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And so it begins... the once innovative company is now playing catch up, losing a little bit of its sex appeal as it copies the bland competition.
by hashberry 11y ago
And so it begins... the once innovative company is now playing catch up, losing a little bit of its sex appeal as it copies the bland competition.
- saturdaysaint 11y agoAnd so it continues, I point out that this has been said of every Apple announcement since Jobs' return.
- epmatsw 11y ago"No wifi, less space than a Nomad. Lame."
- MagnumOpus 11y agoYup. It was. And no USB either, also not usable with Windows, not usable without Firewire. It was utterly useless for 99% of people out there - Rob Malda was right, despite all the retconning. It took years and several hardware generations to actually fix all these problems...
- lotharbot 11y agoin 2001, it was. Check out the sales figures [0]. Consumers didn't begin to adopt the iPod in detectable numbers until the third generation (when it got USB syncing), and it didn't really take off until the fourth (full USB connectivity, various other improvements.) [0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/28/ipod-sales_n_4680000.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/28/ipod-sales_n_468000...
- etchalon 11y agoIt look off when they added Windows. Other improvements aside, that was the thing that cracked open the market for them.
- chinathrow 11y agoThey sure copy, but so did others too all the time. Apples move with the pencil is more targeted at businesses, hospitals and such. Win the users at home first, convert them easily at work later, at a higher price with a better margin.
- Tloewald 11y agoLooks like their target is creatives to me. At least based on the video. But I'm itching to use one for both sketches and meeting notes.
- melling 11y agoWell, it did take them about a decade to catch up with Microsoft when they introduced the iPad. Bill Gates announced tablets 15 years ago: http://youtu.be/T5Va8XfuN9s http://youtu.be/T5Va8XfuN9s What really is happening is the usual trolling that happens after every Apple event. Apple has different priorities. They'll make tablets more functional as CPU and battery improve. There will be a conversion with the desktop, or at least low-end laptops, at some point. When they put a fan in the iPad then you can question if they've lost their way.
- neuronic 11y agoApple didn't invent tablets, it made tablets usable.
- ctdonath 11y agoAnd Apple beat that by 8 years with the Newton. (And Wang beat that by several years with a 3" thick monstrosity that, IIRC, went nowhere.) Yes, the trolling reoccurs. Key is how excited the marketplace is for which product, naysayers aside. As others note: the iPod wasn't new, but it was subjectively better than anything else out there.
- selestify 11y ago> (And Wang beat that by several years with a 3" thick monstrosity that, IIRC, went nowhere.) What was this and where can I read more about it?
- ctdonath 11y agoIt was about a foot square (or more), at least 3 inches thick, had a large handle to grip, a wired stylus, and a painfully low-res B/W LCD display. I got to handle it a few times, but saw no compelling use (the concept was great, but technology was far from there). IIRC, 3 came with a Wang minicomputer at the time, late 1980's or early 1990's. I've tried to find a picture of it several times since, but nothing yet.
- 11y ago
- cookiecaper 11y agoIt is so crazy how this is the PC wars all over again. Apple comes out of the gate with huge marketshare, begins to lose it due to their insufferable snobbery, panics and tries to copy everyone without alienating their base of insufferable snobs and with frilly copies that only the kool-aid drinkers fall for, and continues its descent into irrelevance. Will Samsung have to save Apple from extinction in 10 years in order to keep the DOJ off its back? Stay tuned.
- BinaryIdiot 11y agoIn all fairness I know many people who love to draw on the Surface and really wanted a more precise pen type of input on the iPad; I think this was a long time coming and really necessary. The keyboard cover thing? Sure I could agree with you on that. I actually think Surface did a better job with it especially with the adjustable kickstand but we'll see when I can actually touch and play with the iPad Pro one.
- fluidcruft 11y agoI'm a dinosaur still waiting for something to replace paper. Maybe this is it, maybe not. What I want to do: read things, highlight, scribble notes, diagrams, outlines, sync, search, etc. Basically I want something that completely replaces paper coming out of a printer. It seems like the younger people maybe are more adapted to digital documents, but I have very strong spatial memory for paper and can find things I've written or read in paper very quickly. Surface Pro has this, but is overkill frankly. iPad, kindle, other tablets have not been sufficiently usable to actually replace a printed or blank sheet of paper. This device may fit that use case, but it inhabits a priced point that's worse than Surface Pro. For some reason I'm waiting for something in the $200-300 price range to show up--things that are more expensive I feel like I have to protect and coddle. So, yes something like iOS definitely could work there. There are even some interesting eink devices that go after the paper replacement route. But they are also too expensive compared to Surface Pro. Maybe this will be a big enough kick in the butt for Google to start supporting pen input in ChromeOS or Android (there are Android tablets that have pen input, but IIRC that support is plastered on top by manufacturers increasing support and integration costs significantly, so software updates don't happen).
