3 ms·

In the end he nails it without fully realizing it. The problem is that the iPhone is now everything for Apple. Having one single mega cash cow tends to result i

by api 10y ago

In the end he nails it without fully realizing it. The problem is that the iPhone is now everything for Apple. Having one single mega cash cow tends to result in the whole company organizing itself around that cash cow. Microsoft did it for Windows and Office and missed a generation or two of developers as a result. This is why Apple is stagnating and only seems to care about phones and locking down that ecosystem. They are the new Nokia. Of course Amazon and Google have their cash cows too, so they are not much different. Their home speakers are ways for them to more aggressively market and capture customer buying behavior. Personally I consider them deeply creepy for this reason and will not get one. The true innovation is going to come from hungrier players: startups or older companies that are on the ropes like Apple once was. Microsoft is getting interesting again, and I'd also keep an eye on old PC vendors like Dell and HP or even old IBM. These companies now have nothing to lose.

andrewclunn 10y ago
Bingo. Also, let's not forget that Apple has a history of not releasing the first of something, but waiting until the market is there, and then releasing a much more user friendly product that redefines the market and grows it. They're not a tech first company so much as a UX first company.
- jhatax 10y ago
  +1. I wrote about this a few weeks ago, and the team building the Linux subsystem at Microsoft took note: https://jhatax.blogspot.com/2016/11/developers-windows-linux-subsystem-is.html https://jhatax.blogspot.com/2016/11/developers-windows-linux.... Microsoft is truly hungry to win back developers, and the team is willing to do what it takes to bring non-Windows developers into the fold. Apple seems to still be operating as if it can only focus on one core platform at any given time as opposed to two or three. The talk on HN is only about the core OSes -- macOS and iOS -- but what about their productivity apps? They haven't seen a meaningful update in years (Pages, Keynote, etc. in case you are unaware). With their huge cash reserves, Apple needs to recognize that it can build multiple platforms in parallel without sacrificing the quality of either. It could very well be that Jony Ive not being a core software guy is the issue. It could not. I don't have insider access. I will say this: Apple needs a hard core software leader and it doesn't seem to have one today. That's the 'real void'.

by api 10y ago

andrewclunn 10y ago

Bingo. Also, let's not forget that Apple has a history of not releasing the first of something, but waiting until the market is there, and then releasing a much more user friendly product that redefines the market and grows it. They're not a tech first company so much as a UX first company.

jhatax 10y ago
+1. I wrote about this a few weeks ago, and the team building the Linux subsystem at Microsoft took note: https://jhatax.blogspot.com/2016/11/developers-windows-linux-subsystem-is.html https://jhatax.blogspot.com/2016/11/developers-windows-linux.... Microsoft is truly hungry to win back developers, and the team is willing to do what it takes to bring non-Windows developers into the fold. Apple seems to still be operating as if it can only focus on one core platform at any given time as opposed to two or three. The talk on HN is only about the core OSes -- macOS and iOS -- but what about their productivity apps? They haven't seen a meaningful update in years (Pages, Keynote, etc. in case you are unaware). With their huge cash reserves, Apple needs to recognize that it can build multiple platforms in parallel without sacrificing the quality of either. It could very well be that Jony Ive not being a core software guy is the issue. It could not. I don't have insider access. I will say this: Apple needs a hard core software leader and it doesn't seem to have one today. That's the 'real void'.