with Android in the first place was so I could side-load personally-built apps. IIRC (I could be wrong), if you want to write and side-load your own personal iOS apps, you have to pay a $99 fee and they deactivate after a week.
I have an iPhone, but it is soooo painful to me that my awesome as hell MacBook Pro for work has USB C for everything, including power, and yet my phone does not. Meanwhile my team lead, sitting directly across from me, has an android phone that charges with USB C.
I made the same transition a few years ago. Over time I've supplied my family with iPads to 1) get us on a common chat platform and 2) reduce my tech support requests as much as possible. It has worked well!
I have a Pixel 2 XL and Chromebook for work. There are a few features I wish iOS would take from Android, and a few I wish flowed the other way, but if you buy in to the Google stack, it's hard to beat the Pixel/Chromebook pairing.
> because it's the only option that takes privacy and security seriously right now.
iPhones are a luxury. If you can recommend them it means you already belong to the richest part of the planet. For the rest, they jut can't afford it, and Apple was never interested in making anything cheap.
Just keep in mind that the NSA has remote sudo access to everything on your phone[0]. It's not completely secure and they're known to abuse their power time to time.
Having been a fan of Apple for over a decade now, over the last year I've come to the opposite point of view. Their iPhone and airpods are great products and of course they can ride a long time on those, but in every other area from Macs and accessories I feel they are falling flat on delivering great user experiences. From FaceTime to Siri, to crappy Apple TV remotes, Home Kit... there are just a LOT of mediocre products that sit idle for years. Of all times, the company is at the point most worth criticizing. I do blame Tim Cook for this stagnation in product development. And indeed their lack of ideas means they have nothing better to do with their cash, that they are buying back shares. Ehh, I'm so jaded these days on Apple.
My parents are actually frightened of the new Apple TV remote. They hide it somewhere where they won't knock into it, because they know it'll switch the TV's input to the Apple TV, and they'll have to hunt down a different remote to switch it back to the cable box.
Interesting you say that about the Apple TV remotes. I thought they were all horrible but I really like the new one. The speed at which I can move around and the precision of selecting things is really great.
On Tuesday’s call, there was just one question about innovative offerings, and it concerned health applications, an important driver of Apple Watch sales but not a potential world-beating sensation. Apple appears to be happy to think small and focus on its shareholders, not on pie-in-the-sky ideas, like other tech companies, including industry leaders.
There's a key point I think the author is missing here. If Apple could spend $50 billion on R&D and get a worthwhile return, I think they absolutely would. Their below-par R&D is not from a lack of wanting. It's because they are much more focused. They don't burn cash on new ideas just because they can.
And if I thought Apple's health aspirations were limited to Apple Watch, well, I wouldn't be in the stock.
Another way to look at it is that for the iPhone to exist, a long string of failures had to exist going back to the PDA market, the Newton, the iPAQ, nokia smartphones, etc because the intermediate steps has to be funded to cost and size reduce the components needed until an inflection point was reached.
Apple invests at inflection points, after massive R&D spending by others have created many of the pieces needed.
You could call it brilliant or you could call it parasitic, I tend to find it a parasitic freerider in a way, not publishing as much research openly, not acquiring or funding as much of the startup community, in general, not funding research for the purpose of research and taking the risk of uneconomical results. This is similar to a University doing research for decades on a Particular drug pathway or health condition and the a pharmaceutical swooping in, taking the end result and patenting a medicine. Sure, they still spend a lot of money on developing the drug and going through medics trials, but public investment on the basics that came before it is what enabled it.
I’d like to see more basic R&D funded by Apple, not just product development. More Bell Labs, IBM TJ Watson, Microsoft R&D.
At what point do you hit massive diminishing returns? $3.4b a quarter is $285m in R&D every single week. That's a lot of money, no matter how you slice it.
Yes, the guy's logic is whomever spends the most on R&D generates the most innovation (or something). How does he know what Apple is working on with R&D? What a silly statement.
The author of this opinion piece is praising Apple for its willingness to NOT innovate.
I strongly disagree.