- lewisl9029 11y ago> Maybe this will be a big enough kick in the butt for Google to start supporting pen input in ChromeOS or Android (there are Android tablets that have pen input, but IIRC that support is plastered on top by manufacturers increasing support and integration costs significantly, so software updates don't happen). This is what I'm hoping for as well. I'd love to use a phone with pen support, but as long as it's not built into the core OS, pen support is going to come at the cost of timely OS updates. And that's a trade-off I'm not willing to make since I generally buy unlocked and tend to skip quite a few generations before upgrading.
- coldtea 11y ago>the once innovative company is now playing catch up Apple never did the VERY first products of a category. There was Xerox before Lisa, PDAs before Newton, mp3 players before the iPod, smartphones before the iPhone, tablets before the iPad, smartwatches before the Apple Watch, etc. The only did the first products of a category that were where at least half-thought out (instead of rushed crap), and people actually wanted to buy in droves.
- rbanffy 11y agoTo be fair, both Lisa and Newton failed.
- coldtea 11y agoLisa yes, but Mac the v2 version of the same idea, carried the company for the next 15 years. Newton is a more clear cut failure -- but was too ahead of its time as most things one would want just werent there (internet would be a biggie).
- 72deluxe 11y agoApple HiFi ? (giant wooly sounding box for iPod) Apple PowerCD? (odd vertical CD player) Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh? (oddly, the Cisco E20 appears to be identical in appearance)
- coldtea 11y agoAnd several of other flops (iPod socks anyone?). But I didn't said they don't make flops. Just that their "signature thing" is not coming up first with something, but coming with something that's somewhat thought out and people actually want to by. People remember them for these things: the iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air, iMac, etc (and IIRC Apple Watch too, did better than all competitor smartwatches combined).
- caskance 11y agoIf innovation were what mattered, everyone would be browsing with Opera.
- coldtea 11y agoYeah, but fortunately delivery also matters...
- 0x4a42 11y agoWorldWideWeb was the most inovative Web browser. Opera just copied it.
- 72deluxe 11y agoOnly up to Opera 12, when they suddenly decided to become a theme creator for Chromium and chucked all their decent code and features in the bin, sadly.
- caskance 11y agoThat's the entire relevant history of Opera. They learned that innovation is a bad investment.
- jamra 11y agoApple strives with the nuances of its hardware. It's not necessarily how innovative and unique the product is, but the strength at which Apple secures the most unique hardware that sets them apart from the competition. Their touch sensors are different than everyone else's in supporting multi strength touches. They have good battery life with larger than HD displays. The device weights 1.5 lbs, which is much lighter than the surface. This is no trivial feat. The blanket statements on the device's general purpose and how it has been done before is a huge generalization and a refusal to grasp the power of Apple as a company. It hasn't been done before in the way Apple does it.
- qyv 11y agoIt began a while ago, it is just now more apparent because the level of innovation in each successive generation has become so small. I wonder if we will look back at the last 8 years as Apple's golden years, because it is really feeling like their best is now behind them. The level of innovation that has created their most loyal of fans and zealots no longer exists, and there is so much less to indoctrinate the next generation. Newcomers no longer think that Apple is a head and shoulders above the rest innovator and Apple is built on the loyalty created by being different.
- kelseydh 11y agoGiven it's one of the largest companies in the world, they deserve some slack. Their story against Microsoft over the last decade has been nothing short but astonishing. No one could have predicted the dominance they have now in year 2000 or even 2005.
- justicezyx 11y agoWhere did you get the impression that Apple have really invented any original technologies in its long history?...
- WorldWideWayne 11y agoSpeak for yourself - the Surface Pro line is sexy as hell and the fact that it's not a walled garden is a huge plus.
- CamperBob2 11y agoWalled garden, Panopticon, what's the difference.
