Ask HN: Why imitating Apple is so hard for overall industry

[abhikhar]

why imitating Apple product, mindset and culture is so hard. I am seeing normal capability engineering folks doing normal product engineering development but the product quality is exceptionally high. I understand that they make their own hardware and software and have better overall design thinking ,but it seems there is lot more than these individual pieces. please share insights on same.

[skewart]

I take it you’re only talking about hardware product development, right? Apple’s software product quality is pretty low. There certainly are lots of companies that far exceed Apple when it comes to software.

As for the hardware products, I think it mostly comes down to making quality a strategic priority. As a result they’re willing to spend more money and make sacrifices in other areas in order to build great high-quality hardware and a cohesive overall experience for users. For example, I suspect they deliberately de-prioritize pre-installed/default apps, like maps and email, and make hardware and integration throughout their ecosystem a higher priority. They let their apps be just good enough to keep too many people from downloading alternatives but they don’t try to make them great. People buy iPhones because they are widely seen as “the best” overall phone. Most people won’t buy a phone because of any one app, so there is no point in making any one better than good enough. So that’s one area where they allocate resources in a way that drives hardware quality.

Other smartphone makers have different strategic priorities that make them deprioritize quality. For example, some compete on low prices. Google got into the smartphone business largely for defensive reasons, and they’ve never put much focus on creating great phones. Microsoft was starting to follow Apple’s strategy, and maybe could have given them a run for their money, but they gave up pretty quickly because they could make more money elsewhere.

[abhikhar]

I am not only mentioning about the hardware product development, rather overall product experience. I mean in terms of software upgrade process, touchscreen latency , connecting to external monitor etc. etc.. all these features work so seamlessly working every time even after so many number of years. Even though the hardware and software is not the best in the industry but system overall performance and user experience is far far better than any other product out there. Question is why does this apple secretive system optimization process been easily followed for other consumer products like TV , Auto , VR glasses by other companies. Are they not trying enough or they don't know the complete picture of how to apply it ?

[photawe]

Their focus on design and what the user feels is amazing. Not so much so now, but the Steve Jobs era.

My favorite example is a few years back (don't remember how many) - people perceived iPhones as waaay faster than android phones, even though they had similar CPUs. It's because Apple made sure that in the hardware + software, the screen refresh would take priority. So users would literally see everything faster. It took Google years to finally do the same - they simply didn't think it would matter.

[abhikhar]

That's right.. i am trying to understand if thats so obvious then why companies like google, samsung , amazon is unable to imitate that apple product mindset. in terms of technology they have everything or even better than apple but still product quality is far less.

[gls2ro]

I am not working at Apple, but I just want to point out that there is a big power in terms of quality when a company controls the end-to-end process of creating a product.

Here are some examples:

- It eliminates some quality issues due to requirements misunderstanding

- It eliminates some delays specially the ones related to decision making

- It might allow deployment of the same levels of QA and QC with impact in the final product

[abhikhar]

I get it control over e2e process is important but there are other companies too like Samsung, MSFT ,AMAZ and even GOOG who has control over most of the e2e product pipeline but still cannot deliver Apple quality product, not even close.

I think there is something more deeper here which is worth putting effort to explore and to be spread across different companies, otherwise this product quality gap will never be closed.

I am huge fan of APPL but at same point I want their product decision knowhow to be spread across different industries like in health , education , automotive , VR to have deeper impact on overall society. APPL by itself cannot enter into all these segments on its own so there is no direct competition for them.

I am always fascinated by how APPL abstract solid technology(hardware and software both) underneath their minimalist design which make their products so painless to be used addictively on daily basis.