The best solution to privacy concerns is not to stop innovating. Surely there are better solutions.
Apple is leading the way on some consumer privacy issues and I applaud them for that. But surely if Apple halts innovation, it will die as all companies do. Let us hope they are smarter than that.
I think the point here is that Apple is not innovating in "stupid" areas(for the author) - like cashierless stores, automated cars, surveillance speakers etc.
In a way, yes, that is admirable - I think all other tech giants are going in the "wrong" and harmful direction, while Apple still concentrates on making good hardware with matching software(their abysmal attempts at MacOs fixes notwithstanding).
I read the whole article and I'm not impressed. The crux of the article seems to be that he now admires Tim Cook and Apple because they don't spend money on progressive technologies that have a potential for harm. His examples include smart speakers, driverless cars, and cashierless stores that presumably shouldn't be pursued because of their potential for societal harm. Look, things like privacy, safety, and job opportunities for the underprivileged are immensely important, but his arguments are flawed. By the same standards, the iphone and a myriad of other important technologies should never have been pursued.
I've been an Android user for years; I recently decided to change to iPhone, and this article really captures the reason why: Apple seems to be the only company for whom a cloud backup of my phone book is a liability, not an asset to be monetised.
Google's main endeavor is to develop an actual product. They design and engineer something in the hopes that people use it. (Then they sell ads, like the publishing industry has done for 200 years.)
It is kind of amazing how much the landscape has changed. I have always used Apple computers and phones, and I used to view Apple as a vaguely sinister company, but one that produced the best products. It is very weird to me that they are now a model for non-evil practices among large tech companies.
> I used to view Apple as a vaguely sinister company
What about Apple gave you the impression they were sinister and what has changed?
I've actually been going the opposite direction with my opinion of them. All of their talk of "you are not the product" and "we respect your privacy" is great but feels opportunistic given the current climate. The foundation of Apple's products that they are touting as privacy focused were actually about controlling the experience. They've cleverly spun happenstance into a platform to promote their products.
None of that really strikes me as sinister though, when I say that they've been going in the opposite direction I'm referring more to the way they support their hardware and their shady tactics when it comes to device repair. For Apple the profit is in selling you a new device, they make no money if you don't upgrade. A repaired device isn't a profit, it's the burden of continued support. So what we're seeing is products that look great but aren't designed with longevity in mind and replacement focused support.
Apple shipped the iPhone 6 with a battery that degraded quickly and by most would be considered faulty. Rather than issue a recall or some other pro-consumer solution, they hid the fact that batteries weren't functioning to specification by throttling the CPU/GPU and degrading performance. This also had the nice benefit of coaxing users to upgrade because their device was slow.
When Apple got called on this, their response was to claim it was a benefit to the user rather than admit the batteries were faulty. They then graciously offered to lower the price on a battery replacement. So instead of a costly recall, they're profiting or breaking even on you having to pay for a replacement. If that wasn't enough, many people are reporting that Apple is refusing to replace batteries on devices without first fixing other faults like cracked screens or "broken" microphones [0].
Apple is also using it's new found position as bastion of your privacy to justify other shady practices like disabling components or bricking hardware entirely if it isn't "genuine" and then claiming it's to protect the consumer's privacy.
Their growth as plateaued and I feel like this is only the beginning of the Comcastic abuses of the customer we typically see from the market leader trying to find new ways to grow. That's why I think they've been becoming more sinister anyways.
I wonder if the author likes Apple because Apple has, as he states himself, stopped innovating. This means that Apple's offerings offer stability, which means comfort.
That being said, I agree with the authors sentiment.
I'm very fond of Apple's business stance; my concern is not with it, but with their technological stance. Apple products are built on lock-in; they are proprietary and closed, not open. Frankly, at this point they're not even really all that good (in fact, sometimes embarrassingly bad — something not limited to Apple!).
I want the freedom to tinker, the freedom to review, the freedom to extend. That's why I use Linux.
Locked and closed compared to what? What makes Android what it is to most people is a bunch of closed sourced Google Services and a bunch of closed sourced binary drivers. That are so closed that not even Google was able to upgrade some of their Nexus devices because they were dependent on closed source drivers.
