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> innovative What was the last thing Apple made that wasn't just a marginally polished version of someone else's invention?

wpietri 9y ago
This might be a bit hyperbolic, but I agree with the general thrust. Their watch was a pretty clear response to Pebble. The iPhone was an impressive achievement, but smartphones had been available for 6 years when it was released. The iPod was certainly the best MP3 player, but it was far from the first. That's not really a knock on Apple; they've been very successful jumping in to proven markets with incredibly polished versions of existing products. But I agree it's been a long while since they've done anything as innovative as their early days. They got a nice injection of innovation when they brought back Jobs's other company, NeXT, including the foundation of all their current operating systems. But even that stuff is almost 30 years old.
- Someone 9y ago
  Innovation doesn’t have to happen at the product level; it can also apply to manufacturing. For example, Dell innovated the supply chain of desktop computers. For Apple, there’s lots of innovation in the way they create hardware at scale with previously unheard of tolerances. For example, when they thought “let’s make a laptop chassis from milled aliminium” they couldn’t just send the design out to a company used to making millions of milled aluminum bodies of that size. Apple also innovated by bringing 64-bit CPUs to mobile phones (not a surprising innovation, but they managed to do it earlier than many people suspected were possible)
- rbanffy 9y ago
  > smartphones had been available for 6 years when it was released. I had a Sony Ericsson P-800 when the iPhone was launched. It was the first smartphone that didn't look like something out of Star Trek (and I mean it in a bad way). When you compare an iPhone with my P-800, it looks like the iPhone is something that actually came from the future.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Sure. I had a Palm Treo. The iPhone was definitely a better product, a highly evolved one from a consumer perspective. But it's not like Apple invented the smartphone or the MP3 player. They did improve them drastically from the user perspective, and they are amazing marketers. I give them full credit for that, but rxhernandez has a point.
    - rbanffy 9y ago
      > it's not like Apple invented the smartphone or the MP3 player It's not. It's more like they invented the first usable smartphone and the MP3 player everyone would want to have. There is a parallel with the Apple II here - it was one of the very first personal computers that was approachable, self-contained (with a real keyboard built-in), booted from a ROM with an easy to use programming language, could display color, output sound, and had expansion slots that were usually hidden under a beige cover. Apple didn't invent the personal computer - they only made one of the first ones people would actually want to use.
rbanffy 9y ago
Remember Apple was acquired by NeXT. NeXT made the first Unix workstations non-technical users could actually use. Their use of solid-state storage on the MacBook Air family enabled ultra-thin laptops others copied later on. Backlit keyboards (debuted in the Titanium Powerbooks). It seems everyone else just makes marginally cheaper versions of things Apple did first.
reaperducer 9y ago
>What was the last thing Apple made that wasn't just a marginally polished version of someone else's invention? Search the patent database.

wpietri 9y ago

This might be a bit hyperbolic, but I agree with the general thrust. Their watch was a pretty clear response to Pebble. The iPhone was an impressive achievement, but smartphones had been available for 6 years when it was released. The iPod was certainly the best MP3 player, but it was far from the first. That's not really a knock on Apple; they've been very successful jumping in to proven markets with incredibly polished versions of existing products. But I agree it's been a long while since they've done anything as innovative as their early days. They got a nice injection of innovation when they brought back Jobs's other company, NeXT, including the foundation of all their current operating systems. But even that stuff is almost 30 years old.

Someone 9y ago
Innovation doesn’t have to happen at the product level; it can also apply to manufacturing. For example, Dell innovated the supply chain of desktop computers. For Apple, there’s lots of innovation in the way they create hardware at scale with previously unheard of tolerances. For example, when they thought “let’s make a laptop chassis from milled aliminium” they couldn’t just send the design out to a company used to making millions of milled aluminum bodies of that size. Apple also innovated by bringing 64-bit CPUs to mobile phones (not a surprising innovation, but they managed to do it earlier than many people suspected were possible)
rbanffy 9y ago
> smartphones had been available for 6 years when it was released. I had a Sony Ericsson P-800 when the iPhone was launched. It was the first smartphone that didn't look like something out of Star Trek (and I mean it in a bad way). When you compare an iPhone with my P-800, it looks like the iPhone is something that actually came from the future.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Sure. I had a Palm Treo. The iPhone was definitely a better product, a highly evolved one from a consumer perspective. But it's not like Apple invented the smartphone or the MP3 player. They did improve them drastically from the user perspective, and they are amazing marketers. I give them full credit for that, but rxhernandez has a point.
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    > it's not like Apple invented the smartphone or the MP3 player It's not. It's more like they invented the first usable smartphone and the MP3 player everyone would want to have. There is a parallel with the Apple II here - it was one of the very first personal computers that was approachable, self-contained (with a real keyboard built-in), booted from a ROM with an easy to use programming language, could display color, output sound, and had expansion slots that were usually hidden under a beige cover. Apple didn't invent the personal computer - they only made one of the first ones people would actually want to use.

rbanffy 9y ago

Remember Apple was acquired by NeXT. NeXT made the first Unix workstations non-technical users could actually use. Their use of solid-state storage on the MacBook Air family enabled ultra-thin laptops others copied later on. Backlit keyboards (debuted in the Titanium Powerbooks). It seems everyone else just makes marginally cheaper versions of things Apple did first.

reaperducer 9y ago

>What was the last thing Apple made that wasn't just a marginally polished version of someone else's invention? Search the patent database.