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The author says Apple's leaving a void because Google and Amazon are inventing new product categories instead of Apple, but Apple's successes haven't been new i

by sxg 10y ago

The author says Apple's leaving a void because Google and Amazon are inventing new product categories instead of Apple, but Apple's successes haven't been new inventions. The iPod wasn't the first MP3 player, the iPhone wasn't the first smartphone, the iPad wasn't the first tablet, and the MacBook wasn't the first laptop. What Apple does well is waiting to add enough incremental upgrades to products until it surpasses the "amazing" threshold. This ends up looking like Apple is either late to market (Apple TV) or so incredibly successful that it appears as if the market didn't even exist before Apple entered it (iPhone/iPad). Based on Apple's history, we should really be expecting them to crush the Echo and Chromecast sometime in the next few years.

eximius 10y ago
They've already had a stab at the Apple TV, so I doubt we're going to see a revolutionary chromecast-like competitor. An Echo competitor would be possible but has Siri made any noticeable revolutionary leaps recently?
- jaegerpicker 10y ago
  You would not have seen the Siri leaps that matter, that's not how Apple operates. They develop things in secret and then drop them on the world. I'm not saying that's for sure what will happen with Siri but that's Apple's track record and mode of operation.
- sxg 10y ago
  Siri does now have an API (although limited) on iOS, but I haven't seen many uses of it yet. As for the Apple TV and Chromecast, I've been using a Chromecast (1st gen) for the last few months since I gave my Apple TV to my parents, and I miss my Apple TV. The Chromecast is great when it works, but it's extremely hit or miss depending on the app you use to stream. YouTube and Netflix work perfectly, but HBO Now and FX are terrible. There's no option to scrub backward/forward, and often when you hit pause the app will disconnect. With HBO Now and the FX app, it usually takes a good 3-4 tries to connect and actually watch something. With the Apple TV, everything worked as expected. I think the major factor stopping the Apple TV from crushing the Chromecast is price. The old Apple TV is $70 - they should really be pushing for a much lower price point for this to compete with the Chromecast, but Apple doesn't even list this one on their site as far as I can tell.
  - youngtaff 10y ago
    I never got on with the Chromecast but the FireTV stick on the other hand is great. Our AppleTV and PVR have both gone now. Funniest thing with the Apple TV OS was when my 7 year old complained that it was broken as pressing the right arrow on the remote (as indicated by the right arrow on screen) didn't work - I showed him you had to press OK, but for a business that's supposed to pride itself in great UI it's a spectacular fail
twblalock 10y ago
>Based on Apple's history, we should really be expecting them to crush the Echo and Chromecast sometime in the next few years. My impression is that Apple is far behind in the machine learning/AI/personal assistant space, and does not have the engineering resources to catch up. I'd like to be wrong about that, because I like Apple products and I believe that competition is good, but I'm pessimistic.
- toyg 10y ago
  How can a company with cash reserves as large as several nations "not have engineering resources"? They don't want to get engineering resources on par with competitors, for whatever reason.
  - hga 10y ago
    Not necessarily. A company can't just magic the best or even good/adequate "engineering resources", AKA human beings, out of thin air, as anyone who's tried to start a startup even with serious cash in hand can attest. Apple's corporate culture has a variety of things that I would find hard to imagine not suppressing their ability to hire and retain the best; I'm sure others have a better idea than I, but the #1 thing staring us in the face is that software is not respected.
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      I hear this regularly, and I don't buy it. It's not that black and white. No-one is suggesting or implying that Apple throws some money at HR and Monday morning comes around and they're sitting down a new multi-hundred person engineering team like magic. But at this point, OS X/macOS improvement has been in obvious decline (since 10.6? 10.8?) for _several years_. No, Apple can't just magic an engineering team out of thin air. Apple can, however, create engineering teams given several years of it being a pressing priority. They were able to for iOS, for watchOS, etc. But therein lies the rub - with every month that goes by, it's clear that to call it a "pressing priority" to Apple would be to give it an importance that they clearly don't feel it has.

by sxg 10y ago

eximius 10y ago

They've already had a stab at the Apple TV, so I doubt we're going to see a revolutionary chromecast-like competitor. An Echo competitor would be possible but has Siri made any noticeable revolutionary leaps recently?

jaegerpicker 10y ago
You would not have seen the Siri leaps that matter, that's not how Apple operates. They develop things in secret and then drop them on the world. I'm not saying that's for sure what will happen with Siri but that's Apple's track record and mode of operation.
sxg 10y ago
Siri does now have an API (although limited) on iOS, but I haven't seen many uses of it yet. As for the Apple TV and Chromecast, I've been using a Chromecast (1st gen) for the last few months since I gave my Apple TV to my parents, and I miss my Apple TV. The Chromecast is great when it works, but it's extremely hit or miss depending on the app you use to stream. YouTube and Netflix work perfectly, but HBO Now and FX are terrible. There's no option to scrub backward/forward, and often when you hit pause the app will disconnect. With HBO Now and the FX app, it usually takes a good 3-4 tries to connect and actually watch something. With the Apple TV, everything worked as expected. I think the major factor stopping the Apple TV from crushing the Chromecast is price. The old Apple TV is $70 - they should really be pushing for a much lower price point for this to compete with the Chromecast, but Apple doesn't even list this one on their site as far as I can tell.
- youngtaff 10y ago
  I never got on with the Chromecast but the FireTV stick on the other hand is great. Our AppleTV and PVR have both gone now. Funniest thing with the Apple TV OS was when my 7 year old complained that it was broken as pressing the right arrow on the remote (as indicated by the right arrow on screen) didn't work - I showed him you had to press OK, but for a business that's supposed to pride itself in great UI it's a spectacular fail

twblalock 10y ago

>Based on Apple's history, we should really be expecting them to crush the Echo and Chromecast sometime in the next few years. My impression is that Apple is far behind in the machine learning/AI/personal assistant space, and does not have the engineering resources to catch up. I'd like to be wrong about that, because I like Apple products and I believe that competition is good, but I'm pessimistic.

toyg 10y ago
How can a company with cash reserves as large as several nations "not have engineering resources"? They don't want to get engineering resources on par with competitors, for whatever reason.
- hga 10y ago
  Not necessarily. A company can't just magic the best or even good/adequate "engineering resources", AKA human beings, out of thin air, as anyone who's tried to start a startup even with serious cash in hand can attest. Apple's corporate culture has a variety of things that I would find hard to imagine not suppressing their ability to hire and retain the best; I'm sure others have a better idea than I, but the #1 thing staring us in the face is that software is not respected.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    I hear this regularly, and I don't buy it. It's not that black and white. No-one is suggesting or implying that Apple throws some money at HR and Monday morning comes around and they're sitting down a new multi-hundred person engineering team like magic. But at this point, OS X/macOS improvement has been in obvious decline (since 10.6? 10.8?) for _several years_. No, Apple can't just magic an engineering team out of thin air. Apple can, however, create engineering teams given several years of it being a pressing priority. They were able to for iOS, for watchOS, etc. But therein lies the rub - with every month that goes by, it's clear that to call it a "pressing priority" to Apple would be to give it an importance that they clearly don't feel it has.