If you go dig into my comment history I have several comments where I praise Richard Stalman and his commitment to open source. He is the zealot (and I use that word with both positive and negative connotations) that open source needs.
But I have to ask what ARE you running then? Intel? AMD? What about your phone?
If your going to make this argument in this way you better have a Stalman like response. If you are running closed source in your stack then your argument is selective.
This all sounds noble and all , but doesn’t Apple know just as much or more about you via phone / watch / iCloud / iTunes / Apple Pay / Apple TV?
Are we celebrating here that they’re not openly selling this information or using as primary business model ? Or that it’s only used for internal business?
Apple has been criticized in the past for having an internal culture/dictates to avoid "synergizing" this kind of info between their products/services - criticized because it affects the quality of features like Siri.
Contrast to companies like Google (who don't directly sell your info but still profit from it) or Facebook (who have had numerous exfiltration incidents over the years and who sell very targetable info that could be used to isolate a single person).
Meanwhile Equifax has horrible security and you aren't even remotely their customer - they just collect your data and get passive income from that.
I only wish the author hadn't forgotten to mention the quintessential non-Apple company: SNAP[0]
Many say the current game of musical chairs is overdue for a pause. My money (not literally) is on Tech stocks taking the biggest hit. But as the article put it, Apple isn't a Tech company -- it's a manufacturer (and superb retailer!) of products that are observably differentiated, as they clearly command higher prices for virtually the same functionality as their competitors.
Apple’s market cap will keep rising for the next few years without any innovation through buybacks and service revenue from existing devices. But the fact that they’re not talking about new products or hinting at anything down the line concerns me...
> After Apple’s latest results announcement, one could knock it yet again for its stable dependence on a single mature product — the iPhone...It shows that a stage of useful progress is over and doesn’t tip over into overhyped uselessness
Stagnanation isn't acceptable for any company. Apple has always been about "overhyped uselessness"(eg. Touch Bar, animoji). The article makes claims that Apple "offers a fix" referring to the battery throttling, but any company of that scale is obligated to. They were shamed publicly. I agree with privacy commitment, but that alone, isn't enough.
His argument that Amazon is not innovating to solve real-world problems seems grossly uninformed. AWS is putting out new features almost weekly that solve lots of real-world problems across all industries.
Apple is focusing on the 80%, and have developed a strategic advantage based on privacy. This is not a new lesson.
Commercially this is smart and profitable, but it was at the expense of the 20%. The fact is that their products stopped meeting my needs. So instead of a apology, I would like to thank Apple for the lock in that took over a year to unwind before I could leave the Apple ecosystem. It was a harsh lesson that I will never forget.
[+] [-] oflannabhra|8 years ago|reply
That is a really pointed indictment of our current industry. Wow.
I don't agree with some of the assumptions, but it really points to how rarely an innovation like the iPhone really occurs.
[+] [-] fhood|8 years ago|reply
Edit: Ok, fine. I loose sleep wondering what ideas were out there that languished because Jobs wasn't around to see their potential and capitalize on them. The argument "he wasn't that important because he didn't actually invent X" is played out, and it fundamentally misses the point.
[+] [-] pier25|8 years ago|reply
Yeah, but don't forget that the pieces to be able to create the iPhone had to be there first.
[+] [-] acchow|8 years ago|reply
Having to lineup to checkout is definitely the most time-consuming and unpleasant part of shopping. It's why I way prefer online shopping.
At a busy time at the grocer, I take 3 minutes to pick up the 3 things I want. Then all of the checkout lanes are backed up for >10 minutes. Even self check-out.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Kalium|8 years ago|reply
Is it? I read it as a series of attacks from someone who thought the status quo was just fine, and doesn't actually understand the value being delivered. Since they don't understand it, there must not be any. Since there isn't any value and it just hurts vulnerable people, it must just be callous evil.
For example, Amazon's cashierless store sounds great to me! I absolutely loathe the forced smalltalk of dealing with cashiers. I adore automated checkouts.