- thaumasiotes 11y agoI don't think it's particularly hard to see the distinction between "do whatever you feel like, but someone will write down that you did" and "no, you can't do that. You'll do what we tell you to do".
- yellowapple 11y agoAnd if "do whatever you feel like, but someone will write down that you did" is too much, one can readily install a GNU/Linux distro on a Surface. You very likely won't be able to do the same on any iOS device, even the iPad "Pro".
- cma 11y agoThe set of things the MS records is much broader than the set of things Apple bans.
- seiji 11y agoApple always prefers to release late and do it better rather than play race-to-the-bottom games in perfect competition markets.
- incepted 11y agoThey nailed the "release late" part, now they still need to do the "better" part.
- amyjess 11y agoHonestly, I'm more than happy with my Surface Pro 3, and the iPad Pro doesn't interest me at all. Not only are they playing catch up, but they failed to adequately catch up.
- austenallred 11y agoI really don't give a shit who is copying who. It's technology; we're all building on the backs of inventions created by other people. The important thing to me is who does it the best, not who does it first. The iPod was nowhere near the first mp3 player, it was just the best one. The iPad wasn't close to the first tablet. Will it be the best tablet? I don't know, but whether or not the Surface had a keyboard first won't be the deciding factor. Every company is incorporating an absurd number of innovations pioneered by other people. When it comes to hardware, I just want to love using the device.
- notNow 11y agoSo what's with all this silly frivolous litigation by Apple over "swipe to unlock" and "rounded corners" if it's OK to copy or steal from each other?
- austenallred 11y agoI don't speak for Apple. I think those are bullshit.
- comex 11y agoThey are also mostly over.
- mikeyouse 11y agoWhen the litigation attorney for Samsung can't tell the difference between the two devices in open court, they might have gone a little too far in copying the iPad's design.. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-apple-samsung-lawsuit-idUSTRE79C79C20111014 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-apple-samsung-l...
- spacehome 11y agoFrom that article: > Koh frequently remarked on the similarity between each company's tablets. At one point during the hearing, she held one black glass tablet in each hand above her head, and asked Sullivan if she could identify which company produced which. > "Not at this distance your honor," said Sullivan, who stood at a podium roughly ten feet away. I get what you're saying, but they were asked to tell the difference over an unspecified distance.
- wmeredith 11y agoApple's stock and trade has always been to do what the competition is doing, but do it better.
- draw_down 11y agoThey're doomed!
- zerohm 11y agoYes, they are playing catch up in the cover keyboard and stylus categories. However, they are still dominating mobile, revamping their TV line, and growing in a shrinking PC market. Oh and also they just released a pretty successful watch. Just saying, I think Apple is still a pretty innovative company.
- nawitus 11y agoHow do you define dominating mobile? There are far more Android smartphones.
- MaysonL 11y agoAre any of them profitable? For sure, none as profitable as the iPhone.
- rdancer 11y agoPerson-hours of actual use; app purchase & use; web use; user satisfaction. For example, if you're developing a business website, iOS dominates the market, because optimizing for Android is nigh impossible, and iOS users have more money, and spend more money (on average, your market segment may differ, mine does). Or, if you're considering making an app, iOS dominates the market, because Android users don't like using apps, much less paying for them.
- erispoe 11y agoiOS has a 14% market share
- metamet 11y agoDOMINATION.
- coldtea 11y agoThey dominate the profits -- and the people that actuall do anything "smart" (most web use in the US for example, is from iOS devices, despite Android devices being far more percentage-wise). Androids huge sales are mostly low end of the market -- people who don't care about smartphones or computers, and just get whats cheaper with a 2 year contract.
- starky 11y agoIn what way is the Surface Pro 3 (which is really the only currently available competition) boring? I'd say it is the most innovative product in the tablet space in the last 4 years. Really they are trying to catch up to the only real competition they have in the space. Plus, Apple has been playing catch up for a while now. I can't remember precisely which iOS release it was (I believe iOS 7) but the release was pretty much catching up with essential features already present in Android.
- 72deluxe 11y agoDidn't you see Samsung Note as a competitor? I have the 2014 one (brand new!) and it is disappointing. Less battery life than my old iPad 3. Worse performance too.
- simonh 11y agoOh please. There were keyboard covers and pen input devices available for the iPad long before Microsoft released the first Surface.
- tjogin 11y agoWhich competition's tablets is the iPad playing catch-up to?