And Amazon has been amazing for driving down prices on daily goods. I'm happy to see them expand into something like grocery stores where high prices are a problem for everyone.
Grocery store checkout jobs are not a basic human right that should be immune to attack. Neither are content producer business models.
This isn't an indictment. It's an expression of incomprehension.
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lionsion|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] austincheney|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loxs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RyJones|8 years ago|reply
I have a Pixel 2 XL and Chromebook for work. There are a few features I wish iOS would take from Android, and a few I wish flowed the other way, but if you buy in to the Google stack, it's hard to beat the Pixel/Chromebook pairing.
[+] [-] collyw|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|8 years ago|reply
iPhones are a luxury. If you can recommend them it means you already belong to the richest part of the planet. For the rest, they jut can't afford it, and Apple was never interested in making anything cheap.
[+] [-] wpdev_63|8 years ago|reply
[0]: https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/
[+] [-] pseudometa|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonyt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] __david__|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xmodem|8 years ago|reply
Great article but a couple of points:
On Tuesday’s call, there was just one question about innovative offerings, and it concerned health applications, an important driver of Apple Watch sales but not a potential world-beating sensation. Apple appears to be happy to think small and focus on its shareholders, not on pie-in-the-sky ideas, like other tech companies, including industry leaders.
There's a key point I think the author is missing here. If Apple could spend $50 billion on R&D and get a worthwhile return, I think they absolutely would. Their below-par R&D is not from a lack of wanting. It's because they are much more focused. They don't burn cash on new ideas just because they can.
And if I thought Apple's health aspirations were limited to Apple Watch, well, I wouldn't be in the stock.
[+] [-] cromwellian|8 years ago|reply
Apple invests at inflection points, after massive R&D spending by others have created many of the pieces needed.
You could call it brilliant or you could call it parasitic, I tend to find it a parasitic freerider in a way, not publishing as much research openly, not acquiring or funding as much of the startup community, in general, not funding research for the purpose of research and taking the risk of uneconomical results. This is similar to a University doing research for decades on a Particular drug pathway or health condition and the a pharmaceutical swooping in, taking the end result and patenting a medicine. Sure, they still spend a lot of money on developing the drug and going through medics trials, but public investment on the basics that came before it is what enabled it.
I’d like to see more basic R&D funded by Apple, not just product development. More Bell Labs, IBM TJ Watson, Microsoft R&D.
[+] [-] jxdxbx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seem_2211|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Clubber|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whywhywhywhy|8 years ago|reply
How much was spent on Project Titan (The car)?
[+] [-] deweller|8 years ago|reply
I strongly disagree.
The best solution to privacy concerns is not to stop innovating. Surely there are better solutions.
Apple is leading the way on some consumer privacy issues and I applaud them for that. But surely if Apple halts innovation, it will die as all companies do. Let us hope they are smarter than that.
[+] [-] gambiting|8 years ago|reply
In a way, yes, that is admirable - I think all other tech giants are going in the "wrong" and harmful direction, while Apple still concentrates on making good hardware with matching software(their abysmal attempts at MacOs fixes notwithstanding).
[+] [-] pier25|8 years ago|reply
I just want macOS and Mac hardware to be as reliable as it was in the Snow Leopard times.
[+] [-] imjk|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greedo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sahaskatta|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bxg1|8 years ago|reply
The honesty - and arguably, quaintness - of that consumer relationship separates Apple from the rest of the valley.
[+] [-] wmeredith|8 years ago|reply
Google's main endeavor is to develop an actual product. They design and engineer something in the hopes that people use it. (Then they sell ads, like the publishing industry has done for 200 years.)
[+] [-] fhood|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cptskippy|8 years ago|reply
What about Apple gave you the impression they were sinister and what has changed?
I've actually been going the opposite direction with my opinion of them. All of their talk of "you are not the product" and "we respect your privacy" is great but feels opportunistic given the current climate. The foundation of Apple's products that they are touting as privacy focused were actually about controlling the experience. They've cleverly spun happenstance into a platform to promote their products.
None of that really strikes me as sinister though, when I say that they've been going in the opposite direction I'm referring more to the way they support their hardware and their shady tactics when it comes to device repair. For Apple the profit is in selling you a new device, they make no money if you don't upgrade. A repaired device isn't a profit, it's the burden of continued support. So what we're seeing is products that look great but aren't designed with longevity in mind and replacement focused support.
Apple shipped the iPhone 6 with a battery that degraded quickly and by most would be considered faulty. Rather than issue a recall or some other pro-consumer solution, they hid the fact that batteries weren't functioning to specification by throttling the CPU/GPU and degrading performance. This also had the nice benefit of coaxing users to upgrade because their device was slow.
When Apple got called on this, their response was to claim it was a benefit to the user rather than admit the batteries were faulty. They then graciously offered to lower the price on a battery replacement. So instead of a costly recall, they're profiting or breaking even on you having to pay for a replacement. If that wasn't enough, many people are reporting that Apple is refusing to replace batteries on devices without first fixing other faults like cracked screens or "broken" microphones [0].
Apple is also using it's new found position as bastion of your privacy to justify other shady practices like disabling components or bricking hardware entirely if it isn't "genuine" and then claiming it's to protect the consumer's privacy.
Their growth as plateaued and I feel like this is only the beginning of the Comcastic abuses of the customer we typically see from the market leader trying to find new ways to grow. That's why I think they've been becoming more sinister anyways.
[0] https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3031484/apple-dema...
[+] [-] konschubert|8 years ago|reply
That being said, I agree with the authors sentiment.
[+] [-] zeveb|8 years ago|reply
I want the freedom to tinker, the freedom to review, the freedom to extend. That's why I use Linux.
[+] [-] scarface74|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zer00eyz|8 years ago|reply
But I have to ask what ARE you running then? Intel? AMD? What about your phone?
If your going to make this argument in this way you better have a Stalman like response. If you are running closed source in your stack then your argument is selective.
[+] [-] airstrike|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SonicSoul|8 years ago|reply
This all sounds noble and all , but doesn’t Apple know just as much or more about you via phone / watch / iCloud / iTunes / Apple Pay / Apple TV?
Are we celebrating here that they’re not openly selling this information or using as primary business model ? Or that it’s only used for internal business?
[+] [-] r00fus|8 years ago|reply
Contrast to companies like Google (who don't directly sell your info but still profit from it) or Facebook (who have had numerous exfiltration incidents over the years and who sell very targetable info that could be used to isolate a single person).
Meanwhile Equifax has horrible security and you aren't even remotely their customer - they just collect your data and get passive income from that.
[+] [-] airstrike|8 years ago|reply
Many say the current game of musical chairs is overdue for a pause. My money (not literally) is on Tech stocks taking the biggest hit. But as the article put it, Apple isn't a Tech company -- it's a manufacturer (and superb retailer!) of products that are observably differentiated, as they clearly command higher prices for virtually the same functionality as their competitors.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-02/snap-s-sl...
[+] [-] jmull|8 years ago|reply
That's not what the article says. In fact, it says "Apple is the perfect tech company..."
I'd like to hear a definition of "tech company" and doesn't include Apple.
[+] [-] RyanShook|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catchmeifyoucan|8 years ago|reply
Stagnanation isn't acceptable for any company. Apple has always been about "overhyped uselessness"(eg. Touch Bar, animoji). The article makes claims that Apple "offers a fix" referring to the battery throttling, but any company of that scale is obligated to. They were shamed publicly. I agree with privacy commitment, but that alone, isn't enough.
[+] [-] jugg1es|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scarface74|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbsmith|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dade_|8 years ago|reply
Apple is focusing on the 80%, and have developed a strategic advantage based on privacy. This is not a new lesson.
Commercially this is smart and profitable, but it was at the expense of the 20%. The fact is that their products stopped meeting my needs. So instead of a apology, I would like to thank Apple for the lock in that took over a year to unwind before I could leave the Apple ecosystem. It was a harsh lesson that I will never forget.